With grumps everywhere grumpy about Jersey Shore, the New York Times took it upon itself to defend the little show that has provided us with so much joy over the past month. Yesterday, noted Space Chimp supporter and the Times’s go-to scribe for counterintuitive stances on pop culture, Neil Genzlinger, provided four reasons why Jersey Shore may not be so bad. While some of his reasons are legitimate (“The actual Jersey Shore hasn’t been this interesting in years.â€), others seem to be attacks on our favorite guidos and guidettes:
Putting the spotlight on the ‘Jersey Shore’ eight gives us the opportunity to root out all the influences that formed them. The schools, if any, where they were educated can now be located and shut down. The teachers who so abysmally failed to impart to them the rudiments of civilized life can be fired. The gyms and style salons that seduced them with the lie that physical appearance is more important than personality can be picketed and boycotted. With vigilance we can ensure that no more of our young people turn out the way these ones did.
If no more young people turned out like Snooki and J-WOWW and Pauly D, then we’d be left without the possibility of Jersey Shore: Next Summer. Is that what you really want, Genzlinger?