'We pretty much say what people think, but are scared to say': the cast of Jersey Shore

As Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, another of the housemates, who have become celebrities in their own right, says: “Leo is a fan. Pretty much every celeb we meet is a fan — Ashton Kutcher, Snoop Dogg, Mike Tyson. Frigging Leo said ‘GTL’ to Mike and Pauly. We were, like, ‘Oh my God, they’re bigger fans of us than we are of them.’??” 
.. Jersey Shore has been the most talked-about show in America...The question is, why? On the face of it, Jersey Shore is a by-the-book reality show with a setup that is bleakly familiar. Put a group of twentysomething strangers who think "party" is a verb into a house, with very little to do, douse them in tequila, light the touchpaper (the presence of cameras seems to help) and stand well back. It’s the formula invented by The Real World, the founding father of weirdly compelling voyeurism, which was first shown, also on MTV, nearly 20 years ago — and is still going strong 23 seasons later. You might say there’s no need for a replacement. 

...Jersey Shore,....has opened a window on a youth subculture that has largely gone unnoticed. Mike, Pauly, Snooki and co are East Coast kids, tougher and less self-aware than their West Coast counterparts in series such as The Hills, but with an unassailable swagger. "We pretty much say what people think, but are scared to say",  Snooki says. "We do what they’d love to do. We really don’t care. I think that’s why people love it so much". 

Inevitably, an older generation of Italian-Americans didn’t love it so much. Before the series even aired, there were complaints based on the trailers alone. The controversy centred on the use of the words "guido" and "guidette". The housemates use them as a badge of honour, but to many Italian-Americans, this was a racial slur. "I don’t think they understand how we take it",  Snooki says. "It’s not offensive at all. It’s pretty much a compliment". 

Snooki, meanwhile, became an internet star when another trail, for the show’s second episode, showed her being hit by a man in a club. "It kind of sucks " people know me because I got punched in the face", she says. "We were at a bar, this drunk guy came over to us and was stealing our shots. I got into his face and he couldn’t handle it" he just punched me right in the face". 

For better or worse, those two controversies gave the show enough oxygen to thrive. Once people tuned in, they were treated to characters ....

Those may sound like the choice words of a dolt, but the brilliance of Jersey Shore is that, beneath all the bombast and self-regard, there remains some empathy. You think of Snooki’s forlorn search for enduring love in the unlikely crucible of a banging nightclub, or Mike coming to terms with Sammi choosing Ronnie over him....

Jersey Shore comes to Britain at a time when reality television is supposed to be a walking corpse. This summer will see the end of Big Brother, another descendant of The Real World. We thought we were tired of witless show-offs who have grown up learning only the grammar of reality television, and can’t wait to get on screen to show how well they can speak the language. As Jersey Shore demonstrates, however, put the right people in the right place and there is little more engrossing than reality. 
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