The Downward Spiral of Humanity

This article is, of course, about The Jersey Shore. Not the TV show, necessarily, but rather it’s spin-off into other brands of media, like books. I went to Chapters yesterday, and noticed a strange trend. Where there should be books about political intrigue and cooking and whatnot, there were instead books written about reality shows. Do people that spend all day in front of a TV watching reality shows read books? Do they want to read a book about a show they’ve just spent the last nine hours watching a marathon of? If you’ve ever been the the Fantasy or Science Fiction section of any bookstore, you’ll realize the answer is yes. There, you’ll find that 33% of the section is devoted to media-tie-in products. Why should the rest of the store be any different?
I picked up a novel that claimed to be written by Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, A Shore Thing.

A woman whose hair takes up half the cover. I opened it and turned to a page at random. There, the character discussed denim panties as a fashion faux-paus. I put the book back down, feeling ill. Clearly, this was a work on the level of The Great Gatsby. My deepest fear is that this will be turned into a movie.
Further into the store, I found this:


The Rules According to JWOWW. (Am I supposed to capitalize all those letters?) Shore-Tested Secrets on Landing a Mint Guy, Staying Fresh to Death, and Kicking the Competition to the Curb. I assume the secret advice is as follows:
Step 1: Dress like a slut. THE END.
Yet, the book goes on for a hundred pages or more. I couldn’t bring myself to open it, because I assume that it would be like the graveyard scene from Army of Darkness. The book could very well be the Necronomicon.
Why would anyone take advice from anyone on the cast of Jersey Shore? Even in jest? My mind can’t even get around that question. There’s nothing you can learn from the Jersey Shore that you can’t learn by spending a night in the drunk tank. If you’ve ever read a pamphlet on S.T.D.s, then you’re ahead of the game. Their only field of expertise is maintaining their haircuts, and perhaps eating pasta while standing.
Of course, according to Amazon, people who bought this book were also likely to buy this:

Here’s the Situation by Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino. I like how they have to put their full names down, because you wouldn’t want to confuse him with any of the other, “The Situation”s out there. I know that if I hear about “the situation” in Libya on the news, I automatically think of The Jersey Shore unless they give me specifics about an uprising. If you buy this book, you’re saying one thing and one thing only to the people who can see it’s cover, and that’s how you no longer have any respect for yourself as a human being. You know all those romance novels with the racy covers with the dudes that make you wonder what lonely, desperate woman would ever have this out in public? Well here’s something even trashier. Put your fucking shirt back down. You’ve done some sit-ups, and I get that. I have to imagine that the entire book is about your work-out routine and hair gel.
While in Chapters, I overheard a conversation between a customer and a clerk, and basically they were both saying that they didn’t have any copies of To Kill a Mockingbird. One of the greatest American novels ever written, and they don’t fucking have it. They have this horse shit, but not a classic like that. It’s as if their very presence in the store made the other books get up and leave. I’m lucky I don’t smoke, because if I had a lighter on me I’d torch that place to the ground and stand triumphantly arms outstretched over the roaring flames.
This isn’t even scratching the surface of the Jersey Shore book collection, but I did find this online:

Snooki in Wonderland for .99 cents as an e-book. This is possibly the greatest thing ever. I can safely say that even without cracking it’s cover. Were I a publisher, and this came into my office, I would immediately start writing cheques. I had to browse through the sample chapter and it’s basically the same concept as Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. It’s also probably garbage, but I’d like to imagine my own, better book.