The house that Snooki built: how to live in a post-Jersey Shore world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/aug/31/jersey-shore-last-season

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Quell your fist-bumps, take down your poofs: MTV has announced that Jersey Shore's sixth season will be its last.

Premiering 4 October, audiences will get one last look at the mind-numbing antics of the eight not-actual Jerseyites as they prowl Seaside Heights for one last collective season.

For the most part, people are pretty excited about it:

Not sure which will become the greatest news in history: US winning independence from Britain, or Jersey Shore finally being cancelled.

There are no words to express my joy over Jersey Shore's cancellation. I was embarrassed to be Italian after those morons were on TV.

And yet, the cries of enthusiasm in light of the reality show's demise may be a bit hasty.

The show's cast is a group of people who became famous for their drunken brawls and caustic, often unintelligible comments. People with that little dignity or that much self-confidence (however you see it) don't drop out of the limelight quick.

Snooki – also known as Nicole Polizzi – gave birth to her first child Sunday and any reality television exec who hasn't developed a television show pitch around little Lorenzo Polizzi should probably be fired. Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino did a short stint in rehab earlier this year, a vulnerability waiting for televised exploitation.

In its three-year history, the show itself has proved to be more than a flash-in-the-pan reality show – it's a pop-culture powerhouse that propelled people to say things like "smush" and "T-shirt time".

There are Jersey Shore apps, clothing lines and beauty products. MTV is already airing spinoff Snooki & JWOWW and production on The Pauly D Project wrapped earlier this year.

And before we even reach the beginning of the Jersey Shore's end, MTV is providing a deluge of televised honors to one of their most successful programs to date.

Next Thursday, ahead of the MTV Video Music Awards, the network is airing a full-day Jersey Shore marathon and a series retrospective, 'Gym, Tan, Look Back'. On the award show red carpet, MTV promises the cast will be on-hand to discuss the end of the show.

Perhaps nothing is more fitting to show the network's turnaround than to dedicate the day which honors the very thing the network made its name on to the trashy reality show. What's more, this symbolic line-up ensures that the end of Jersey Shore does not indicate an end to MTV's commitment to mindless programming.