i like reading my thoughts after i think them.

After four seasons of Sunday dinners, shots and sexcapades—in different continents and with a revolving seventh housemate—I still watch Jersey Shore. Not because I want to be them in any way (seriously, I’ve stopped wearing so much bronzer as of late), but because it’s a phenemon that took pop culture by storm. Fist pumping is now a permanent dance move, Ed Hardy shirts are officially unwearable; the letters GTL aren’t randomized from the alphabet and gorillas aren’t just jungle animals anymore. The extreme side of Seasode is piece of millennia Americana and it will be imitated forever, like Saturday Night Fever, The Breakfast Club and 90210. Our kids will ask us what it was like to watch the original episodes air on MTV…I mean, they’re already dressing up like them for Halloween!

I don’t think the show would’ve lifted off as quickly and as loudly if it weren’t for abdominal display case and marketing genius, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino. His decision to name his six-pack made him unforgettable and the show even easier to mock, and also lead housemates to coin terms for hook ups, friends-of-hook-ups-who-aren’t-hot, dance moves and whatever else they could get their unique lingo on. He was Pauly D’s main man, Sam’s controversial confidant and king of the Jersey Shore smush room.

…but that was a long time ago. Since the first season, every girl has lost weight and every guy has upped the scoreboard. Snooki wrote a book, Pauly D released some tracks, JWoww had a fashion line for a while and Deena finally got on the show. And it’s sad that the show’s first frontman is now the last person in the room who everyone leaves and the second person they’re serious about actually evicting. All season, he’s seemed more lonely and depressed than ever before: clashing with everyone in the house, picking fights with anyone outside the house and not having anywhere to go in between.

Reality television may not be “real” but the people still are. They are their own characters and screenwriters and acting coaches and directors; they bring their work home with them because they are that piece of work. It may not take as much skill or talent as actual acting, but I feel like the emotional investment is pretty sizable, growing exponentially with the rate of your fame. Since the genre is still relatively new in the history of television, the effects are only starting to reveal themselves: Newlyweds filmed a broken marriage, Teen Mom lead to a serious suicide scare. It’s just sad to watch a person decay, right before your eyes. And yet, its millions of viewers can’t look away.

Though last night’s episode was slipped with understated drama that seems bound to blow up, I also gotta remember that it’s an old cliffhanger trick of clever editing. Oh, and that it isn’t taped in real time since Season 5 is already wrapped. And if my roommates and I were paid $100,000 per episode to play around in Italy, I’d stir up some juice too. Once I rewrap my head around the unrealities of reality television, I realize The Situation’s gonna be justtttttt fine.