Wednesday, 21 December 2011 11:08

Editorial: The Weeaboo Version of Jersey Shore is Coming

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By quick show of hands, how many of you have watched The Jersey Shore? For those of you that said no, you probably at least have heard about how trashy the show can be. To be fair, it is about a bunch of people who spend all day tanning and all night drinking and partying with an occasional bar fight in between. So what on earth could this possibly have to do with anime, otakus or weeabos? The "masterminds" behind reality TV series, Jersey Shore, are working on a new project and just like Pauly D has had a negative impact on perceptions about Italian Americans, this project will probably have a negative impact on perceptions of those of us who like video games, anime and manga.

Doron Ofir Casting and 495 Productions, the team behind MTV's hit reality TV series The Jersey Shore put out a press release yesterday in which they announced that they are seeking 8 people for a new "experimental documentary series." (What exactly is an experimental documentary series? A cross  between LSD trip and hipster indie films is my guess.) The series will examine "the lives and relationships of people who love fantasy, fiction, cosplay, comics, gaming and science."

Considering their track record (A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, Paris Hilton's My New BFF) it's pretty safe to assume they will take trash television to a whole new level at the expense of the community that they're "documenting." By now it should be common knowledge that reality television is actually very much scripted so when they are casting they will choose the worst of the worst to represent the nerd / otaku community as a whole. I'm going to call it now. Should they even choose any cosplayers or anime fans they will be the biggest weeabos in the worst sense of the word possible.

Weeabo isn't a word I use often but if you're going to sell trashy TV you have to look to the bottom of the barrel when choosing a cast. Do we really need any more negative connotations associated with the anime / gaming and cosplay communities? The answer is a resounding hell no! Not every anime fan things like "kawaii desu" and wears Naruto headbands in public. Not every cosplayer dresses like a slut and not every gamer is 300 pounds and lives in his parent's basements. But this is almost certainly what we will see from Doron Ofir's new documentary.

Personally I'm tired of it. Do yourselves a favor and don't even think twice about applying for this or even watching it when it airs. There's a reason I didn't include a link to their casting application. It's to help us all. Because while we may know better than to believe what we see on TV, there are people out there who don't.

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