Essay 2.2 Snooki

Snooki’s Appearance
Today pop culture strongly drives the teenage and adult population and has the ability to influence every aspect of our lifestyles. Many celebrities come and go depending when it’s their time to shine, but the problem they face everyday are the lovers and the haters constantly on their case. I dare you to find one celebrity that every person in the world likes and agrees that they are a positive attribute to society. Many young girls would agree that Miley Cyrus is their favorite singer and they love having her to look up to, but their parents may disagree saying that she’s trying to grow away from her Disney Channel character in all the wrong ways. There are a lot of people who think Brad Pitt is a wonderful actor and a great family figure, but others view him as a horrible man living in sin for having a huge family without getting married. Even Betty White has some lovers and haters on her case, but it’s not Miley, Brad or Betty that I’m talking about. Right now all eyes are on Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi as she grows more and more popular thanks to her reality show, Jersey Shore, which debuted on MTV this past fall. This show was a huge hit across the college student population. Many see Snooki as nothing more than a party addicted fame seeker who is taking advantage of all the perks that come with being a celebrity. However, others just find her and her Jersey Shore cast mates entertaining and they don’t take her too seriously.

This issue has recently divided our JMU community in regards to Snooki coming to campus. Some students and faculty think that her coming has no educational value, wastes students money, and only fuels her unwanted fame. One student, Joshua Kalaher, said "Snooki is a cast member of the Jersey Shore - a show that depicts a deplorable image for impressionable youth, and essentially provides no redeeming qualities whatsoever." (Uproar Over Snooki's College Visit Reignites, par. 4). In contrast, many supporters wanted her to come and applaud the University Program Board (UPB) for bringing her to campus to allow students to see their favorite reality show star in person, something others could only wish for. One JMU sophomore Stacey Sulko said “Snooki is a stamp on our culture, it’s entertaining to watch” (Foster, par. 9).

I think that people on either side of this argument can agree that Snooki doesn’t have any intellectual value. She’s good at partying and could maybe teach you some cheerleading moves from when she was a cheerleader in high school, but she doesn’t carry any academic worth. We all can also distinguish the main reason UPB brought her to campus which was purely for entertainment purposes. A press release given by UPB said “this is a purely entertaining event which reminds us all not to take our time [at JMU] too seriously and have some fun” (Sutter, par. 4). She was a good choice for “safe” entertainment and drew a huge excited crowd for the event. She’s almost like a guilty pleasure, you want to hear about and watch the crazy things she does but you don’t want anyone to know you’re watching. I mean who doesn’t love a good laugh?

Students have been saying that employers are not going to take JMU graduates seriously because we brought Snooki to campus, but I believe this won’t have an impact on their hiring strategies in regard to JMU grads. In the past employers have used Facebook and Myspace to check up on prospective recruits but the talk of a supposed bias of JMU students because of Snooki is outrageous. Recently I have gone to talk to some employers of local business, such as spas and fine dining restaurants, in my hometown of Sykesville MD, who often hire college students, to see if they would discriminate against JMU students because they had Snooki on their campus and many of them thought I was joking. Many of their responses were along the lines of “there is a proper time in life for everything and if college students don’t go to these types of events and enjoy themselves when it’s appropriate to, then they run into a huge crisis later in their life”. This really helped me see that bringing to Snooki to campus was absolutely the right decision. College students are given these opportunities because you are only young once and you’re expected to go out, be safe, but also enjoy yourself.

Also, multiple scientists are currently conducting research on how the aging adolescence’s brain is functioning and they said that it’s still developing but decision making skills are very close to their optimum level (Santrock p.118). They are learning that adolescence’s decision making skills, which come primarily from the frontal cortex in the brain, are close to optimal functionality and people aged 18-25 have the ability to make independent decisions regarding a situation. This age group is primarily made up of college students, meaning that JMU students do have the brain power to choose who they want or don’t want to see. So, it was truly a matter of liking whether or not to attend Snooki, not a matter of ethics or emotions. In another study conducted by Dartmouth College studied the changes occurring in a college student’s brain and it showed that there are marginal changes in emotion and cognition development (Knapp, par. 7). The study showed that since our brains are rapidly changing in regards to emotion and perception we take our experiences and individual interpretation of things and apply that to everyday situations. Our brains right now are actually taking in every emotion we feel and everything we experience and channels that into future experiences. This may be why this issue is such a heated debate on campus, because each student's experiences are different, therefore we can’t agree on this issue or many others for that matter.

Another popular misconception was that tuition money was used to bring Snooki to campus, when in fact this isn’t completely true. The University Program Board is funded half by the SGA and half by student fees. UPB doesn’t release the amount they paid for specific entertainment brought to campus for security and liability reasons, but the revenue made through ticket sales went well over $5,000 and was able to pay off most, if not all, of Snooki’s asking price. Now the money still owed came from either the SGA or student fees meaning that if any, a very small amount of money from student fees would go to Snooki.

When UPB announced that Snooki would be coming to the university they created a Facebook page to invite all students who were fans to attend. This page soon turned sour after students flooded the wall with racist remarks and negative comments forcing the Program Board to disable the wall. Students comments were still welcomed, they just had to be sent to a private UPB e-mail so they didn’t offend or ignite anymore harmful feedback. Some students even created a Facebook page called “Stay off My Campus Snooki” and even got over 700 followers. Now this may seem easily refuted but I think it’s important to point out the perks of having a large campus like we do. JMU has the ability to be a very diverse but successful school because we are large enough to express and support our individual point of views, but small enough to hear everyone else’s concerns. Multiple JMU students have spoken out in many forms saying that they don’t approve of Snooki coming to our campus and yet the university still has enough students to fill a 1,045 seat auditorium. They were even able to gain 3000+ followers on Facebook saying they would attend the event had the venue allowed it. One Harrisonburg resident said “Obviously if the students didn’t want to see this [event] the show wouldn’t have sold out in 3 days!” (Sager, par. 9). It’s amazing and unique that a college is able to have this outpour of strong emotions yet still be able to come together and hold an awesome event without hurting the opposing sides’ views.

When I asked students who didn’t approve of Snooki coming what they propose UPB should do, and they responded “have a different celebrity come to campus”. This is a completely reasonable response to the question and it shows that students do value entertainment on campus, just maybe not Snooki. There are many celebrities students wish UPB would bring but are too expensive such as Dane Cook, The Black Eyed Peas, Metro Station, etc. but with Snooki they were actually able to afford her. They were able to book an up-and-coming artist before her rates were totally out of UPB’s price range. Another proposal from the student body was to still have Snooki on campus but to have her privately funded. Anti-Snooki students said that if there were people on campus that wanted her to come so badly then those students should have funded her to come, instead of a student funded organization. The only problem with this is that many celebrities’ agents won’t even talk to you until you have an event coordinator or professional in charge. Therefore, it would have been nearly impossible and much more expensive for individual students to fund Snooki to come and then no one would have been able to enjoy the event that was made possible because of UPB.

With every conflict across campus there are always choices, but the question for this event was how to please everyone. Now obviously it’s impractical to please everyone in this situation, but when my GWRTC class was asked to use compromise to make everyone happy they did suggest that maybe the event could have still happened, but simply be moved off campus so that students could still go, but it wouldn’t be directly associated with JMU. I thought this was a great idea and I think it would have solved a lot of problems that students had with the event. Many were worried about the university’s image and reputation, but if it were off campus they wouldn’t have to worry about this.

Even though a lot of students are able to agree on some aspects of this event there are still many problems with their arguments as I see it. In regards to this particular Snooki event I am a lover. I do not condone her behavior when she is on the Jersey Shore but I do understand that the show was put on the MTV network for entertainment purposes and it’s been very successful with this endeavor. Bringing Snooki to campus was purely for entertainment purposes. UPB has submitted multiple press releases saying that this is not meant to offend or anger anyone but was geared towards the humorous entertainment genre. UPB mission statement “we strive to enhance the overall JMU experience by providing a variety of creative, educational and entertaining programs that appeal to diverse audiences” (UPB Mission Statement, par. 1) really shows that they make every effort to bring a mixture of events to campus and Snooki just happened to fall into the entertainment category.

Foster, Torie. Snooki Brings Fist Pumps, Poofs to JMU. The Breeze. 4 Mar. 2010.
James Madison University. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.
Knapp, Susan. Brain Changes Significantly After Age 18, Says Dartmouth Research.
Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs. 6 Feb. 2006. Web. 12 Mar. 2010.
Sager, Sarah. Snooki Visits JMU. WHSV3. 3 Mar. 2010. WHSV. Web. 9 Mar. 2010.
Santrock, John W. A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development. New York: McGraw Hill, 2007. Print.
Sutter, John. UPB Has One Hand In the Snooki Jar. The Breeze. 18 Feb. 2010. James
Madison University. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.
UPB Mission Statement. University Program Board. 15 Sept. 2009. UPB. Web. 9 Mar. 2010.
Uproar Over Snooki's College Visit Reignites. RadarOnline. 26 Feb. 2010.
RadarOnline. Web. 9 Mar. 2010.