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providing the viewer with a far more immersive Guido experience. This decision, whether by design or dumb luck, helped produce the breakout stars The Real World had been sorely lacking (Can the average pop culture consumer name a single TRW personality since, um…the Miz? Trishelle? Puck?), who arrived, fully formed and pre-branded with amazing nicknames, as the ambassadors from Guido Nation: Mike “the Situation” Sorrentino and Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi. The Situation (so named for the rippling six-pack that once caused a stunned fellow Guido to proclaim, upon seeing his now-iconic, synecdoche-inspiring abdominals, “Now that’s a situation right there!”) quickly declared himself Man of the House, a title he wielded like a boardwalk strength-test hammer, barking at all comers to just try and ring the bells of Jersey’s vacationing guidettes beter than he can. Bite-sized Snooki, whose stature-enhancing poof and generously displayed cleavage suggests Elvira in tanned-to-a-fine-crisp miniature, became an instant sensation because of an unfortunate incident—initially promoted heavily but cut by MTV prior to broadcast—in which she was punched in the face by a male gym teacher from Queens. These two instant megastars, supported by a host of capable back-ups (Bart-Simpson-haired wingman DJ Pauly D, nice-guy ladykiller Vinny, serial cold-cocker Ronnie, cute instigator Sammi, comically bazoomed Jenni “J-WOWW”), propelled the Shore into the national consciousness virtually overnight. And swept me up right along with it.

So how did Jersey Shore draw me in? I’d sworn off not just virtually every permutation of the classic Hanging Out with Douchebags genre of reality TV (a big, dysfunctional tent that now not only includes TRW and its imitators but also mutant strains like Keeping Up with the Kardashians and The Real Housewives franchise) in favor of much more invogue dancing/singing/cooking/sewing competition shows. Initially, I thought it might be that I was finally ready, after that long absence, to watch some more terrible people get drunk and copulate, spurred on by the belief that these would be the drunkest and copulatingest terribles MTV had produced in years. But no, that wasn’t it.

Then I realized: It’s the Guidos, stupid.

About five minutes into Jersey Shore’s (two hour!) premiere, Italian American groups began to express their displeasure about the cast’s embrace—nay exultation—of the term “Guido,” considered by many to be a slur, as well as MTV’s alleged exploitation of the group by reducing all Italians to an easily mockable Goombah stereotype. It’s a complaint Italians have heard before, most recently after some people wrongheadedly decried The Sopranos, perhaps the greatest and most nuanced television show of all time, for depicting the culture as nothing but a bunch of tracksuited, pork-store-haunting, stoolie-whacking goons. As an Italian American who grew up in a New York suburb just north of the Bronx, among friends (if not family) who were recognizable, if distant, forebears of The Shore gang (in those days, it was B.U.M. Equipment instead of Ed Hardy), Pauly D’s celebratory explanation of Guido-ness as “a lifestyle…being Italian…representing family, friends, tanning, gel, everything,” was not just the last word on a minor controversy. It was an invitation to take an inventory of my inner Guido every Thursday night. This, more than the drunken antics of some knuckleheaded kids let loose in a beach house festooned with several horrific combinations of the Italian flag and the silhouette of New Jersey, is what drew me in for the entire eight-week, nine-episode run. And when Vinny articulated the dead-simple “Gym, Tan, Laundry” formula in episode six (“That’s how they make the Guidos”), I now had a framework through which to see exactly how my own lifestyle stacked up. Let’s take each part of the New Guido Credo in turn.

GYM

The most instantly recognizable aspect of The Shore’s cast is the male roommates’ maniacal dedication to their physiques. Only Vinny, a token softy but certainly a big guy by any reasonable standard,