The Jersey Shore isn't real

Recently Abercrombie told the members of the show Jersey Shore that they would pay them a significant sum of money to stop wearing Abercrombie apparel.

What the people at Abercrombie know is that Jersey Shore isn't really how people in America typically behave and that it was giving a bad image to their products.

When most Americans watch shows like the Jersey Shore, or The Office, or Seinfeld, or Sex in the City, or Friends, or Baywatch, they might enjoy the show, but they fully realize that for the most part it is fiction. There may some elements of truth in the show, but life for most Americans isn't how it is on the show.

Ironically though, we export those shows to countries around the world, where people don't realize that the show isn't an accurate portrayal of life in America. Television and movies are one of the biggest exports out of this country.

What this means is that there maybe people in say China, who have never ever interacted with an American, but they've seen countless episodes of Jersey Shore, and therefore think that it is an accurate portrayal of the average American.

Ooops.

This is the exact reason that I find the movie Borat, though generally inappropriate, completely HILARIOUS. I grew up listening to third world nationals imitating the phrases they heard on whatever pirated version of the latest blockbuster they had just watched.

Think of the confusion when they are all of a sudden interacting with an American tourist, and their vocabulary consists of the expert phrases they learned in school like "do you have any turnips?" and of course the cool phrases they learned from....

Which brings me to my experience over the last several days.

I interact with international students on a regular basis. It's something I really enjoy.

So over the past week I have been taking care of a student who is a freshman, fresh off the plane, who has pretty decent English. And he doesn't realize the F bomb and S bomb aren't really appropriate in places like, say the waiting area at a large clinic.

For all that I need to sit him down and gently say "hey in America, those words aren't really very appropriate in this setting" I don't want to embarrass him, which he would be, he is trying hard to be cool. (also a word he uses a lot) And quite frankly, I think it's not really his fault, it's our fault, as a society, for projecting that image and not giving an accurate portrayal of life in this country. But overtime, he will be embarrassed when he accidentally seriously offends someone, without intending to. So we will have the conversation, but I won't tell him that it's also not cool to say the double bye because it's hilarious, and one of my favorite things about new international students. It cracks me up, every time, when they end the conversation by saying "okay Cate, bye bye"