Being from New Jersey, born and raised, I have the distinct pleasure of watching Jersey Shore from a perch of experience.
That’s right. I’m not only from New Jersey, I have gone down to the shore for most of the summers of my life. I’ve gone to many different parts of the shore – possibly even Seaside Heights (which is where the Jersey Shore people are and which, if you are a respectable shore-goer, you call Sleazeside Heights) – but mostly, I go way down the shore. Far enough down where you get away from the New York trash on the show. Unfortch, you start running into the Philly trash when you get far enough down, so really, there is no escape from outsiders invading our semi-fine beaches.
Let’s take a quick moment to map it up and see just what’s going on here. Geography up in this mo.
Break it down y'all.
Your “Jersey Shore” key:
Red dots – where these Jersey Shore kids are from. Please note – ONLY ONE is actually in NJ. There’s a big cluster where 3 different people are from Staten Island.
Red X – Seaside Heights
Yellow zone – Safe zone. This is North Jersey proper, aka a good place to be from. Above the blue line is too north. This is the boonies. This is where Weird, NJ type things happen. Below the line is too south. This is where most if not all of the Jersey stereotypes come from – accents, big hair, Bruce. You want to be in the yellow.
Green zone – The ideal sector of the Safe Zone. The pinnacle of Jersey balance. You live in NJ, but not near anything scary, you have enough highways to get to the mall, but you also have trees. Lots of trees. If you need to move to NJ, you need to move in here.
Green line – The part of the shore that it is acceptable to go to. Long Beach Island and south. If Seaside Heights did not exist, keep in mind that these people would end up in LBI, so you will probably want to venture even further south if you can. Remember: the further the go, the further from New York you are.
Is this stuck up? You betcha. But you know what? For all of the crap New Jersey gets every day of the week, especially now that Jersey Shore is on and not enough people are fully aware of how Not Jersey it is, I think I am allowed to distance myself enough from these people to be stuck up about it. Green Zone, baby. Green Zone.
To Be Continued.
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