I’ve been plagued by the question that weighs on twenty-something year olds everywhere throughout the month of September: What the hell am I going to be for Halloween?

I was mining TikTok for inspiration when I encountered her like a cheetah-print clad meatball angel from GTL heaven… Snooki. 

I'm 5 foot nothing (shocking, I know. I write like a tall person LOL.), I tan easily (okay, fine I'm just Indian but it could still count), I’m perpetually trying to add volume to my hair (1 day delivery for Bump-its on Prime BTW), I love a good pickle (my drug of choice is a Grillo’s spear), and if my mom is reading this… that’s definitely where all the similarities stop! :) 

It’s not just the perfect costume. Spiritually, I am Snooki. 

So naturally I started watching clips on YouTube to get into character… and before I knew it, I was knee deep (that’s a little under ~20 inches if anyone’s counting) and six episodes into a Jersey Shore hyperfixation.

I was in elementary school when Jersey Shore first aired in 2009. I have an older millennial sister though (it’s a big age gap LOL), so I remember the cultural shockwave — GTL, the iconic Pauly D blowout, the fist pumping, the random trend of clubs with beds in them. It wasn't just popular, it was the kind of popular where it simultaneously defined and reflected the cultural zeitgeist. For a few years, Jersey Shore felt inescapable. 

But rewatching the first few seasons now, what struck me most wasn't the catchphrases or the chaos. It was how genuinely unaware these people were of what they were participating in. I spent so much more time watching in mortified horror than I could’ve ever imagined. 

The cast wasn’t performing. They weren't managing their brands. They weren't thinking about how a clip would play on Twitter because Twitter barely existed yet. When Ronnie blacked out on camera, he wasn't calculating the fallout — he literally did not understand the implications of being filmed like that. None of them did. Season 1 was eight people who had absolutely no idea what they'd signed up for, living their actual lives in front of cameras with zero media literacy to filter their behavior through.

That's the thing about early reality TV that can't be replicated: it required ignorance. 

Not stupidity. Ignorance. 

A specific kind of not-yet-knowing about what being on camera means for the rest of your life. Everyone is too self-aware now. Every person who goes on a reality show in 2026 has watched a decade of other people's lives get destroyed by the same machine. The cast of Season 1 of Jersey Shore didn't have that reference point. They WERE the reference point.

It also meant their varying degrees of bad behavior was on full display for the world to see. 

Here's the thing about putting "misogyny" in the title: I have to actually talk about it… and I can’t do that without addressing the juiced-up gorilla in the room. 

But I want to be honest — I don't feel qualified to give the Ron and Sammi situation the analysis it deserves. 

What I can say is that rewatching those scenes was genuinely unsettling. Not in a "wow, that's so dated" way. In a "this is documented domestic abuse being aired as entertainment and nobody stopped it" way. The scene of Sammi quietly holding her broken glasses is devastating in a way that’ll probably weigh on me any time I think about this show for the foreseeable future. 

But the misogyny on Jersey Shore wasn't just the obviously horrifying abuse. It was also the smaller, quieter kind — the way Snooki was treated by the public.

I think Snooki might be the most unfairly vilified reality TV personality of all time. She was a 4'8" girl who liked to drink and dance and have a good time, and the entire country decided she was the punchline. She got punched in the face on camera by a grown man at a bar. She was mocked relentlessly for her body, her hair, her tan, her accent, her identity. Late night hosts built entire segments around making fun of her.

And here's what bugs me the most: the men on that show did objectively worse things and got celebrated for it. 

Pauly D and Vinny's entire storyline was hooking up with as many women as possible, navigating “minefields” of “grenades”, objectifying real people… and it was played for laughs. The Situation was regularly a dick to everyone. Ron — Ron was doing things on camera that are probably against the law and definitely against “human decency code”.

But Snooki was the one who became the national joke, because she was a young woman who was loud and fun and didn't apologize for it.

Rewatching now, she's honestly the most endearing person on the show. She seems like a genuinely good friend. She's funny in a way that's not mean. She showed up for people. By the later seasons, watching her be responsible during her pregnancy felt like watching someone grow up in real time in a way that was actually kind of beautiful? She has 16.6 million Instagram followers now — more than double JWoww's. The person the public mocked the hardest is the one who actually won. Yay!

I guess this is the part where I should tell you I’m serious when I say I see myself in Snooki– how I spend a lot of time wondering what it means to be a small woman of color who steps outside the bounds of being a model minority. I could explain why it resonates that her infamy was fueled by her being unapologetically herself. How people relentlessly picked her apart because she was too loud, too messy, too ballsy for what they thought she should have been.

But I also know that for people like Snooki, speaking up about it gets misconstrued as part of the problem. So that’s enough about that!

GTL forever, though. Obviously.