Snooki speaks for us

Toni Morrison. Vladimir Nabokov. Snooki. What do they have in common? Yes, that’s right—they’re all New York Times best-selling authors.

Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi entered America’s collective consciousness with MTV’s reality show “Jersey Shore.” For those feigning ignorance, the show follows the trials and tribulations of eight hedonistic young housemates drinking, dancing, and hot-tubbing their summers away on the Jersey Shore boardwalk. It’s shallow, offensive, obscene, and depraved—in a word, addictive.

“Jersey Shore” has spawned countless college theme parties, sparked innumerable excited “guilty pleasure” conversations, and popularized words now a part of our vernacular like “grenade” and “creeping.” Our interest in the cultural phenomenon that is “Jersey Shore” may be bemused or ironic and perhaps even pure schadenfreude, but there’s no doubt that Snooki’s New York Times best-seller, “A Shore Thing,” will be bought and read by many with the same sort of amusement and disdain.

And yet, we have to wonder what it means that “A Shore Thing,” a thinly veiled roman à clef with as much complexity and gravitas as “Jersey Shore,” exists at all. It’s no coincidence that Snooki’s book was released just two days before the season three premiere of “Jersey Shore” on Jan. 6—the most-watched cable show among our demographic this season. Not a masterpiece nor a labor of love but a publicity stunt, “A Shore Thing” is a book conceived and commercialized to cash in on a lucrative young population.

Still, consider this: Snooki is only 23. She’s a member of our generation with a best-selling book, a rare distinction. And she writes about being a member of our generation, embodying the faults we’re constantly accused of—being vain, irresponsible, indulgent, oblivious. Our generation’s stories—of modern love, sex, self-actualization, and identity—will be in her words.

It’s not enough to laugh and point, or even scorn and ignore. If being young today isn’t about drinking too much, pursuing meaningless romances, or desperately avoiding adulthood, what is it about?

When we begin to look for legitimate literary self-representations, we’re quick to borrow from generations past to fill the cultural void. It’s Holden Caulfield, for example, that might best capture the reluctance and anxiety we feel regarding growing old. To describe the idle frivolity of the college years and the emptiness of life thereafter, we look to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s protagonists. There’s “On the Road” to express our own feelings of rebellion or “The Sun Also Rises” to express our own feelings of disconnect and dissatisfaction.

But our scars aren’t World War II, and what we’re rebelling against isn’t what the Beats rebelled against. Our Ivy League isn’t F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Ivy League, and what’s phony in the 21st century isn’t what was phony in the 50s. Those books weren’t meant for us in the same way Snooki’s book is.

Who is writing the novel that will speak for our generation? Popular candidates like Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Don DeLillo, or Philip Roth are all over 50 years old, writing from a place of retrospection. Why are we not the ones writing the kind of literature we want to read?

Perhaps there’s something stifling about the modern college experience forced upon high school graduates indiscriminately that discourages self-reflection and creativity—personal statements that are anything but personal, Scantron exams in huge lecture classes, pressure to spend summers in prestigious internships rather than pursuing interests. Maybe it’s the commercialization of education itself—the myth that successful writers need a certain kind of educational background in order to write. Or maybe it’s a consequence of an increasingly risk-averse publishing industry that discriminates against young writers without TV shows or a history of best sellers.

But who needs publishing houses? With the internet and e-readers come the ability to reach readers directly, without elusive book deals. F. Scott Fitzgerald was only 22 when he wrote “This Side of Paradise,” the same age at which J. D. Salinger wrote “Slight Rebellion Off Madison,” the short story that formed the basis of “The Catcher in the Rye.” Jack Kerouac didn’t spend years in graduate school in order to write “On the Road,” but took notes during his adventures that he later crafted into a novel in one three-week period.

Perhaps conventional wisdom would dictate that it takes life experience, maturity, and training to produce great artistic work, but conventional wisdom shouldn’t keep us complacent in the creation of our cultural identities. Our complacency only makes it easier for commercialized travesties like “A Shore Thing” to take over the New York Times Best Seller’s list, for stereotypes to make it into print, and for older generations to accuse us of thoughts and beliefs we do not hold. We must realize that if we do not write our own stories, they will be written for us.

Aarti Iyer is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing. She is the former editor-in-chief of The Fed. Culture Vulture runs alternate Tuesdays.