Saturday, January 8, 2011

Writing In a World That Includes Snooki

Long, long ago, music begat the music video. Music videos begat MTV (Music Television), which over the course of two decades became a network devoted almost exclusively to reality TV. Lo and behold, Jersey Shore was born, a reality television series featuring loud and obnoxious discontents of the Garden State. None of this has been too terribly surprising.

Then one of the stars of Jersey ShoreNicole "Snooki" Polizzi, wrote a book called A Shore Thing. And with 8.5 million viewers Thursday night for the MTV series, Snooki is bound to sell a few copies.

Try as we might to sweep it under the rug, it is difficult not to give pause to this development in the publishing world. Writers across the globe are scraping out a name for themselves. They strive to get the attentions of agents who in turn schmooze the big publishing houses and if the stars align just so, a book is born. The works of many talented writers fall by the wayside because they are deemed unmarketable.

Meanwhile, if people watch you on television because you're vapid and amoral, your book is destined to be a bestseller regardless of literary talent.

Clearly this is not a new observation. Let's not rehash what has already been discussed ad nauseam about the flippant nature of fame, but instead simply step back and consider what we as artists are actually trying to accomplish. Getting published? Perhaps. But what if getting published means catering to the fans of Jersey Shore? If that is the ultimate goal, shouldn't we all gain some weight, put on skin-tight dresses and speak inanity into our webcams?

We can say something to Snooki's credit: unless she is some kind of smut-marketing genius playing an elaborate trick on us, at (the very, very) least she is seeing success by being herself. Success means nothing if we have to become someone else to get it. So don't lose heart. Your journey into the spotlight may be a great deal longer than our dear Snooki's, but connecting with the right audience - your audience - will make for a much more satisfying end to your story. Obviously.

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