Last weekend, my friends and I decided to take a trip down to the New Jersey-famous Seaside Heights. After our trip, it is safe to say that Seaside is what everyone who is not from Jersey thinks Jersey is like. It was the best destination for eight 20-year-old kids just trying to have some fun.

As we embarked on our journey to the boardwalk, I was reminded how Seaside is such a piece of trash. I saw some families there with their young kids, and I wondered, "Why?" There are way nicer areas of the Jersey Shore that surround Seaside, but for some reason, they decided to go there. As I was waiting on line to get my beach pass, some elder man who was extremely intoxicated asked me why Seaside was such trash. Meanwhile, he was with his wife and son, so I asked him, "Why did you come here out of all places?" He told me he has not been here in almost 20 years, and it is not what he remembers. We started conversing about what killed Seaside, and of course, Hurricane Sandy was a big factor. She destroyed the boardwalk and surrounding properties. However, that was not the true reason that Seaside has turned into Sleaside.

The real reason is the fake New Jersey reality TV show "The Jersey Shore." This show really sucks for many reasons. A big reason is how the show labels the Jersey Shore and the people who inhabit it. I mean, sure you are going to have your 'ratchet' people, but not everyone in the Jersey Shore is a guido or a stuck up jerk like the show says they are. This show has really begun to shove Seaside further and further down the toilet.

This man was telling me how nice the place used to be, with a much bigger boardwalk and way more families every weekend of the summer. The Jersey Shore not only gives a fake rendition of how life in South Jersey is, but it also makes people not from the Jersey area think that all of Jersey is the exact same way! A few years back, I was visiting my grandfather out in California, and we came across some random people in Beverly Hills who asked where we were from. We told them New Jersey and they said, "Ooo! You guys are from the Jousey Shore!" Yes, they even pronounced 'Jersey' in that stupid fake way people on the reality TV show say Jersey. Reality TV shows should be called something else, for the majority of the times the footage is far from reality. Slowly, this TV show was leaving its mark on Seaside, which is truly sad. It seems as though Seaside has become a destination for drug addicts, scummy people, prom weekends, young kids fitting into a disgusting hotel room and sometimes the occasional family who does not realize Seaside will never be the way it once was. We owe this all to the members of the stupid and fake reality TV show "The Jersey Shore."