Jersey fever

It sounds like a disease contracted by living to close to Superfund sites and using too much hairspray, but the NYT claims that pop culture has Jersey fever. Gross. New Jersey is apparently worldly like New York, yet less elegant, or something. And this is supposed to be a good thing.

New Jerseyans are perceived as “unfiltered, out there, bigger-than-life personalities who are living on their own terms,” Mr. Klarman said. “Don’t we all want to be authentic in who we are and not live by the judgments of others?”

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people who want to be on reality television have cultivated outsize personas that have nothing to do with authenticity. By which I mean, they're jerkoffs. And I'd prefer not to have my state viewed as being jerkoff-full, but I guess that ship sailed a very very (very) long time ago.