SnookieShop (2010)

About

Snookishop is a single topic blog featuring a series of photoshopped exploitables based on a cutout image of Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, a cast member from MTV’s reality series Jersey Shore. In the span of two weeks in February 2010, the Snookishop phenomenon has spawned nearly 1000 user-contributed images, all of which have been self-archived by the blog.

Origin

Snookieshop tumblr blog was created by Sean Ahern and the first instance of the shoop series was uploaded on February 9th, 2010. [citation needed]

Jersey Shore

Jersey Shore is a MTV reality series about eight housemates spending a summer at the New Jersey shore, a popular party destination for some East Coast youths. In the show, Snooki portrays herself as a lovable but often-confused and unpredictable party gal—or better in her own words, a “guidette.” The peak of her reality TV fame occurred in episode four, after getting in a heated argument with a stranger at a bar and subsequently punched in the face. The incident also left a trail of online gossips and parodies.

Notable Examples

Considering the already exploitable nature of the Jersey Shore characters, Snookishop and similar Jersey Shore parodies can be seen as an example of how mainstream media and online exploit/gossip culture increasingly feed off each other.

Observations

In contrast to other single topic types created for archiving internet memes founded elsewhere, Snookishop can be seen as a relatively recent trend of vertically integrated internet memes, similar to “Nic Cage as Everyone” and “Selleck Waterfall Sandwich.” Since popular single topic blogs serve both as the studio & the theater of user-generated media, mass participation is pretty much self-evident in its existence.

Development

Tumblr Trends shows that right from the beginning on January 4th, posts tagged with “snooki” soared. Posts tagged with “snookieshop” were significantly lower than “snookie” but quickly exceeded “selleck waterfall sandwich.”

Both the Tumblr archives and Tumblrstats.com search results reveal that nearly 1000 “Snookishopped” images have been posted via Tumblr in the month of February alone.