MTV delivered a somewhat diplomatic response to Abercrombie & Fitch’s recent request that the “Jersey Shore” cast not wear the company’s products.
Earlier this week, A&F said in a statement that the preppy retailer had offered a “substantial” amount of money to “Jersey Shore” cast member Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and his co-stars to not sport the brand on air, as Sorrentino’s irreverent reputation could damage the apparel’s image. (MORE: Abercrombie to ‘Jersey Shore’: We will pay you not to wear our brand)
Apparently unperturbed by the slight and open to collaborating with A&F, MTV said of the clothing vendor in a statement, “It’s a clever PR stunt, and we’d love to work with them on other ways they can leverage Jersey Shore to reach the largest youth audience on television.”
But “Jersey Shore” legends, Sorrentino and Vinny Guadagnino fired back at A&F in a much less eloquent manner.
“#lasttimeiworeabercrombie I still hadn’t discovered masturbation,” Guadagnino tweeted Wednesday, following up with another tweet, “#lasttimeIworeabercrombie there were still stores in NY to buy it at.”
Sorrentino kept it clean with the tweet, “Looks like Abercrombie got themself into a Situation,” which linked to a story about A&F dropping in stock in the “Jersey Shore” diss aftermath.
Since exploding onto airwaves in 2009, “Jersey Shore” has been blasted by many for glamorizing crass behavior, heavy alcohol use, stupidity, Italian-American stereotypes, and casual sex. The show, which follows the hard-partying lives of housemates on the actual Jersey shore, has earned the network record ratings but taken trashy TV to new heights.
Perhaps A&F took this into account when preparing a statement on the reality series.
“We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes but believe this association is contrary to the aspiration nature of our brand and may be distressing to many of our fans,” an A&F spokesperson wrote.
A&F can disparage “Jersey Shore” until the cows go home, but the embattled brand has fought bad press of its own for years. Aside from producing sexually explicit ads, A&F has been the subject of racial discrimination allegations.
Jennifer Lu, a former salesperson, told CBS in 2009 that she and several others couldn’t get a job or were canned because their appearance didn’t work with the shop’s look.
“It’s dominated by Caucasian, football-looking, blonde-hair, blue-eyed males; skinny, tall,” Lu told the network. “You don’t see any African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and that’s the image that they’re portraying and that they’re looking for.”