We Watch So You Don’t Have To: MTV’s Siesta Key

Let me preface this post by saying I unabashedly loved The Hills and Laguna Beach. Even though I was slightly outside their target demographic, I could still appreciate the guilty pleasure derived from watching young and beautiful 20-somethings going about their overly dramatic daily lives. Sadly Siesta Key, MTV’s latest foray into the semi-scripted “reality” genre, looks as though it might not be a worthy follow-up to their earlier shows. This new OhMyGodYouGuys! saga has a lot of work to do if it’s going to live up to its predecessors. Now this opinion could completely be due to my ever encroaching oldladyness – or, it could just be because these people are crazy boring.

The ladies of The Hills dropping some serious wisdom

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DON’T HASSLE ME, I’M LOCAL

I’ll admit I was totally excited to watch this show. As a lifelong resident of Sarasota, I was super psyched to learn they were filming the next Hills in my town. Rumors of MTV bringing a show to our shores have been floating around since the 90s. Back when the MTV Beach House was a thing, there was talk of it taking up residence in some monstrous house right on the beach. My best friend and I had visions of turning our boring summer into one full of glamour and Eric Nies by getting a job as one of the beach house dancers. Tragically, MTV never came and the dream of vaulting myself into a life of fame and fortune made possible by kickass dance moves was never realized.

This could have totally been me, you guys.

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While Sarasota has had its fair share of the spotlight over the years (one of our biggest claims to fame came in the early 90s when Pee Wee Herman was caught masturbating in an adult movie theater), this is first time I’ve been able to watch a show and have the inside scoop, so to speak. For example, the bar they’re “working” at isn’t even on Siesta Key. It’s on a completely different island in a completely different town. One of the trailers for the show had a voice over claiming “it’s always 73 degrees”. Um, what? I could literally cook breakfast on my sidewalk 6 months out of the year. And let’s not pull the curtain back too far on the whole “thriving, cool, young people population” thing this show is pushing. This town is about 90% over 65. Was every young person in Sarasota at that birthday party?

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SIESTA KEY (WORKING TITLE: DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS?)

Siesta Key follows the lives of your typical group of affluent college kids. The show itself was actually pitched to MTV by the father of one of the cast members. Gary something or other, from 1-800-ASK-GARY fame, thought a show chronicling the #blessed lives of his kid and attached social circle would be an attractive asset for MTV. So far, he was right since MTV opted to film the show and base a good deal of its footage at the beach side mansion your basic lawyer referral service can afford you.

 

This is what not being “scared and confused” will get you these days.

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Since we’re only one episode in, I’m going to reserve judgement on whether this show can fulfill my considerable need for crap television. But this one episode was enough for me to make the following quick observations:

 

• Alex’s house is pure opulence. Liberace would feel right at home.
• Why do these people all act like they just met? I’m having a hard time believing they knew each other before this.
• I’m just going to say it – every party needs a white rapper.
• I’ve always wondered what it would be like to exist in a reality where dramatic pauses and extended eye contact were the norm. Like, these people can’t hear Lana Del Ray, wtf are they doing? (Yes, I’m aware it’s editing – but I enjoy pretending it’s not. It adds to my enjoyment of the show).
• How can Juliette tell her friends apart? It’s like they all spawned from the same bleach bottle and when no one is looking, they all mesh together to form some sort of peroxide coated Transformer.

To sum up as succinctly as I can, for those of you who haven’t watch this yet:

“Rainbows are pretty awesome. But not as awesome as you.”

 – Actual quote from Alex, the anointed “King of the Crew”, to his date for the evening Juliette

It should be mentioned that this show has also brought along some serious douche-baggage – because of course it does. A few weeks before the show aired, a seriously disturbing video surfaced of a cast member’s friend dragging a shark behind his boat. Other videos and photos have since surfaced showing one of the cast members participating in some straight up cruel behavior with animals. Petitions have been circulated trying to persuade MTV to cancel the show and convince law enforcement to arrest those involved. In fact, the planned premiere party at a local theater was cancelled due to death threats and planned protesters. Time will tell if these fools get their comeuppance or if MTV decides the bad press and association with people that are dicks to animals isn’t worth the hassle of keeping this show around.

THERE’S NO JUSTIN BOBBY, BUT I GUESS I’LL WATCH ANYWAYS

So, do these people have the slurring, lazy speaking style that drives me up the frickin’ wall? Yes. Do they all seem relatively uninteresting so far? Yep. Will I keep watching? Of course I will! I’ll keep watching because I miss me some manufactured drama. And MTV’s marketing is no joke. The preview for next week has me completely curious to see why Chloe appears to have smashed her nose to bits. Not to mention, any show that gives me the artist and song name for whatever is playing on screen is my jam. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to scour the internet to find out who made the white cover up Juliette wore to Alex’s birthday party. Internet time wastage – here I come!