Reality Stars

The amount of star treatment given to reality contestants is disgusting. I already felt like there was too much attention given to them with "Survivor," but over the years the coverage of them has not gone down one bit.

It even feels like it has actually become broader, and these so-called "celebrities" are getting more and more media attention as time goes on, instead of dissipating like I hoped it would when it had started.

According to today.com, Rutgers University paid reality show "star" Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi $32,000 to appear at two events on their campus.

According to the same article, "The speaking fee Rutgers University in New Jersey paid to the star of the MTV reality television series ‘The Jersey Shore' is $2,000 more than Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author Toni Morrison will receive to speak at graduation on May 15."

The funds for both events are coming from two different sources. Morrison is being paid for by a contract with Pepsi, but the school is using a mandatory student activity fund to pay to have Snooki come to the event. Is this really something student fees should be spent on?

The article states later on: "More than 1,000 people came to the university to hear Snooki speak Thursday."

It even concludes by quoting a student saying both events were packed, with people lining up out the doors.

According to Rutgers.edu, there are currently over 42,300 undergraduate students attending Rutgers. With one out of 42 students attending the event, at least this shows there was some student interest, but to have the other roughly 95 percent of the students have to pay for an event like this seems unfair to me.

While there was obviously a group of students interested in this, it should have been paid for out of their pockets, not those of the entire student body.

If this same event were to be paid for by my tuition, I would be furious about the use of my funds.

Relaxing and taking time off for entertainment is good when used in moderation, and if students want to pay for something completely irrelevant to their education, that is their own priority.

I really hope that I'm not the only one who feels this way. I know that many people in America are still caught up in fervor for reality "stars."

Personally, I would rather have a speaker with a real message or a different kind of entertainment value-possibly a greater message to the students than Snooki's closing statement reported by Today.com of:

"Study hard, but party harder."