The V-neck

Most everyone who has seen the light of day in the last year is now familiar with the "reality" show Jersey Shore on MTV. I put reality in quotations because after watching the show for more than about 11 seconds it becomes clear that none of those people have come in contact with reality in quite some time. If you haven't seen it, its essentially The Real World: New Jersey. A handful of 20 something guys and girls all live in a house together and stir up as much drunken trouble as possible. What seperates these folks from any other group is that they belong to a subculture that refers to themselves as guidos. A guido is an Italian person who is obsessed with their looks, their own self interests, and with being Italian. There style is very distinct and easily recognizable. They love v-necks, faux hawks or greased up spikey hair, and designer jeans. Most of all they have the uncanny ability to leave people shaking their heads and mumbling under their breaths, "wow, what an idiot," because of their ridiculous self-centered actions and the absurd amounts of drama which consequently follows them.

Now you may be saying, but Ravi, I know people like this but they aren't Italian, and its true these peple exist. Let me draw a parrallel for you. Remember when every 14 year old kid who thought he was a thug wore a fubu jersey? Same thing here, non-Italians everywhere are adopting the guidos style. This group of guido wannabes are most often referred to as bros, tools, or just dbags. While this cultural phenomenon is believed to have started in New Jersey, it has permeated its way throughout the country, even to the greatest place on earth . . . Omaha, Nebraska. Now let me say that it is a very fine line between being well groomed and being a tool. Between being an avid gym goer or fitness enthusiast and a dbag. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a nice pair of madras shorts and a graphic tee, but you have to stear clear of those man-cleavage showing v-necks. It's a very slippery slope that unfortunately, I fear a dear friend of mine could be sliding down at a breakneck pace.

Let me say first that Alex Hall is a great guy and one of my best friends. He is extremely generous and very loyal. However, recently I saw him do something which I found profoundly disturbing. It made me fear that I was losing my great friend and former roommate to the world of bro-dom. A group of us went to go see a movie recently, Iron Man 2 I believe, and Al showed up wearing a v-neck. We were all shocked, stunned, and concerned. We tried not to make a spectacle of the situation but it was like a solar eclipse, we couldn't stop staring at it no matter how damaging it was to our own well-being. In retrospect, I really should have seen it coming, but I just didn't want to believe it. With things like Tapout shirts and uncanny devotion to the gym, let's just say Al isn't the most surprising candidate to turn into a bro.

You're probably wondering, whats the big deal? So he wore a v-neck, as long as he doesn't act like a tool it isn't a problem right? Let me ask you this, would it be a big deal if someone you cared about was playing Russian Roulette as long as they were only using a gun with one bullet in it? Yeah that's what I thought. We had to act before we lost our friend forever, so we held a dbag intervention. By that of course I mean we ridiculed Al until he vowed never to wear a v-neck again. It was a small victory but an important one. As Al's friends, we did what we had to do, because friends don't let friends wear v-necks.