Two people walk onto Rutgers University campus: Snooki from MTV’s Jersey Shore and Toni Morrison, a Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize-winning novelist.
Who leaves campus with a fatter check?
Answer: Snooki
A student-run committee paid 23-year-old Snooki, whose real name is Nicole Polizzi, $32,000 for a pair of low-key question & answer sessions.
University officials will pay Morrison $2,000 less to be the commencement speaker during Rutgers University’s May graduation ceremony.
I guess reality TV is big business.
How do the two women compare?
Age:
Toni……… 80
Snooki…… 23
Education:
Toni……… Master’s degree
Snooki…… Reportedly studying at Ulster County Community College
Quote:
Toni……… “Everywhere, everywhere, children are scorned people of the earth.”
Snooki…… “These are the things I think I’m addicted to: bronzer, boys and alcohol.”
So what do you think? Does Toni Morrison deserve more than Snooki or is $30,000 a fair amount for a graduation speaker?
Rutgers should give Toni M. another $3,000 just to make the school look better.
Shoot I need to get a reality show! They get PAID all that money just to live. I need a job like that.
This is madness!
It is laughable! That’s all. Everybody is important, but what? Really? OMG!
Entertainment makes more money than Nobel Prize ceremonies so I think this is probably fair. Think about it, an athlete/entertainer makes millions a year but how many Nobel Laureates earn that much. I can’t think of any. So it makes some sense.
Money is not a judge of value or character. This is a fine example of how much vain even whole institutions can be. When individuals follow crocodile-looking people for their money or attach more value to people with money ( or secure, as girls like to put it) it makes sense to me now. It’s human. Can’t knock Rutgers for doing the same.
I don’t understand.
In America, at least, the entertainer is more popular, so we attach value to that. Snooki is more popular because she’s with the entertainment world that makes millions of dollars. That’s where people want to be? Right. Who doesn’t want to be popular and loved by the public. Be where the money is. We give more money to the money people. Like Obama did for the banks. But when you are Toni Morrison and you trying to do something rather useful, who cares. She is not as interesting. So her value (according to us) is lower.
This is Rutgers University though. Don’t you think they should value knowledge over anything else?
They are showing you that they don’t. Nobody does. Who likes the nerd? Even the nerdy don’t like the nerd. They want to be popular too. It’s high school and college everywhere at every level, we want to be recognized. If Rutgers gets Snooki to speak at their school they get news–popular. But Toni Morrison? Ya, everybody is like, well, obviously. The University needs to stick with the popular people so they can become popular too.
True. A lot of schools like popular people speaking, esp. entertainers. I guess in order to get a good husband, you have to play ho for a little!
What?
I guess so if that is your way of understanding it. I can’t say you are entirely wrong about that. Some people do!
Likewise for men too. In oder to get a good wife I guess you just have to play player for a little bit! How else do you learn?
You think you are funny!
Shoot, if given the opportunity, I would take it. In fact, I have tried to get on different reality based typed tv shows before and my goodness its a trip. They have to weed through tens of thousands of people. Despite all my buddies saying that I should of made it based on my sense of humor and personality, they dont understand just exactly HOW MANY they have to go through. Anyhoo, like I said, if I had the opportunity to do that (live there rent free for a summer,given a stipen of $2,200 a week,party,etc) and just be able to say that I did that would be awesome and then have lawyers and agents clammering to rep me and demand $10,000 an episode and now its $100,000 an episode not to mention Pistacio contracts and other stuff, U BETTER BELIEVE I WOULD DO IT!! QUICK TOO!! ZERO HESITATION!! She is financially secure now. She wont be getting welfare and food stamps. I dont understand people who complain about it because that shows that they evidently watch the show then take time out their busy life to come to blogs to COMPLAIN about something that they say they hate? Huh? That seems backwards. Who does that? Thats the height of hipocrasy because they know dog gone well if given the opportunity they would take it too! Liars!! Jealousy and envy is not becoming people! Stop it! Knock it off. And dont come back saying you’re not jealous and envious. Lies! And dont for one second think you can come back here and LIE and say that U WOULDNT take 100,000 to have cameras follow u to be on a HIT TV SHOW, get endorsements and have all kinds of doors and opportunitys happen for you! You would! I swear, some people in this world trip me out! HOWEVER, I will say this though. I DO NOT think that Snooki’s place would be there and I dayum sure dont think $30,000 should of been offered. That money could of and should of been better served than that. Hey, just my opinion. The cross-breeding hybrid of the two worlds and then tossing the $30,000 on the table is obscene to me. Now if lets say The Jerry Springer Show decided to pay Snooki that amount (which would never happen) that would be different. But not this college, no.