If you’re a man and you’ve had a girlfriend in the last two years, or you’re a ravenous pedophile, you’ve probably seen the show Toddlers and Tiaras. If you haven’t seen it, you aren’t missing out, unless you’re an aforementioned ravenous pedophile, and if that’s the case then you should probably put it on your to do list, because I imagine that for a molester Toddlers and Tiaras is more arousing than attending a screening of the movie Thirteen at Disney World. If you’re a woman, however, you’ve probably seen every single episode of TLC’s glittery, child exploiting celebration of attention starved mothers, hilariously closeted fathers, and their talentless human marionettes of offspring. Don’t lie ladies, this is appointment viewing for you.
Regardless of whether or not you have actually seen Toddlers and Tiaras, there is probably one personality from the show who you are at least vaguely familiar with; Honey Boo Boo. Who is Honey Boo Boo, you ask? To put it mildly, she is the trashiest child in America. I’m talking full on white trash, the type of child you would see sitting unattended in the corner of the children’s pool at a water park, eating wet cotton candy and casually taking a crap in her swimsuit bottoms.
Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not Honey Boo Boo’s fault. She’s too young to have much influence over her own personality. Everything she says and does is a direct result of viewing and emulating the obnoxious behavior of her borderline retarded, obese mother, who I imagine is constantly tormented by the dilema of always craving Hamburger Helper, but being unable to make it due to what she considers its overly complex cooking directions. When I first saw Honey Boo Boo’s mother I had simply assumed that she was cleverly placed in the show by producers to make it harder for pedophiles to masturbate. No matter what your sexual preference is, deviant or not, that woman is a universal boner kill.
Honey Boo Boo’s mother is also, by all available metrics, the greatest example of white trash in the history of Earth. Forget trailer park meth dealers, forget truckers, this woman is it. We’ve literally found the source of every single (non-racist) negative stereotype about the South/rural America contained in one woman. She is so outrageous that she actually outdoes what is essentially a cartoon caricature of everything I just described. Let’s do a side by side comparison.
Honey Boo Boo’s Mother:
The Fat White Trash Woman from Squidbillies:
To paraphrase Mark Twain, truth is sadder and grosser than fiction. Note that both women are from Georgia, for whatever that’s worth. Well done Georgia.
As you can imagine, a duo this over the top couldn’t be contained in a reality show ensemble. TLC, which at this point is somehow less true to its acronym than even MTV, wisely gave Honey Boo Boo and her mother their own reality show. There’s no way this thing won’t be a goldmine. The show follows the lives of the young pageant queen, her buffet pillaging mother, and the rest of their family. As you can imagine the other members of this Georgia clan are every bit as dense, mentally and physically, as Honey Boo Boo and her mother. The entire family is genetics gone horribly wrong. It’s almost as if the mother and father were pulled out of tubes from a hillbilly version of the Alien: Resurrection lab full of poorly cloned Ripleys and forced to breed in a Shoney’s bathroom.
The result of that breeding is one of those obese, perpetually screaming families you dread being anywhere near at someplace like Six Flags. You know the type, being from Missouri God knows I do. They’re the ones that noisily waddle up behind you when you’re standing in line for a ride, shouting at each other about who gets the next bite of the turkey leg that three of them are sharing, and all of them are sweating on. You move forward as far as you can, because even though you only technically gain six inches of space, every millimeter matters. That separation is quickly erased when one or several of them start bumping up against you, completely unaware of your personal bubble, which you now desperately wish was a very real, impenetrable bubble. You can smell them and you can feel them. When they inadvertently invade your personal space the contact doesn’t actually displace you because the collision is lubricated by a thin film of sweat covering their skin, which by the way is most likely FAR too exposed. Their presence alone makes the area around you more humid. You become seriously sickened by your own species.
The result of that breeding, to put it more succinctly, is this:
That really had everything, didn’t it? There were kids named “Pumpkin” and “Chubbs.” There was a pregnant teen who was brilliantly (I mean that sincerely) described as “the pregnant-est.” There was an ATV accident. There was also rampant mispronunciation of medium to large words, lots of mud, a kid playing with an empty bucket, casual swearing in front of small children, a pig, food fights, and so much more.
Cliches have never seemed so fresh and exciting. After all, it’s not the cliches themselves that make this show morbidly fascinating, it’s what this family is going to do with them. Whatever they end up doing, it’ll be a truly artful example of self degradation, something even the cast of Jersey Shore could only dream of pulling off, if only they weren’t so self aware (by comparison). And all this will be achieved without the helpful aid of alcohol. Honey Boo Boo and crew are guided instead by positivity and blunt force trauma level mental handicaps.
Now, I’m not deriding this show’s blatant celebration of ignorance. I write for TFM, that’d be a little hypocritical of me. Also, I don’t mind celebrating ignorance, I was in a fraternity. I’ve celebrated ignorance like my team won the National Championship on the Fourth of July. But this show is going to be on another level. We might be more ignorant by watching than they are by being themselves. I can’t help but think a show like this, combined with the existence of shows about topics such as little people, only further massages our national tolerance for what is put on air towards an eventual program featuring actual mentally handicapped people. Mark my words, that show will be produced, and with a lighthearted, “what will they do next” attitude instead of an air of respect, long before you see full penetration on MTV or something, which is a damn shame.
But despite everything I’ve said, for Honey Boo Boo this might be the best thing that could have ever happened to her. Take this TV money and put it away. Go to college. Do not attempt to become pregnant-er than your sister. Do not let your mom blow it on couponing and overly extravagant trips to Branson. Bide your time and get out of there. It’s too late for Pumpkin and Chubbs, but you’ve still got a shot. Godspeed Honey Boo Boo.
Nice Move314
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Rob Fox
Rob Fox (@BaconTFM) (née Bacon) is a writer, editor, and content manager for Total Frat Move, Rowdy Gentleman, and Post Grad Problems. He is a graduate, without honors, from the University of Missouri. His fake best-selling novel series, The Frat Romance Novel, has been self-described as a "pioneering achievement in satirical erotica." Bacon is originally from St. Louis, and currently lives in Austin, Texas. He still has not admitted to his family what he does for a living, and is prone to having wet nightmares ever since losing his virginity in a haunted house. Email: rob@grandex.co
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