It would be easy to list the reasons why the Toronto knockoff of Jersey Shore—with the face palm worthy title Lake Shore—is an awful idea. So here goes.

First, I think we can all agree that we’re sick of Jersey Shore. The flare-up cultural phenomenon’s success is based on its novelty. However, when it’s stretched out into a second and third (and God forbid, fourth) season, viewers are no longer tuning in to see the show for themselves and have a couple cheap laughs: the show actually has to be interesting enough to keep people watching. However, after an entire season of what was basically a prolonged fight between Sammi and Ronnie with some obligatory catchphrase spewing peppered in, it’s time to say enough is enough. (Seriously, I think you can count on one hand the amount of words Pauly D said last season.)  

But the problem with Jersey Shore isn’t that it destroyed itself, but that for a time it had ruined our creativity as well. The show is so recognizable that it was only a matter of time before the producers realized its memetic value. Phrases like “GTL” became common in everyday conversations, while Snooki and Situation Halloween costumes were outnumbered only by Heath Ledger’s Joker and dead Micheal Jacksons. And there’s a good chance you were invited to a Shore theme party at some point in the past year.

The world doesn’t need more Jersey Shore. So I would say that the idea of making a cheap knockoff set in Toronto would be the last thing we need, except that the Toronto version is going to be so far from the original that it’s a terrible idea for its own reasons. The main difference between Jersey Shore and Lake Shore—originality, budget, and try-hard little brother mentality aside—is that each character on Lake Shore is from a different background; in addition to nicknames, the characters are also referred to as “The Turk,” or “The Jew.” While Jersey Shore certainly doesn’t shy away from the commoditization of ethnic identity, it didn’t make it the focal point of the show, either.     

But Lake Shore is all about drama; it won’t shut up about it. It’s being marketed with that manufactured “attitude” that’s often used to sell sports drinks to children, and has made the lofty claim that it will be the edgiest show Canada has ever seen. Fine. Even if Lake Shore is as controversial as it is contrived, that’s nothing to be proud of. Jersey Shore worked as a social experiment; it was a look into a subculture taken to such an extreme that most people didn’t know genuinely existed. Lake Shore is more like Fear Factor, running an episode where the challenge is “What are you willing to do to become famous?” Canada AM host Seamus O’Regan said it best in an interview with the show’s creators (who ignored the gravity of the question): “They want to be heard, but what do they have to say?”