Honey Boo Boo Child

I’ve watched my Facebook family post about Honey Boo Boo for weeks without having any idea what they meant. I figured it had something to do with yet another TV show obsession that bypassed me ala Shark Week or any other show that has taken the country by storm. My curiosity finally got the better of me of me today and I Googled Honey Boo-Boo. God help us all.

Since I was not born and raised in the South, I don’t consider myself a true Southerner. However, I have lived here since I was 15, and I feel that at least makes me an honorary Southerner since I didn’t high-tail it out of here as soon as I could stand on my own two feet. Understandably, then, I get offended when people automatically assume that “Southerner” is equated with slack-jawed, ignorant, and uneducated trash like something out of Deliverance. Having lived in the South as long as I have, I can assure you that it is not an accurate picture. People like Honey Boo Boo’s family give Southerners a bad name and I worry that this constant spectacle on TV will continue to fuel this misconception of the true South. It pains me to hear that family categorized as “Southern.” True, they live in the South and have Southern-ish accents, but they’re trash. They’re the parts of the South we’d rather you didn’t see.

I typically embrace violence of a verbal nature rather than physical. But in this case, I’m willing to make an exception and say that someone needs to beat the shit out of that entire family. For a split-second, I felt like beating Honey Boo Boo but then remembered that she’s only an innocent little kid and she acts the way she does because her moronic mother has permitted and nurtured this behavior. (on a side note, could people please stop referring to pageants as "a sport"? It isn't.)

Does anyone else see pole-dancing in Honey Boo Boo's future? “A dollah make me hollah.” Sure, sweetie, the Kardashians and the Hilton sisters used to say the same thing when they were 6 years old. You know her Go-Go juice will eventually be infused with vodka. Probably in two years when “Mama June” thinks she’s old enough to learn how to handle her liquor. She drinks this special juice to “give her umph” as her mother so eloquently put it. I suppose a couple of grams of coke will be introduced as her new umph-giver once the Red Bull-Mountain Dew concoction isn’t working for her anymore.

Maybe I should start folding my gut into a puppet roll and declare that people “don’t know a good thing when they see it.”