The New York Times reports on the impending conclusion of MTV’s notorious TV series Jersey Shore on December 20:

Incredibly it was only three years ago that MTV ran its first episode of “Jersey Shore,” its documentary-style account of four muscle-bound guys and four impossibly orange women partying down and hooking up in Seaside Heights, N.J.

Over six rapid-fire seasons, including excursions to Miami and Florence, Italy, “Jersey Shore” became one of MTV’s biggest hits ever, drawing nearly nine million viewers an episode at its peak and introducing terms like “smooshing” and the gym-tanning-laundry shortcut “G.T.L.” (among less savory acronyms) to the American lexicon.

The series has also elevated its distinctively monikered cast members like Michael Sorrentino (a k a the Situation), Jenni Farley (JWoww) and Paul DelVecchio (Pauly D), making them the envy of unemployed milliennials, the scorn of Italian-American advocacy groups and unlikely ambassadors of their hurricane-devastated coastal escape.

But now these improbable celebrities are bracing themselves for a different kind of reality, when the parties and press tours — and the cornerstone TV show that supported them — go away, leaving viewers to take stock of why they tuned in, and its subjects to wonder if their fame could fade as rapidly as it arrived.

“We were regular people a couple years ago,” said Vinny Guadagnino, a “Jersey Shore” star. “I don’t want it to stop.”

I do.