It's understandable that people who watch the Jersey Shore will get offended if they feel like they don't belong in that "dumb" group of people who watch the show. Two points I want to make. Certain TV shows tend to draw in certain types of crowds. The West Wing was a hit with well-educated, high-income earners so the advertisements tended to cater to them. Mad Men is in a similar situation. I don't have MTV, but If you watch the commercials during the show or over a season, I'm sure you can paint a picture about what MTV and advertisers think about people watching the show. That's just reality and hizzle with his fancy diploma and job in this economy can throw a sissy fit, but he's most likely the exception, not the rule. But flipmo and hizzle feel like their intellect is brought into doubt so they have to defend themselves. Again, understandable.
Now, second point, to contradict my first, kind of. People watch television, films, and listen to music for different reasons. I have a very smart friend who watches a bunch of low-brow television. He finds Breaking Bad too "slow", for example. It's because he sees television as background noise in his life where he's just flipping through channels while he's working on a computer coding assignment or looking for jobs on the Internet. For me, television shows, films, music, etc paint pictures. They take me to lands I haven't been. I get fully immersed in what I watch. I dedicate 100% to the viewing. I get mad when I'm interrupted. I don't pause to read a Skype message, etc. A lot of people don't tend to do TV like that. Da Funk is one example. He can't sit still watching TV, he says. I'm also something of an entertainment elitist but I'm working on not being so closed-minded. I tend to dislike people who go and watch stupid, brainless movies. I believe in cinema increasing our intellectual curiosity, opening our minds, and making us more emotionally intelligent people. Others just want to go to a movie theater, laugh, and forget their life for 90 minutes. I want the same thing, but I also want to connect it to my life and perhaps put a better perspective on things with it. So, when my very smart friend tells me he's not a fan of the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, or The Wire, I WANT TO PUT A BULLET IN HIS SKULL. But then, I calm down, and realize that people do things for different reasons.
On the other hand, if I'm studying or doing homework, I can't listen to music or watch TV. I can't multi-task like that. I have to fully dedicate myself to the task at hand.