Scribbling about TV shows isn't an abysmal task by any standards, but it does have its downsides, namely those weeks where the programme you're reviewing is so profoundly dispiriting it leaves you praying for climate change to hurry up and frazzle us all. This is one of those weeks. The Guide insisted I watch Jersey Shore (Sun, 9pm, MTV). Swear to God, they're trying to drive me to suicide.

On the face of it, Jersey Shore is a reality show in which some tanned, whooping idiots live in a beach house for a month: a splice of Big Brother and Ibiza Uncovered featuring a uniformly unlikable bunch of infuriating, loud, over-confident pillocks. So far, so standard. What's eye-opening is that the entire cast appears to be drawn from one minority group – namely Italian-Americans. I didn't know much about Italian-Americans before watching Jersey Shore. Now I feel as if I was born hating them; as if despising Italian-Americans is my moral duty.

It's not my fault, really it's not. Blame the producers, who seem to have constructed Jersey Shore by following a step-by-step guide to besmirching an entire ethnic group. Step one: identify the stereotype (in this case, the notion that working-class Italian-Americans are shallow sex-crazed thugs). Step two: collect the clearest embodiments of said stereotype you can find (consequently all the men in Jersey Shore are dopey, muscled, hollering titty-chasers: the girls are bolshy, spray-tanned, micro-skirted man-eaters). Step three: let them refer to themselves by using a slang term broadly perceived as an ethnic slur (in this case, the word "guido", a pejorative nickname which roughly means "dim macho Italian-American lunk"). Step four: group them together in a house decorated with Italian flags and Scarface posters. Step five: give them booze, film them behaving like shallow sex-crazed thugs, calling each other "guido", etc. Step six: there is no step six. Job's done. Go home and count the proceeds.

Unsurprisingly, Jersey Shore caused a bit of a stink when it was screened in the US. Various advertisers, including Domino's Pizza and Dell Computers, pulled their commercials following the debut episode. New York Post TV critic Linda Stasi (herself an Italian-American) accused the show of "furthering the popular TV notion that Italian-Americans are gel-haired, thuggish ignoramuses with fake tans, no manners, no diction, no taste, no education, no sexual discretion, no hairdressers (for sure), no real knowledge of Italian culture and no ambition beyond expanding steroid- and silicone-enhanced bodies into sizes best suited for floating over Macy's on Thanksgiving."

In summary: Jersey Shore isn't very nice. A farmyard animal could produce this show, and probably did. In fact, the sole skill the makers have demonstrated is the small degree of cunning involved in selecting Italian-Americans in the first place. Run the step-by-step guide again with a different ethinc group and it's altogether more incendiary.

But perhaps the whole ethnic slant, explosive though it is, is a red herring. The group Jersey Shore is truly adept at demonising – like countless dumb "party time" docusoaps before it – is the young. Some of the young audience will tune in; the vast majority will ignore it. On TV, you currently have more chance of spotting a pair of morbidly obese conjoined twins on a log flume than of seeing one articulate, intelligent teenager exploring any subject other than sex or tattoos in any depth whatsoever. Little wonder they're abandoning ship.