The Gentleman said:
What the fuck is "honey boo boo" and why am I horrified about it without knowing?
I caught this late and see nobody seemed to give an answer, so if you don't know yet:
"Honey Boo Boo" is the stage name of a fairly successful child pagent queen, "she" got her own show spun off of the popular reality show "Toddlers and Tiaras", which is literally called "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo". It's a reality show which focuses less on her than the family behind her, who pretty much set the standard for stereotypical pudgy, low IQ, white trash. To be honest the show really doesn't have much terrible in it, with the family being fairly normal for what they are, except for the whole pagent aspect of things with that one daughter whom it's named after. It's lead to contreversial things like how before shows the mother feeds her home made "go juice" which is a cocktail made from energy drinks and other things to get her all jazzed up. When questioned about this she apparently dismissed it as being fine to pretty much brew home made speed for a little girl because "at least it's not alcohol or actual Ritalin".
The "sketi" comments were made about how being really poor apparently they eat a lot of Spaghetti, and that's how it's said in the show at times which can border on incoherant depending on who ic actually talking. It's lead to a lot of jokes.
The show has largely been criticized for being exploitive, more or less in the opposite direction of "Jersey Shore". Where with something like JS people would watch it and wish they could live like that (all the shopping, partying, and being obnoxious and getting away with it), in this case it's pretty much watching a bunch of poor, chubby folks, and going "wow, I can't believe I'm seeing this", with people being made to feel better about themselves simply by seeing this. Of course like any "reality" show one has to question the actual "reality" of it especially with money coming in from the show. Apparently the show was originally intended to sort of continue to raise contreversy about child pagents and stars, but it didn't turn out like they intended.
In short for like the last 15 minutes it's been in the eyes of the every man, and as a result geek culture that tends to roll it's eyes at everything have turned it into the latest target, or perhaps more specifically, targeted those who make this popular and continue to fuel the furnace of banal reality TV.
I know this because I ran into referances myself, and did some checking. If you search for "Honey Boo Boo" or "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" you will find more information about this than you ever thought possible. Since "Jersey Shore" is 5 minutes ago (and apparently being cancelled) this is pretty much the current flavor of reality TV that is capturing the everyman.