Think U.S. Open Visitors Are Bad? Try the Jersey Shore Shoobies.


Year-’round residents of the Jersey Shore have it rough when summer comes. Their peaceful lives are disrupted by seasonal tourists who expect whims to be catered to, including the ample production of sweat shorts and T-shirts with stupid slogans. They clog stores and roadways, they drip water onto floors, they track sand around without a care and swerve rental bikes into traffic. They have a name, and it is “Shoobies.” Jen A. Miller explains the etymology of the word:

 It came from a time when Philadelphians came down to the Shore via a train to Atlantic City with lunches packed in their shoeboxes—hence shoobie.

These days US Open visitors to the Main Line are being called Shoobies, a word being used to indicate people with outsider status who are driving natives crazy. Miller isn’t buying it.

It’s a fantastic word; however, it is not a widely applicable one, like snowbird. A shoobie is someone who visits the beaches from Atlantic City to Cape May only. Not Asbury Park. Not Seaside. And certainly not a golf course in Pennsylvania.

And that’s not all–Miller says the Main Liners complaining have no idea how good they really have it:

And please, stop whining about the U.S. Open traffic. You can deal with it for six days. This is what you guys do to all of South Jersey every Friday through Sunday, May through September, year after year after year.

Girl’s gotta point.

Main Line U.S. Open-Haters Incorrectly Referring to Visitors as “Shoobies” [Philly Post]