Students are hurriedly planning their Spring Break destinations, but they don’t really need gas money or plane tickets to enjoy the drunken festivities – they can do it from the comfort of a worn-out bean bag chair.

MTV has been airing Spring Break specials since the ’80s, starting in Daytona Beach, Fla., and eventually including such hot spots as Negril, Jamaica, and Lake Havasu, Texas. Last year, MTV’s coverage brought action from Cancun and Miami to millions of home viewers.

But with other networks and enterprises, from ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos to the E! network’s ‘Wild On,’ filming the hubbub, it’s tough to get away from Spring Break coverage – even at other times of the year.

Some students, like freshman advertising major Lisa Chad, hope that MTV will catch their vacations on camera.

‘MTV’s cool; they do fun things,’ said Chad, who is going to Daytona Beach for Spring Break. ‘I feel like they have cool parties and make it more exciting.’

But one experienced Spring Breaker, junior illustration major Nicole Addeo, was more turned off by MTV’s cameras than she expected.

‘We went to a place where (MTV was) filming Spring Break,’ said Addeo, who has been to Daytona in the past. ‘It was ridiculous. People do things just to be on TV. It’s notorious for flashy girls and stuff. I think it’s just too embarrassing.’

In fact, Chad agrees. She’s interested in the MTV party scene, not in the nudity and vulgarity that comes with it.

‘I wouldn’t want to necessarily be a big part of it or go to strip my clothes off on stage or anything,’ Chad said. ‘If it was MTV, that would make me want to go. But if it was ‘Girls Gone Wild,’ no.’

The ‘Girls Gone Wild’ cameras won’t be easy to hide from this Spring Break. Bill Horn, vice president of Mantra Entertainment, the company that produces the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos, expects his cameras to be all over the hot spots.

‘I know we’re going to Miami, Cancun, Acapulco and South Padre Island in Texas,’ Horn said. ‘They’re working right now on booking other destinations. … We just go where the people are, and over the last 6 years we’ve been everywhere.’

MTV and ‘Wild On’ say they have yet to confirm any of their destinations for the upcoming Spring Break. But rest assured that if the crowds are there, the cameras won’t be far away. So if you’re planning on going south this break, expect to see cameras and all the debauchery that comes with it.

Some students choose to hide from the action – only to enjoy it later on television and DVD.

‘That’s just not my style,’ senior IST major Geoffrey Levine said. ‘Its vacation. I want to relax. It’s not bad television, though.’

Published on January 21, 2004 at 12:00 pm