Let me just channel the voice of an old cranky person first: the reason why the fact that Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is a wealthy person is a bad thing, is that it sends the message to young people that you don’t actually have to work hard at math or science or some other useful field, to be successful.  You merely have to be fabulous.

OK, I got that out of my system.  So back in August, Abercrombie & Fitch, as part of an (alleged) publicity stunt, announced that it would pay The Situation to NOT wear its clothes.  It also offered shirts such as that above, referring to “The Fitchuation.”

The Situation is now suing, alleging false endorsement (and alleging that Abercrombie never actually contacted him regarding its ‘offer.’  This has the makings of a pretty interesting fact pattern.  A defendant has a free speech right to comment on the plaintiff and a right to parody plaintiff.  Also, there also is an explicit statement by  defendant that it doesn’t want plaintiff to endorse it.  However, there is an interesting ‘meta’ aspect to this in that in view of the novelty of the public statement, and in view of the “Fitchuation” merchandise, that a certain segment of the public might believe the exact opposite: namely that The Situation is in on the joke.

Complaint Situation(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();