Stawp it, Rahn!

About

"Stawp it, Rahn" ("Stop it, Ron") is a catchphrase attributed to the MTV reality show Jersey Shore cast member Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, who frequently argues with her on-again, off-again boyfriend and fellow cast member Ronnie Ortiz-Magro throughout the series. It is typically associated with image macros and GIF animations depicting dramatic exchanges between Sammi and Ronnie. This unconventional spelling of the phrase “Stop it, Ron” can be construed as a phonetic translation of Sammi's accent, which is commonly associated with the "Guido/ette" subculture.

Origin

The first website to use the spelling "Rahn" to mimic Sammi's speech was discussion community Crasstalk^[1], who used it during a liveblog of the Jersey Shore season 4 premiere on August 4, 2011. It originally appeared in a list of things viewers could expect to see in the first ten minutes of the episode, which stated that Sammi would spend 20 minutes calling out Ron's name and asking him to assure her of his love.

However, this particular spelling was not used in image macros until September 2nd, 2011^[2], when a still shot of teary-eyed Sammy after fighting with Ronnie was paired with the catchphrase. The image originated from a Season 4 episode titled “And The Wall Won.”^[9] The post has since been deleted.

Spread

The same day, more image macros using various shots of Sammi crying throughout the series began circulating on Tumblr with the tag #Rahn^[3] and a parody Twitter account, @SammiSweetest^[4], was created. Rahn Stahp^[8] was first added to Urban Dictionary on September 4th, 2011, the same day a single topic Tumblr blog^[24] was created to curate these images. On September 5th, a parody Tumblr^[5] with companion Twitter account^[6] appeared, posting tweets in this phonetic style. On Tumblr, there are several tags associated with the image macros including "Rahn Stap"^[18] and "Rahn stap it."^[19] Aside from image macros, some Tumblr users have begun using the tag “Stap it”^[20] as commentary on posts containing things that are either frustrating^[21] or too pleasing to handle.^[22] “Rahn” has also been used as a tag for Jersey Shore related posts on Instagram.^[23] There is a small QuickMeme^[7] page with photos of Sammi as well.

Notable Examples

Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola

Samantha Giancola^[10] was born on March 14th, 1987 in Hazlet, New Jersey. Nicknamed Sammi Sweetheart, Giancola describes herself as the "sweetest bitch you'll ever meet" in the Jersey Shore show introduction.^[17] Prior to joining the cast of the show, she attended William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey to pursue a sociology degree. She began filming the reality show in August 2009 and as of season 4, reportedly^[11] earns $100,000 per episode. Outside of Jersey Shore, Giancola has modeled for several fashion magazines including Harper's Bazaar^[12] and launched her own fragrance, Dangerous.^[13] Online, she maintains a personal website^[14], Twitter^[15] account and a Facebook fan page^[16], which has over 468,000 likes as of April 2012.

Search Interest

External References