Damn you, Matt Damon, you and your sexiness!

South Boston native Billy Baker has a long exposition in the Globe today on the decline of Olde South Boston. His initial point seems to be that all the reality shows being filmed there will make Southie the laughingstock of America by turning it into Jersey Shore North. But read the whole thing and you get to the point where he explains that Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and starry-eyed young women who just couldn't control themselves destroyed the Southie of old:

GOOD WILL HUNTING has turned out to be a double-edged sword. It captured something great about Southie and at the same time ruined it forever. Because what I saw after that was unbelievable: Young women would get out of college and choose to move to Southie. Sure, it's close to downtown, but the real reason they were moving was because they were subconsciously thinking they were going to find "a Southie" like Matt and Ben. Everything else followed them, namely young guys. That's how everything changed. That's how the old Southie reality ended.

Added bonus anecdote: Be sure to look for the part about how some Southie guy moved to Dorchester to stay out of trouble, but just couldn't help himself when he went back for a visit and some young punk called him a yuppie. Twice. So of course he decked him. But since he's part of that generation of more sensitive Southie lads, he felt a little bad about it.