The new mini-bouffant craze: How does a hairstyle go from classy to trashy?

See that girl to your left? That's Snooki, an Italian ingénue currently enjoying her 15 minutes of fame on a little MTV reality show/phenomenon known as "The Jersey Shore." Snooki is a "guidette" and, as such, she's partial to drinking until she can't find her way home, making out with folks (both male and female) in hot tubs, tanning, eating pickles in a manner that suggests she's fellating them, and showing her thong underpants in public and at home. She's also fond of a hairstyle she's calling "the poof," though you might also remember it as "the bump" or even the "mini-bouffant." Snooki likes this 'do because it gives her diminutive frame a bit of extra height, but she's not the only lady out there currently rocking the look.

Last night, while I was watching the finale of yet another classy show, VH1's "Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew," I noticed one of the stars, Kendra, also in the bump-poof, along with stripey-white extensions and a crap-ton of makeup. And I realized: THIS IS BECOMING A TREND. In fact, this might just be the new hairstyle of choice for hussies, strippers, and each and every lady looking to look like a tart. Gone will be the straw-like, bleach-blonde, down-to-there extensions we saw "The Girls Next Door," our Brit-Brit, and others of their ilk don proudly in 2007. In 2010, it looks like dark-haired goddesses with head-humps will rule America's poles, perhaps in more ways than one.

And it does make you wonder: How did this happen? How did a once perfectly respectable hair trend suddenly become the domain of the disreputable? Wasn't it just last year, that a very famous politician who represents conservative values was seen pulling off the exact same look? And how about the deeper history of this updo? It was once worn by a young bride named Priscilla Presley and the quietly sexy Brigitte Bardot--two women who, while not exactly virginal, were not best known for dancing in their panties or their work in films called "Strap-On Queen."

We think we have an answer to this profound hair riddle, but, honestly, we don't how its overwhelming power took quite so long to catch on. OF COURSE, we're seeing the mini-bouffant on troubled ladies who drink copiously, open their legs a wee too readily, and have a penchant for gallivanting in their underwear or even less. We've actually been witnessing this trend for years:

For further visual proof of this poof theory, check out our slideshow below.