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The Reality TV of My Youth.....and Maybe Yours Too!

Sooooo.  Vh1 Classic becoming MTV Classic hasn't been as awesome as I hoped.  Only 2 days in and they were already back to showing 80's movies like Revenge of the Nerds and Ghostbusters.  Now don't get me wrong, I got nothing against those movies, but that is not what I was hoping for out of a channel called MTV Classic.  I'm also not thrilled that they seem to think that the Beavis & Butthead reboot from 2011 is also classic, but I digress.

But I have been happy with the repeats of The Real World.  I know a lot of peeps really despise reality television, but I truly believe The Real World was a true representation of reality at its best.....at least in the early days.


The first installment of The Real World was set in New York City and had a cast of all creative types: artists, singers, dancers, writers and they really were sharing a loft space in the city for 3 months.  They were all trying to better their careers by being on the show, for sure, but they were also real people truly trying to live with other real people as a social experiment.  They got aggravated with each other, they adored each other, they made friendships, had good times and bad.  Life, I believe we would call it.  And for a 17 year-old in North Carolina, it was blissful. 



The second season was in Los Angeles and also featured real people with real jobs.  It created a few stars and looked at some pretty risqué topics like sexual assault and followed one of the cast members as she went to have an abortion.  These folks didn't seem to get along as well as the first cast, but again, they were real people from all over America.  Their differences and commonalities were part of what made the show great. 



The third installment was even more real as it had the first cast member living with AIDS.  It was such an eye opener for its time in 1994.  The humanity of its cast members really showed through and it was hard not to love and hate some of its members. 



By the time we got to The Real World London in 1995, I was losing interest and by Miami in 1996 I was pretty much done.  After Miami, the shows became less about being real and more about being drunk and promiscuous.  The run of the show has definitely launched some careers and for all I know, it's still going on.  I'm not mad when shows meant for the youth go on without me.  I'm 41 now....this isn't meant for me anymore.  But when I was a college kid, I couldn't get enough. 




But one thing I won't let you do is compare the early Real World to the reality television of today.  Today's slack-jawed, mean-mouthed, hyper-materialism of reality tv doesn't even deserve to breathe the same air as the early-inception of The Real World.  And this reality is meant for me at 41.  But to them I simply say, no thank you.  I prefer my reality to be bright-eyed and full of hope and promise.  Just like all those Generation Xers I loved back in the day. 


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