What's So Real About this World?

"This is the true story... of eight strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World." (MTV.com) 

Since 1992 televisions around the world have been tuning in every week to see eight strangers live, learn, fight, drink, hook-up, with each other. These young adults are practically strangers who are thrown together in an elaborate house provided by MTC for three months and are told to entertain. 

When the first Real World (New York) premiered on MTV in 1992 viewers had seen nothing like it. Why would anyone want to live with random people for an extended period of time and basically get paid to party? The first few seasons of The Real World were much more raw and even had some substance. In season three, San Francisco, Pedro Zamora, a cast-mate who was not open gay came out and told the other castmates that he was suffering from HIV. Since that season it has focused more on hookups, fighting, work, and drinking. 

In the most recent season, Season 24 in New Orleans,  the cast all had hopes and dreams to go beyond The Real World, some of which were in the entertainment industry. The casts 24 seasons ago were on the program for the experience, not to seek fame, what little of it they may have.

How is this program and experience any different than the ever so popular Jersey Shore? They are strangers put in a house to live together for two months, but they barely work, if you call working at a shore clothing store and gelato shop hard work. They are there to party. Yet the Jersey Shore cast has seen so many more opportunities and fame and fortune. They are the new generation of The Real World. 

With the Real World season 25 in Las Vegas premiering later this year the viewer has to wonder if it is really worth your while to tune the t.v. to MTV at that set time. You know what is going to happen, the cute girl will hook up with multiple boys in the house, there will be one ethnic female or male and at least one GLBT cast mate. Why do we keep watching if we already know all of this? 

We crave it