The Real World revisited

This is the true story... of seven 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. Actually this is story of how the MTV’s hit reality series The Real World is designed to appeal to me and how I am effected by it.

Through out the years MTV has pin pointed their target audience to a tee, which are young adults. At that in time in my life MTV already targeted me to its network let alone their shows while growing up. But besides hooking me to their network, their was one show that always is targeted to me which is The Real World. Like it isn’t already interesting enough to have seven strangers live in a house and being taped for any audience, MTV found many ways to attracted me to The Real World. One of the obvious attractions was the age of the seven strangers that were living together. Most of the cast members of the Real World ages rage from late teens to early twenties. This happens to be the ages I was when I religiously watching the show. Not only does the age of the cast members attract me to the show but also the cast member’s demographics. If you have ever seen The Real World, you know that the cast members are totally different from the next. Cast members vary from a white sheltered country girl that has never been to a big city to an openly transgender female. And of course when you make them all live together in house (or should I say hook up pad) there is going to be drama. The cast doesn’t just live in a house but more like a mansion. The first few seasons of the real world, the houses that the cast live in weren’t super fancy. But as time went on and the show got to become more popular, the house got bigger and much more extravagant. Take the Los Vegas for example. The season’s house was not a house. It was a pent house on top of the Palms hotel in Vegas. The cast’s backyard was the Vegas strip and the Palms casino was just another room in their house. These are just a few of the examples of how MTV draw me into the show and kept me coming back to watch each new episode.

By having MTV market The Real World to me in those different ways, it actually works by drawing me in and making me want to watch each new episode. I have realized through out watching season after season of The Real World, I was being drawn into The Real World by stereo types that I never agreed with. The Real World I have learned draws its viewers in not only by having a diverse cast but having a cast that most resembles American stereo types. For instance in most every Real World cast that has be taped, there has been a flamboyant gay male or a lesbian living in the house. Of course this is one of the reasons I was drawn to the series because I could relate. But season after season, I realized that it was just another way MTV was getting me to watch its series.

Not only has this tactic made me watch the show; it has also made me stop watching the show. There was a point in the season of The Real World in my opinion when instead of “people stop being polite and start getting real” people stop being real and started to get scripted. The real world was getting fake and not so much real any more. The season was Los Vegas and the cast was more than stereotypical. Not only did you have all of the cast member’s stereotypes but they were exaggerated stereotypes I felt like it was way too scripted in a sense when I watched that season.

By learning this tactics that MTV uses to lure unexpected audiences in, I have also learned that the media will do anything to get you to watch or do something. Even if it goes against what you believe in. What I have learned about my self while growing up while watching The Real World is that no matter how much I think I won’t be drawn into the media, the media will also somehow draw me in even if its is “seven 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”.