WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.099 This is the true story of seven strangers picked 00:00:04.099 --> 00:00:06.740 to live in a house, work together, and have their 00:00:06.740 --> 00:00:08.480 lives taped. God, it gives you chills, doesn't 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:11.759 it? It does. Let's find out what happens when 00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:15.019 people stop being polite and start getting real. 00:00:15.220 --> 00:00:17.679 Even just hearing the words, you know, without 00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:20.480 the music. You can just feel it. The synth track 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:23.079 kicks in in your head. It's a visceral reaction. 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:25.500 It really is. It's like a cultural bell that 00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:27.579 rings for anyone who had a television between, 00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:30.960 what, 1992 and basically today. Looking back, 00:00:30.980 --> 00:00:32.679 it almost sounds like a warning. A warning label, 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:34.640 yeah. A warning we all just completely ignored 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:40.380 for 30 years. So today we are cracking open a 00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:42.460 massive cultural time capsule. We are talking 00:00:42.460 --> 00:00:45.899 about the OG, the juggernaut, the absolute grandmother 00:00:45.899 --> 00:00:49.270 of all modern reality television. the real world. 00:00:49.469 --> 00:00:51.490 Grandmother is exactly the right word. I mean, 00:00:51.490 --> 00:00:54.450 every single reality show you see now, whether 00:00:54.450 --> 00:00:56.409 it's the high -gloss drama of Selling Sunset 00:00:56.409 --> 00:00:58.729 or the, you know, the total chaos of Love Island, 00:00:58.890 --> 00:01:01.789 it all shares direct DNA with this show. Right. 00:01:01.890 --> 00:01:04.730 I mean, think about this run. From 1992 all the 00:01:04.730 --> 00:01:08.439 way to 2019, 33 seasons. And then they had that 00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:10.879 weird little ghost life on Facebook Watch. It's 00:01:10.879 --> 00:01:13.079 just wild. That's a longer run than most of the 00:01:13.079 --> 00:01:15.540 legendary scripted shows in history. But our 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:17.780 mission for this deep dive isn't just to, you 00:01:17.780 --> 00:01:19.859 know, get nostalgic and list off our favorite 00:01:19.859 --> 00:01:23.030 cast members from the 90s. We want to dig into 00:01:23.030 --> 00:01:26.329 how a simple cost -cutting measure by some MTV 00:01:26.329 --> 00:01:29.709 executives accidentally created an entire television 00:01:29.709 --> 00:01:32.290 genre. Exactly. And not just a genre, but how 00:01:32.290 --> 00:01:35.170 it completely changed our ideas about privacy, 00:01:35.390 --> 00:01:37.489 about what celebrity is, and even how we talk 00:01:37.489 --> 00:01:40.290 about big social issues. It literally invented 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:42.670 a new kind of fame. And we have a serious mountain 00:01:42.670 --> 00:01:44.409 of sources for this one. We're digging into the 00:01:44.409 --> 00:01:46.349 production history, casting secrets, the actual 00:01:46.349 --> 00:01:48.450 contracts, all the controversies, and of course, 00:01:48.469 --> 00:01:50.689 the legacy. And I think the big question, one 00:01:50.689 --> 00:01:53.510 we keep coming back to is, was this ever really 00:01:53.510 --> 00:01:56.290 a social experiment? Like they sold it to us. 00:01:56.650 --> 00:01:59.010 Right. Or was it, and this is a real quote from 00:01:59.010 --> 00:02:01.590 a critic back then, painfully bogus, right from 00:02:01.590 --> 00:02:03.890 the very beginning. And that's the tension, right? 00:02:03.950 --> 00:02:06.230 The authenticity versus the artifice. That is 00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:08.370 the entire story we're trying to unpack today. 00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:11.580 So let's start at the beginning. The origin story. 00:02:12.060 --> 00:02:14.300 Because this to me is the most fascinating part. 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:19.060 The real world. This raw gritty supposed documentary. 00:02:20.620 --> 00:02:22.259 It was never even supposed to happen. It was 00:02:22.259 --> 00:02:25.039 plan B. It was a total last minute Hail Mary. 00:02:25.659 --> 00:02:27.740 You have to put yourself back in the mindset 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:30.740 of, say, 1991. What was the biggest thing on 00:02:30.740 --> 00:02:32.919 TV for young people? Oh, it was scripted soaps. 00:02:32.939 --> 00:02:35.419 It was all about Beverly Hills, 90210. Exactly. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:38.960 90210. Yeah. And then right after, Melrose Place. 00:02:39.219 --> 00:02:41.479 Those shows were titans. They were everything. 00:02:41.580 --> 00:02:43.680 They dictated what you wore, how you talked. 00:02:43.919 --> 00:02:46.909 And MTV, which, you know, was still... Mostly 00:02:46.909 --> 00:02:48.870 a music video channel. Yeah, they were just starting 00:02:48.870 --> 00:02:51.009 to branch out. They looked at those insane ratings 00:02:51.009 --> 00:02:53.330 and just said, we want that. We need our own 00:02:53.330 --> 00:02:56.150 scripted soap opera for the MTV generation. So 00:02:56.150 --> 00:02:58.509 the creators, Mary Ellis Boonham and Jonathan 00:02:58.509 --> 00:03:01.360 Murray. They pitched a scripted show first. They 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:03.479 didn't come in with this reality concept. Not 00:03:03.479 --> 00:03:05.300 at all. Their backgrounds were perfect for that, 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:08.319 too. Boonham came from daytime soaps, like As 00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:10.939 the World Turns. Murray came from news and documentaries. 00:03:11.159 --> 00:03:13.039 So they put their heads together and developed 00:03:13.039 --> 00:03:15.879 a full pilot script. They had characters, storylines. 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:18.099 It was going to be this sort of Melrose Place 00:03:18.099 --> 00:03:19.919 meets The Breakfast Club kind of thing. So what 00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:22.039 happened? Why aren't we doing a deep dive on 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:24.439 some forgotten MTV drama called, I don't know, 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:27.370 Soho Place? Money. It just came down to pure 00:03:27.370 --> 00:03:30.509 economics. They sat down in a boardroom, crunched 00:03:30.509 --> 00:03:33.719 the numbers, and this is where, like... The entire 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:36.379 history of television pivots on a single spreadsheet. 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:40.000 Right. To make a scripted show that could even 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.039 compete with the look of 90210, you needed a 00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:45.840 massive unionized crew. You needed writers, directors, 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:48.719 lighting people, wardrobe makeup. And actors, 00:03:48.840 --> 00:03:50.939 real actors. And actors who expect to get paid 00:03:50.939 --> 00:03:54.259 well and get residuals. The costs were just astronomical 00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:57.120 for a scrappy cable channel like MTV back then. 00:03:57.219 --> 00:03:59.280 They just didn't have the budget of a huge network 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:01.520 like Fox. They looked at the bottom line and 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:04.909 just... They balked. I love that. The entire 00:04:04.909 --> 00:04:08.930 genre of reality TV was born out of a budget 00:04:08.930 --> 00:04:11.250 meeting. It wasn't some grand artistic statement. 00:04:11.330 --> 00:04:13.349 It was pragmatism. I mean, they say necessity 00:04:13.349 --> 00:04:15.770 is the mother of invention. Yeah. Well, it seems 00:04:15.770 --> 00:04:18.069 like poverty is the father of reality TV. So 00:04:18.069 --> 00:04:21.069 they pivoted. The question became, what if we 00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:23.889 don't hire writers? What if we don't hire actors? 00:04:24.250 --> 00:04:27.569 What if we just find some regular people, stick 00:04:27.569 --> 00:04:29.870 them in a cool apartment and just film them? 00:04:30.170 --> 00:04:32.129 It's so brilliantly predatory when you think 00:04:32.129 --> 00:04:34.290 about it. It's like the gig economy model for 00:04:34.290 --> 00:04:36.709 television production. You just shift all the 00:04:36.709 --> 00:04:39.550 labor costs onto the cast. You let them write 00:04:39.550 --> 00:04:41.490 the show with their own lives and you pay them 00:04:41.490 --> 00:04:43.930 practically nothing for it. It was a huge gamble 00:04:43.930 --> 00:04:46.670 on human nature, but... You know, to be fair, 00:04:46.810 --> 00:04:48.509 they didn't pull this idea out of a complete 00:04:48.509 --> 00:04:50.730 vacuum. Our sources point to a couple of key 00:04:50.730 --> 00:04:52.970 influences. Right. There is that PBS documentary 00:04:52.970 --> 00:04:56.110 from the 70s, An American Family. Yes, from 1973. 00:04:56.550 --> 00:04:59.149 It followed the Loud family in Santa Barbara. 00:04:59.290 --> 00:05:01.430 And it was. It was a landmark. It was really 00:05:01.430 --> 00:05:03.670 the first time cameras were just allowed to exist 00:05:03.670 --> 00:05:05.949 in a home and watch a real family just fall apart. 00:05:06.129 --> 00:05:08.569 The mom, Pat Loud, asked for a divorce on camera. 00:05:08.629 --> 00:05:12.180 She did. And their son, Lance Loud, was the first 00:05:12.180 --> 00:05:14.839 openly gay person a lot of Americans had ever 00:05:14.839 --> 00:05:17.300 really seen on TV, just living his life. It was 00:05:17.300 --> 00:05:20.379 huge. But that was a documentary observing an 00:05:20.379 --> 00:05:22.660 existing family unit. And I've seen clips. And 00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:25.560 honestly, a lot of it is kind of boring because 00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:28.139 real life is boring sometimes. It is. And MTV 00:05:28.139 --> 00:05:30.019 knew that. They couldn't just film some random 00:05:30.019 --> 00:05:32.779 roommates. They needed manufactured friction. 00:05:33.220 --> 00:05:36.120 And there was also a Dutch show. number 28 from 00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:39.019 1991. The creator of that show has actually claimed 00:05:39.019 --> 00:05:41.680 for years that Budim and Murray pretty much lifted 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:43.959 his concept. So the strangers in a house idea 00:05:43.959 --> 00:05:46.899 was already floating around. It was. But here's 00:05:46.899 --> 00:05:49.060 a detail that I had never heard before we started 00:05:49.060 --> 00:05:51.000 this research, and it's amazing. There was a 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:55.000 season zero. A lost season? A test run. Before 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:56.860 they committed to the full New York season, they 00:05:56.860 --> 00:05:59.939 were nervous. They had no idea if Seven Strangers 00:05:59.939 --> 00:06:01.740 would actually create enough good material for 00:06:01.740 --> 00:06:05.000 13 episodes. So they did a dry run, rented a 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:07.319 place, cast seven people. And just filmed them 00:06:07.319 --> 00:06:09.459 for a weekend to see what would happen. Yep. 00:06:09.800 --> 00:06:12.420 And one of those seven test subjects was a woman 00:06:12.420 --> 00:06:15.370 named Tracy Grandstaff. Wait a minute, Tracy 00:06:15.370 --> 00:06:18.050 Grandstaff, that name is Daria. That's the one. 00:06:18.310 --> 00:06:20.470 Tracy Grandstaff went on to become the voice 00:06:20.470 --> 00:06:23.569 of Daria Morgendorfer, first on Beavis and Butthead, 00:06:23.649 --> 00:06:26.509 and then of course her own show, Daria. That's 00:06:26.509 --> 00:06:29.370 the most perfect piece of 90s pop culture trivia 00:06:29.370 --> 00:06:32.610 I have ever heard. The voice of the most cynical, 00:06:32.949 --> 00:06:35.850 antisocial cartoon character of a generation 00:06:35.850 --> 00:06:39.089 was almost on the most overexposed social reality 00:06:39.089 --> 00:06:41.620 show ever. ever. It's incredible. It just shows 00:06:41.620 --> 00:06:44.540 you how small that MTV world was back then. But 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:47.500 the test run proved the concept. It also proved 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:49.639 you couldn't just cast nice, agreeable people. 00:06:49.779 --> 00:06:51.980 You needed archetypes. You needed conflict. You 00:06:51.980 --> 00:06:54.660 need oil and you need water. Exactly. So they 00:06:54.660 --> 00:06:56.160 get the green light. They lock in the formula. 00:06:56.480 --> 00:07:00.040 Seven strangers. One giant, unbelievable apartment. 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:02.819 For season one, it was that 4 ,000 square foot 00:07:02.819 --> 00:07:05.420 duplex in Soho. Which, can we just say, completely 00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:08.240 warped an entire generation's expectations of 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:09.899 what living in New York City would be like. Oh, 00:07:09.899 --> 00:07:11.740 absolutely. I think we all moved there expecting 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:14.740 a giant loft and got a shoebox with a hot plate. 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:18.019 We all did. It was pure fantasy. But here's the 00:07:18.019 --> 00:07:19.800 part that really gets me, and it goes back to 00:07:19.800 --> 00:07:22.180 what you said about cheap labor. We found the 00:07:22.180 --> 00:07:24.600 actual payroll numbers for that first season. 00:07:24.699 --> 00:07:26.800 Do you have any idea what they paid that original 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:32.220 cast? It's shockingly low. $2 ,600. For three 00:07:32.220 --> 00:07:35.439 months of their lives. $2 ,600 for the entire 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:39.279 run from February to May of 1992. I did the math 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:41.699 on that. If you assume they were on the clock 00:07:41.699 --> 00:07:44.589 for even just, say, 12 hours a day and let's 00:07:44.589 --> 00:07:47.149 be real, they were filmed 24 -7. That works out 00:07:47.149 --> 00:07:49.089 to something like 70 cents an hour. Less than 00:07:49.089 --> 00:07:52.569 minimum wage. By a lot. And for that first season, 00:07:52.670 --> 00:07:54.589 the schedule was so intense, they couldn't even 00:07:54.589 --> 00:07:57.449 really get outside jobs. So there they are, living 00:07:57.449 --> 00:08:00.230 in this palace in Soho, but they were effectively 00:08:00.230 --> 00:08:02.689 broke. It just perfectly illustrates the power 00:08:02.689 --> 00:08:04.930 dynamic here. These were just kids. They had 00:08:04.930 --> 00:08:06.870 no clue they were launching a genre. They didn't 00:08:06.870 --> 00:08:08.250 know they'd become famous. To the production 00:08:08.250 --> 00:08:11.089 company, they were just affordable guinea pigs. 00:08:11.329 --> 00:08:14.170 And like with any experiment, the cage was very 00:08:14.170 --> 00:08:16.389 carefully designed. The house itself wasn't just 00:08:16.389 --> 00:08:18.870 a home. It was a set. It was designed to provoke 00:08:18.870 --> 00:08:21.290 a reaction. Let's get into that. The environment. 00:08:21.569 --> 00:08:24.050 Because our sources kept referring to it as the 00:08:24.050 --> 00:08:27.990 fishbowl. And it wasn't a subtle metaphor. Not 00:08:27.990 --> 00:08:30.089 at all. I mean, if you go back and watch, almost 00:08:30.089 --> 00:08:32.870 every single season's house prominently features 00:08:32.870 --> 00:08:36.090 a large aquarium. It became a motif. The production 00:08:36.090 --> 00:08:38.409 company's logo even incorporated it. It was a 00:08:38.409 --> 00:08:41.889 constant visual cue to the cast and to us. You 00:08:41.889 --> 00:08:43.669 are the fish. We're watching you swim around. 00:08:43.970 --> 00:08:46.429 And the surveillance was just total 30 cameras 00:08:46.429 --> 00:08:48.909 rolling constantly. But it wasn't just the cameras. 00:08:48.929 --> 00:08:51.190 It was the actual physical conditions of the 00:08:51.190 --> 00:08:53.590 house. Right. To film for TV, especially with 00:08:53.590 --> 00:08:56.470 90s technology, you need a ton of light. So these 00:08:56.470 --> 00:08:58.830 houses were rigged up with studio lighting grids. 00:08:58.870 --> 00:09:01.769 It wasn't warm, cozy home lighting. It was bright, 00:09:01.889 --> 00:09:04.669 hot, constant light. It has to mess with your 00:09:04.669 --> 00:09:06.769 sleep schedule, your mood. And the isolation. 00:09:06.809 --> 00:09:09.090 That was a huge part of it in the early seasons. 00:09:09.230 --> 00:09:12.190 They were almost completely cut off. No TV, no 00:09:12.190 --> 00:09:14.889 radio, and obviously no smartphones. That isolation 00:09:14.889 --> 00:09:18.830 is such a key production mechanic. I mean, think 00:09:18.830 --> 00:09:21.129 about it. In your real life, if you have a fight 00:09:21.129 --> 00:09:22.669 with your roommate, what do you do? You leave. 00:09:22.769 --> 00:09:25.149 You go for a walk, call a friend, you scroll. 00:09:25.230 --> 00:09:27.809 on your phone. You distract yourself. You decompress. 00:09:27.830 --> 00:09:31.710 Exactly. But in the real world house, there's 00:09:31.710 --> 00:09:34.090 nowhere to go. You're trapped in that pressure 00:09:34.090 --> 00:09:36.570 cooker with the very person you're fighting with. 00:09:36.789 --> 00:09:39.809 You are forced to deal with it right there, right 00:09:39.809 --> 00:09:41.929 then. And then they'd throw in things like pool 00:09:41.929 --> 00:09:46.129 tables and jacuzzis to encourage, well, to encourage 00:09:46.129 --> 00:09:49.169 certain kinds of interactions. We can't forget 00:09:49.169 --> 00:09:52.090 the Ikea furniture. It was basically a season 00:09:52.090 --> 00:09:55.590 -long ad for Ikea. It became the definitive aesthetic 00:09:55.590 --> 00:09:59.570 of the decade. But that combination, forced proximity, 00:09:59.789 --> 00:10:01.889 no escape, and let's be honest, lots of free 00:10:01.889 --> 00:10:05.230 alcohol. It's a recipe for drama. Now, we have 00:10:05.230 --> 00:10:07.470 to talk about the single most important storytelling 00:10:07.470 --> 00:10:10.909 device that the real world invented. The confessional. 00:10:11.009 --> 00:10:12.929 The confessional is the engine of all reality 00:10:12.929 --> 00:10:15.490 TV. Without it, the whole genre just falls apart. 00:10:15.690 --> 00:10:17.070 But it wasn't there from the very beginning, 00:10:17.110 --> 00:10:19.139 not in the way we know it. No, in season one 00:10:19.139 --> 00:10:21.879 in New York, they were just interviews. The producers, 00:10:22.139 --> 00:10:24.460 Boonham and Murray, would just sit down with 00:10:24.460 --> 00:10:26.320 a cast member at the end of the week and ask 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:28.740 them about what happened. So it was all after 00:10:28.740 --> 00:10:30.639 the fact. Hey, tell me about that fight you had 00:10:30.639 --> 00:10:33.460 on Tuesday. Right. But by season two in L .A., 00:10:33.460 --> 00:10:36.179 they realized they needed something more immediate, 00:10:36.279 --> 00:10:40.220 more integrated. So they built a dedicated, soundproof 00:10:40.220 --> 00:10:42.980 room right inside the house. And that changed 00:10:42.980 --> 00:10:46.250 everything. It became this. This sanctuary for 00:10:46.250 --> 00:10:48.629 the cast. Jed Winnick from the San Francisco 00:10:48.629 --> 00:10:50.970 season called it therapy without the help. Which 00:10:50.970 --> 00:10:54.549 is such a funny. And also got a dark way to describe 00:10:54.549 --> 00:10:56.549 it. But think about the psychology. You're in 00:10:56.549 --> 00:10:58.970 this house. You don't really trust anyone. You're 00:10:58.970 --> 00:11:01.450 always being watched. The confessional becomes 00:11:01.450 --> 00:11:03.690 the only place you can supposedly be honest. 00:11:03.870 --> 00:11:06.090 You end up forming a weirdly intimate relationship 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:08.769 with a camera lens. And for the editors, it's 00:11:08.769 --> 00:11:11.909 a gift from heaven because real life is messy. 00:11:12.090 --> 00:11:14.629 Real arguments are confusing. The confessional 00:11:14.629 --> 00:11:18.429 lets the producers create a story. 100%. You've 00:11:18.429 --> 00:11:20.509 got a scene where two people are yelling, but 00:11:20.509 --> 00:11:22.600 you can't really hear what they're saying. You 00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:24.600 just cut to a confessional clip of one of them 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:27.860 explaining, I was so mad because he ate the last 00:11:27.860 --> 00:11:30.419 of my peanut butter. It provides the narration. 00:11:30.740 --> 00:11:33.320 It lets the editors become the writers of the 00:11:33.320 --> 00:11:35.659 show. It also became a performance space. The 00:11:35.659 --> 00:11:37.759 cast started to get really creative with it. 00:11:37.860 --> 00:11:40.019 Oh, yeah. They realized this was their solo screen 00:11:40.019 --> 00:11:42.399 time. You'd get group confessionals. You'd get 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:45.159 people dressing up in costumes. Judd Winick famously 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:48.120 wore a nun's habit for one of his. And then there's 00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:50.620 the most infamous use of the confessional ever. 00:11:51.240 --> 00:11:54.220 Danny Roberts in New Orleans. Oh, boy. So Danny's 00:11:54.220 --> 00:11:57.000 boyfriend, Paul, was in the military at the time 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.080 during Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So his face had 00:11:59.080 --> 00:12:02.039 to be blurred on the show. But they went into 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:04.799 the confessional, turned out the lights and made 00:12:04.799 --> 00:12:07.759 use of the privacy for some illicit activities, 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:09.899 as the sources put it. A confessional literally 00:12:09.899 --> 00:12:12.360 became a character in its own right. But OK, 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:14.259 let's talk about how the show was received, because 00:12:14.259 --> 00:12:16.279 today we think of it as this instant classic. 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:20.580 But the critics at the time, they despised it. 00:12:20.919 --> 00:12:22.720 They were brutal. I mean, you have to remember 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:25.659 the phrase reality TV wasn't really a thing yet. 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:27.559 So they were judging it against the standards 00:12:27.559 --> 00:12:30.840 of like serious documentaries. And they just 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:33.440 thought it was shallow. USA Today called it painfully 00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:35.639 bogus. And my favorite, The Washington Post called 00:12:35.639 --> 00:12:38.639 it excruciating torture. Excruciating torture 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:41.419 and said the cast should get a real job. They 00:12:41.419 --> 00:12:44.399 just didn't get it at all. They saw it as narcissistic 00:12:44.399 --> 00:12:46.460 and fake. They were like, who are these kids 00:12:46.460 --> 00:12:48.500 and why should we care about their problems? 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:51.389 But the audience. the audience saw themselves. 00:12:51.830 --> 00:12:55.210 And it caught on fast. By October of 93, not 00:12:55.210 --> 00:12:57.789 even two years in, Saturday Night Live was doing 00:12:57.789 --> 00:12:59.629 parodies of it. And that's when you know you've 00:12:59.629 --> 00:13:01.830 arrived. When SNL is making fun of you, you're 00:13:01.830 --> 00:13:03.470 officially a part of the culture. Which brings 00:13:03.470 --> 00:13:05.830 us to what many people, myself included, consider 00:13:05.830 --> 00:13:08.429 the absolute peak of the series, the golden era. 00:13:08.549 --> 00:13:11.190 I'm talking about season three, San Francisco. 00:13:11.350 --> 00:13:13.610 San Francisco. This is the season that proved 00:13:13.610 --> 00:13:16.490 reality TV could actually be important. It wasn't 00:13:16.490 --> 00:13:19.090 just, you know, fluff. And it all centered around 00:13:19.090 --> 00:13:21.649 this one incredible central conflict between 00:13:21.649 --> 00:13:23.870 Puck and Pedro. It felt like something out of 00:13:23.870 --> 00:13:26.289 a play. It was Shakespearean. It really was. 00:13:26.350 --> 00:13:29.330 You have these two magnetic opposing forces. 00:13:29.470 --> 00:13:32.370 On one side, you have David Puck Rainey, the 00:13:32.370 --> 00:13:36.009 bicycle messenger. famously unhygienic. We all 00:13:36.009 --> 00:13:37.710 remember the finger in the peanut butter jar. 00:13:37.850 --> 00:13:39.690 I try to block it out, but yes, he was loud. 00:13:39.830 --> 00:13:42.029 He was obnoxious. He had no concept of personal 00:13:42.029 --> 00:13:44.649 space. He was the prototype. He was the first 00:13:44.649 --> 00:13:48.710 true reality TV villain. He understood, maybe 00:13:48.710 --> 00:13:51.850 intuitively, that being hated was just as good 00:13:51.850 --> 00:13:54.669 as being loved. It was still attention. And then 00:13:54.669 --> 00:13:57.429 on the other side, you have Pedro Zamora, a young, 00:13:57.450 --> 00:14:00.549 brilliant, charismatic Cuban -American activist 00:14:00.549 --> 00:14:03.259 who was openly living with AIDS. And we really 00:14:03.259 --> 00:14:04.820 have to stop and think about the context here. 00:14:04.860 --> 00:14:07.399 This is 1994. The public conversation around 00:14:07.399 --> 00:14:10.299 AIDS was a completely different world. A completely 00:14:10.299 --> 00:14:12.879 different universe. There was still so much fear, 00:14:12.919 --> 00:14:16.200 so much stigma and misinformation. The lifesaving 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:19.059 drug cocktails we have today, they weren't really 00:14:19.059 --> 00:14:21.909 available yet. An HIV diagnosis was still seen 00:14:21.909 --> 00:14:24.269 by most people as a death sentence. And Pedro, 00:14:24.429 --> 00:14:26.529 he knew this. He went on the show explicitly 00:14:26.529 --> 00:14:29.269 as an activist. His goal was to put a human face 00:14:29.269 --> 00:14:31.149 on the disease for millions of young people. 00:14:31.269 --> 00:14:34.090 It worked. The sources all agree on how incredibly 00:14:34.090 --> 00:14:36.809 impactful he was. He was one of the very first 00:14:36.809 --> 00:14:39.690 openly gay men with AIDS to be shown not as a 00:14:39.690 --> 00:14:42.190 statistic or a patient, but just as a person, 00:14:42.289 --> 00:14:45.210 as a roommate. A roommate, a friend, a loving 00:14:45.210 --> 00:14:48.629 partner. We saw his entire life. And we saw his 00:14:48.629 --> 00:14:50.830 commitment ceremony with his partner, Sean Sasser, 00:14:50.950 --> 00:14:53.789 on the show. A same -sex wedding ceremony on 00:14:53.789 --> 00:14:56.730 MTV in 1994. I mean, that was monumental. And 00:14:56.730 --> 00:14:58.690 the timing of it all just made it so much more 00:14:58.690 --> 00:15:02.090 tragic and powerful. Yeah. Pedro's health was 00:15:02.090 --> 00:15:03.889 declining during the filming, and it got much 00:15:03.889 --> 00:15:05.850 worse right after. He passed away on November 00:15:05.850 --> 00:15:09.009 11, 1994. It was just a few hours after the season 00:15:09.009 --> 00:15:11.690 finale aired. That's just devastating. The audience 00:15:11.690 --> 00:15:13.889 watches this incredible journey, this beautiful 00:15:13.889 --> 00:15:16.529 life, and then the moment the credits roll on 00:15:16.529 --> 00:15:19.490 the finale, He's gone. It was a national event 00:15:19.490 --> 00:15:22.710 for our generation. President Bill Clinton spoke 00:15:22.710 --> 00:15:25.990 about him, praised his courage. And that moment, 00:15:26.049 --> 00:15:28.730 that whole season, it cemented the real world 00:15:28.730 --> 00:15:32.450 as something more than just TV. It felt important. 00:15:32.690 --> 00:15:35.409 It showed that this format, for all its flaws, 00:15:35.669 --> 00:15:38.330 could create a level of empathy that scripted 00:15:38.330 --> 00:15:41.309 shows struggled to match because you knew. You 00:15:41.309 --> 00:15:43.889 knew Pedro was real. And that season wasn't a 00:15:43.889 --> 00:15:45.909 fluke in terms of tackling big issues. Those 00:15:45.909 --> 00:15:48.590 early seasons were full of heavy stuff. Incredibly 00:15:48.590 --> 00:15:51.769 heavy. You go back to season two in Los Angeles, 00:15:51.830 --> 00:15:53.769 you had Tammy Roman dealing with the decision 00:15:53.769 --> 00:15:55.490 to have an abortion. And they didn't shy away 00:15:55.490 --> 00:15:57.809 from it. The cameras were right there. No. They 00:15:57.809 --> 00:16:00.659 documented the whole thing. Her decision. her 00:16:00.659 --> 00:16:03.480 recovery, and critically, the conflict it created 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:05.080 in the house with her roommate John Brennan, 00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:06.980 who was a very conservative Christian country 00:16:06.980 --> 00:16:09.419 singer. You had this huge national debate, pro 00:16:09.419 --> 00:16:12.039 -choice versus pro -life, playing out right there 00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:13.559 in their kitchen while they're making toast. 00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:16.200 That was the real part. That was it. It wasn't 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:18.399 some polished debate stage. It was messy. It 00:16:18.399 --> 00:16:21.700 was emotional. It was personal. Or even season 00:16:21.700 --> 00:16:24.559 one with Kevin Powell and Julie Gentry constantly 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:27.480 arguing about race in America. These were not 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:30.159 fights about dirty dishes. These were deep ideological 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:32.340 battles. And the sources point out something 00:16:32.340 --> 00:16:34.379 really interesting about the cast members back 00:16:34.379 --> 00:16:37.580 then. They all had these ambitious goals. They 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:41.059 wanted to be artists, poets, singers. Yes. They 00:16:41.059 --> 00:16:43.879 saw the show as a platform, but they were defined 00:16:43.879 --> 00:16:45.820 by what they wanted to do with their lives, not 00:16:45.820 --> 00:16:47.899 just by being a personality. They were people 00:16:47.899 --> 00:16:50.980 who happened to be on TV, which is a pretty stark 00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:53.309 contrast to where the show ended up going. Which 00:16:53.309 --> 00:16:55.289 is the perfect transition. We have to talk about 00:16:55.289 --> 00:16:58.149 the shift. The exact moment the show pivoted 00:16:58.149 --> 00:17:00.909 from being a docuseries into, well, into party 00:17:00.909 --> 00:17:03.389 world. You can almost circle the date on a calendar. 00:17:03.789 --> 00:17:06.589 2002. Las Vegas. Las Vegas. That's the season. 00:17:06.710 --> 00:17:09.049 It changed everything. Just the location alone 00:17:09.049 --> 00:17:11.569 tells you everything you need to know. The show 00:17:11.569 --> 00:17:14.210 went from these gritty, creative cities, New 00:17:14.210 --> 00:17:17.490 York, San Francisco, London, to the Palms Casino 00:17:17.490 --> 00:17:20.369 Resort. The setting completely dictates the story. 00:17:20.630 --> 00:17:23.059 Suddenly, you're not in a loft. where you have 00:17:23.059 --> 00:17:24.900 to go out and get a job and interact with the 00:17:24.900 --> 00:17:27.700 city. You're in a luxury suite in a casino. You're 00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:30.460 in a fantasy bubble. The show stopped being about 00:17:30.460 --> 00:17:32.920 people stop being polite in terms of debating 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.339 politics. And started being about people stop 00:17:35.339 --> 00:17:37.420 being polite in terms of hooking up in the hot 00:17:37.420 --> 00:17:40.400 tub. Exactly. The focus shifted almost entirely 00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:44.220 to partying, drinking, and sexual tension. And 00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:46.769 look, from a ratings perspective. It totally 00:17:46.769 --> 00:17:49.349 worked. It gave the show a huge shot in the arm. 00:17:49.450 --> 00:17:52.549 It was glossy and sexy and dramatic. But the 00:17:52.549 --> 00:17:54.930 critics at the time pointed out the change. LA 00:17:54.930 --> 00:17:56.930 Weekly had a great line about how the show stopped 00:17:56.930 --> 00:17:59.730 delving into hot button issues and just started 00:17:59.730 --> 00:18:02.250 pushing buttons to make people melt down. It 00:18:02.250 --> 00:18:04.250 felt less like an experiment and more like a 00:18:04.250 --> 00:18:06.529 game. And the actual rules of the show started 00:18:06.529 --> 00:18:08.549 to change to support that. Let's talk about the 00:18:08.549 --> 00:18:11.130 jobs. Right. In the first few seasons, the job 00:18:11.130 --> 00:18:14.750 was literally go find a job. It was part of the 00:18:14.750 --> 00:18:16.670 reality of being a young person. How am I going 00:18:16.670 --> 00:18:20.150 to pay my bills? A very relatable conflict. But 00:18:20.150 --> 00:18:22.910 by season five in Miami, the producers figured 00:18:22.910 --> 00:18:25.089 out that if everyone has different jobs, they're 00:18:25.089 --> 00:18:26.809 not all in the house together to create drama. 00:18:27.569 --> 00:18:30.650 So they started assigning group tasks. Here's 00:18:30.650 --> 00:18:32.970 some money. Start a t -shirt company. It keeps 00:18:32.970 --> 00:18:34.890 them all in the fishbowl. But then they took 00:18:34.890 --> 00:18:37.970 it a step further. By season 10, they introduced 00:18:37.970 --> 00:18:40.660 the firing rule. This was the real game changer. 00:18:40.859 --> 00:18:43.779 If you got fired from the mandatory group job, 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:46.579 you got kicked out of the house. And think about 00:18:46.579 --> 00:18:49.440 what that does to the dynamic. It's not a documentary 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:52.039 anymore. It's an elimination competition. Suddenly, 00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:54.079 you're not just living your life. You're trying 00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:56.160 not to get voted off the island, so to speak. 00:18:56.299 --> 00:18:58.680 We saw people get sent home for it. It definitely 00:18:58.680 --> 00:19:01.160 raises the stakes for the viewer, but it kills 00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:04.160 any claim to authenticity. Which brings us to 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:06.480 the really dark side of the show, because for 00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:08.559 a show called The Real World, there were always 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:11.539 questions about how real any of it was and how 00:19:11.539 --> 00:19:13.859 ethical the producers were being. Those fakeness 00:19:13.859 --> 00:19:16.240 accusations were there from the beginning. And 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:18.700 one of the loudest voices came from a former 00:19:18.700 --> 00:19:21.440 cast member, Irene McGee, from the Seattle season. 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:25.579 Her story is wild. She claims she quit the show 00:19:25.579 --> 00:19:27.539 because of how unethical the whole environment 00:19:27.539 --> 00:19:30.400 was. But the detail that always stuck with me 00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:34.039 that the sources really highlight is the pickles. 00:19:34.339 --> 00:19:37.819 Ah, yes. The Vlasic pickle incident. You have 00:19:37.819 --> 00:19:39.740 to explain this because it sounds so ridiculous, 00:19:39.900 --> 00:19:42.960 but it's actually so revealing. So Irene claimed 00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:45.039 that the house wasn't stocked like a normal house 00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:47.339 with groceries you'd buy. She said the fridge 00:19:47.339 --> 00:19:50.519 was just filled with... Giant crates of Vlasic 00:19:50.519 --> 00:19:53.220 pickles and Nantucket nectars because those were 00:19:53.220 --> 00:19:55.039 the sponsors. Okay, that's just product placement. 00:19:55.140 --> 00:19:56.660 We see that everywhere. But she said it went 00:19:56.660 --> 00:19:59.619 way further than that. She alleged that if she 00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:01.980 was just drinking, say, her own can of Coke, 00:20:02.220 --> 00:20:04.680 a crew member would literally come over and make 00:20:04.680 --> 00:20:07.079 her put it down and hold the sponsored drink 00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:09.619 with the label perfectly facing the camera. Wow, 00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:11.900 that's so specific. It just shatters the whole 00:20:11.900 --> 00:20:14.519 illusion. It's a constant reminder that you're 00:20:14.519 --> 00:20:17.470 not in a home. You're on a set. You're a walking 00:20:17.470 --> 00:20:19.769 billboard. Exactly. And if the drink in your 00:20:19.769 --> 00:20:22.430 hand is staged, what else is staged? And it went 00:20:22.430 --> 00:20:24.930 beyond products. There were accusations of producers 00:20:24.930 --> 00:20:27.490 trying to stage emotions. Like telling the cast 00:20:27.490 --> 00:20:30.150 what to feel or say. Yeah. The story from season 00:20:30.150 --> 00:20:34.069 two with John Brennan, producers allegedly asked 00:20:34.069 --> 00:20:37.569 him to say on camera that he hated Tammy Roman 00:20:37.569 --> 00:20:41.109 for her abortion decision. And he refused. He 00:20:41.109 --> 00:20:43.289 said, I disagree with her choice, but I don't 00:20:43.289 --> 00:20:45.680 hate her as a person. But it just shows you what 00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:47.579 they were pushing for. They wanted these clean, 00:20:47.740 --> 00:20:50.759 simple narratives. A hero and a villain. Even 00:20:50.759 --> 00:20:53.259 if the reality was much more complicated. And 00:20:53.259 --> 00:20:54.799 then there's the issue of physical safety. We 00:20:54.799 --> 00:20:56.579 mentioned the Seattle season. We have to talk 00:20:56.579 --> 00:20:58.240 about what happened with Irene and Steven. We 00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:00.519 have to talk about the slap. This was a huge 00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:03.680 moment, ethically, for all of reality TV. As 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:06.460 Irene was leaving the show, moving out, she gets 00:21:06.460 --> 00:21:09.079 into a final argument with Steven Williams. And 00:21:09.079 --> 00:21:11.119 she's getting into the car to leave. He runs 00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:13.380 out, yanks the door open, and slaps her across 00:21:13.380 --> 00:21:16.740 the face. Yeah. On camera. A clear act of assault. 00:21:16.920 --> 00:21:19.589 And the producers, their response was to... do 00:21:19.589 --> 00:21:21.769 nothing. They let the cast vote on it. It's just 00:21:21.769 --> 00:21:23.589 mind -boggling. They basically turned to the 00:21:23.589 --> 00:21:25.849 other roommates and said, you guys decide if 00:21:25.849 --> 00:21:28.049 he gets to stay. And the roommates let him stay. 00:21:28.210 --> 00:21:30.529 What kind of a precedent does that set? That 00:21:30.529 --> 00:21:33.730 violence is okay as long as it's dramatic. It 00:21:33.730 --> 00:21:35.690 showed that producer intervention was basically 00:21:35.690 --> 00:21:39.069 a function of legal liability. The rules on violence 00:21:39.069 --> 00:21:41.309 were always inconsistent after that. Sometimes, 00:21:41.529 --> 00:21:43.650 in later seasons, someone would be sent home 00:21:43.650 --> 00:21:45.910 immediately. Other times, it would be put to 00:21:45.910 --> 00:21:49.009 a vote. it really seemed to depend on how important 00:21:49.009 --> 00:21:51.650 that person was to the season's storyline. That 00:21:51.650 --> 00:21:54.769 feels incredibly dangerous and exploitative. 00:21:55.009 --> 00:21:57.349 And speaking of exploitation, we have to talk 00:21:57.349 --> 00:21:59.869 about substance abuse. This is probably the darkest 00:21:59.869 --> 00:22:02.609 part of the show's legacy. When you specifically 00:22:02.609 --> 00:22:05.769 cast young people who you know like to party, 00:22:05.849 --> 00:22:08.029 and then you put them in a house with a free 00:22:08.029 --> 00:22:10.920 unlimited bar. bad things are going to happen. 00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:12.920 The first one that comes to mind is Ruthie Alcade 00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:15.700 from the Hawaii season. That was so hard to watch. 00:22:15.799 --> 00:22:17.920 She was drinking to the point of blacking out 00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:20.440 constantly. She ended up having to be hospitalized 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:22.960 for alcohol poisoning, and the producers had 00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:24.720 to intervene on camera. They had to break the 00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:27.480 fourth wall because her life was in danger. But 00:22:27.480 --> 00:22:29.799 it raises the question, right, is it documenting 00:22:29.799 --> 00:22:32.779 a problem or is it enabling a problem? If you're 00:22:32.779 --> 00:22:35.339 the one supplying all the alcohol, you can't 00:22:35.339 --> 00:22:37.299 really act shocked when someone develops a drinking 00:22:37.299 --> 00:22:39.960 problem. Exactly. And it led to real tragedy. 00:22:41.180 --> 00:22:43.859 Joey Kovar from the Hollywood season struggled 00:22:43.859 --> 00:22:46.640 with addiction on the show. He went to rehab 00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:49.599 during the season, but he ultimately died of 00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:52.240 an overdose a few years later. And Frankie Abernathy 00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:54.960 from San Diego, who lived with cystic fibrosis. 00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:57.440 Yes. And we saw so many cast members dealing 00:22:57.440 --> 00:23:00.480 with eating disorders, with self -harm, all on 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:03.160 camera. The show became this platform for mental 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:05.559 health issues, but it wasn't handled by therapists. 00:23:05.859 --> 00:23:08.819 It was handled by story producers. The breakdown 00:23:08.819 --> 00:23:11.279 became a plot point. It commodified their pain. 00:23:11.539 --> 00:23:14.200 It did. Okay, that's heavy. So let's pivot to 00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:15.799 something a little more surprising, the alumni 00:23:15.799 --> 00:23:17.859 network. Because for a show that was supposed 00:23:17.859 --> 00:23:20.119 to be about regular people, a shocking number 00:23:20.119 --> 00:23:22.690 of them went on to become very... not regular 00:23:22.690 --> 00:23:24.849 people. It was an incredible launchpad. And the 00:23:24.849 --> 00:23:27.650 sheer variety of their careers is what's so wild. 00:23:27.750 --> 00:23:30.130 It's a testament to the casting directors, who 00:23:30.130 --> 00:23:32.269 clearly had an eye for a certain kind of charisma. 00:23:32.589 --> 00:23:35.049 Let's start with politics. Because if you had 00:23:35.049 --> 00:23:38.589 told me in 1997 that the goofy lumberjack guy 00:23:38.589 --> 00:23:41.450 from the Boston season would one day be a U .S. 00:23:41.569 --> 00:23:43.869 congressman. Sean Duffy. He was the young Republican 00:23:43.869 --> 00:23:46.470 from Wisconsin on the Boston season. He goes 00:23:46.470 --> 00:23:49.430 on to serve multiple terms in Congress. And Kevin 00:23:49.430 --> 00:23:52.009 Powell from the very first season became a respected 00:23:52.009 --> 00:23:55.029 author and a serious political voice. So you 00:23:55.029 --> 00:23:57.809 have both sides of the aisle represented by real 00:23:57.809 --> 00:24:00.369 world alumni, which kind of makes sense. The 00:24:00.369 --> 00:24:02.769 show was a boot camp in how to argue your point 00:24:02.769 --> 00:24:04.569 of view on camera. That's a pretty good skill 00:24:04.569 --> 00:24:08.380 for a politician. OK. And then. There's The Miz. 00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:11.480 Mike Mizanin. From the back to New York season, 00:24:11.700 --> 00:24:13.619 this is maybe the greatest success story of them 00:24:13.619 --> 00:24:15.819 all. This was a guy who was like an annoying 00:24:15.819 --> 00:24:18.299 frat bro who walked around with a fake wrestling 00:24:18.299 --> 00:24:21.559 belt talking to his alter ego, The Miz. His roommates 00:24:21.559 --> 00:24:23.420 openly mocked him for it. They thought he was 00:24:23.420 --> 00:24:26.279 a told joke, but he was just relentlessly committed 00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:28.500 to this character. He used the show as his audition 00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:31.920 tape, and now he's a legitimate, massive WWE 00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:34.480 superstar. He basically manifested his own reality. 00:24:34.990 --> 00:24:37.329 And we have actual movie stars, Jamie Chung, 00:24:37.589 --> 00:24:39.630 Jacinda Barrett. Jed Winnick, who we talked about, 00:24:39.730 --> 00:24:42.049 became a huge writer for DC Comics. He wrote 00:24:42.049 --> 00:24:44.730 Batman and Green Lantern. He's a major name in 00:24:44.730 --> 00:24:47.329 that world. But then there's the other career 00:24:47.329 --> 00:24:50.089 path the show created, the professional reality 00:24:50.089 --> 00:24:53.230 star. This is the ecosystem that Bunim and Murray 00:24:53.230 --> 00:24:56.329 built, first with the spinoff Road Rules and 00:24:56.329 --> 00:24:59.619 then the big one. The challenge. The challenge 00:24:59.619 --> 00:25:02.019 is its own universe now. It's like the pro league 00:25:02.019 --> 00:25:05.660 for reality TV contestants. It completely changed 00:25:05.660 --> 00:25:09.000 the game. It meant that former real world cast 00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:11.599 member could be your actual long term career. 00:25:11.740 --> 00:25:13.900 You could go on the challenge season after season 00:25:13.900 --> 00:25:16.539 and win hundreds of thousands of dollars. You 00:25:16.539 --> 00:25:18.119 never had to go back to your day job. You could 00:25:18.119 --> 00:25:20.410 just exist in the MTV bubble forever. It's like 00:25:20.410 --> 00:25:22.670 a pension plan for reality stars. It kept them 00:25:22.670 --> 00:25:25.410 famous -ish and paid them really well for it. 00:25:25.470 --> 00:25:27.970 Exactly. It was the monetization of a persona. 00:25:28.269 --> 00:25:30.569 Yeah. You didn't need a talent like acting or 00:25:30.569 --> 00:25:33.009 singing. Your talent was just being CT from the 00:25:33.009 --> 00:25:35.609 real world. So we've traced this whole 30 -year 00:25:35.609 --> 00:25:38.420 journey. From a Soho lock to Facebook Watch, 00:25:38.660 --> 00:25:41.720 it's an incredible run. It is. And then we had 00:25:41.720 --> 00:25:43.720 the homecoming reunions on Paramount Plus B, 00:25:43.859 --> 00:25:45.960 bringing the original cast back together. And 00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:48.279 those were really good. Seeing the New York cast 00:25:48.279 --> 00:25:51.039 or the New Orleans cast back in that house decades 00:25:51.039 --> 00:25:53.920 later, it proved the format still had magic. 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:56.240 It did, but I think the magic was nostalgia. 00:25:56.890 --> 00:25:59.150 We were watching them watch themselves. We were 00:25:59.150 --> 00:26:01.650 processing our own youth through them. So what's 00:26:01.650 --> 00:26:03.710 the final takeaway? When you zoom all the way 00:26:03.710 --> 00:26:06.329 out, what did the real world actually leave us 00:26:06.329 --> 00:26:08.490 with? I think the best way to describe it is 00:26:08.490 --> 00:26:11.589 as a mirror. In the 90s, that mirror reflected 00:26:11.589 --> 00:26:13.910 a generation that was anxious about things like 00:26:13.910 --> 00:26:17.329 the AIDS crisis, race, finding a career. It was 00:26:17.329 --> 00:26:20.299 really earnest. Then in the 2000s, the mirror 00:26:20.299 --> 00:26:22.539 reflected a culture that was becoming obsessed 00:26:22.539 --> 00:26:24.759 with partying, with hooking up, with a kind of 00:26:24.759 --> 00:26:26.880 shallow fame. It didn't just show us the real 00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:29.140 world. It showed us what we, the audience, wanted 00:26:29.140 --> 00:26:31.680 to see. That's it, exactly. And in the process, 00:26:31.799 --> 00:26:33.799 it taught all of us how to speak reality TV. 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:36.480 We learned the language, the confessional, the 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:39.079 villain edit, the showmance. We're all fluent 00:26:39.079 --> 00:26:42.099 in it now because the real world literally wrote 00:26:42.099 --> 00:26:44.519 the dictionary. That's a perfect way to say it. 00:26:44.539 --> 00:26:46.359 We all know the grammar of this kind of fame 00:26:46.359 --> 00:26:48.519 now. So I'll leave you with this final thought. 00:26:49.140 --> 00:26:51.859 We now live in the age of TikTok and Instagram. 00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:56.539 Everyone is their own reality star. Everyone 00:26:56.539 --> 00:26:59.180 is constantly filming themselves, editing their 00:26:59.180 --> 00:27:02.599 own lives, performing in their own daily confessional 00:27:02.599 --> 00:27:04.460 for their followers. We're all cast members in 00:27:04.460 --> 00:27:06.859 our own show. We are. So here's the question. 00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:09.420 If you were to launch the real world today for 00:27:09.420 --> 00:27:12.579 the very first time, would it even be possible? 00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:15.279 Could anyone actually stop being polite and start 00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:19.400 getting real? Or did this show, by its very existence, 00:27:19.660 --> 00:27:22.740 invent the kind of self -aware artificiality 00:27:22.740 --> 00:27:25.740 that makes being truly real on camera impossible 00:27:25.740 --> 00:27:28.680 now? That's a heavy question. Did watching reality 00:27:28.680 --> 00:27:30.900 ultimately kill reality? I think it might have. 00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:32.880 On that slightly terrifying note, we're going 00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:34.559 to wrap up this deep dive. This has been the 00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:37.019 true story of Seven Strangers and all of us. 00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:39.519 Thanks for listening. Stay real, if you still 00:27:39.519 --> 00:27:39.740 can.