The Real World

The Real World
I’ve had so much stuff to blog about this week, but I just haven’t been sitting in front of a computer much. (The Sale has been kicking my butt.) But this info is just too good to wait any longer. A certain designer friend of mine mentioned this week that she turned down an upcoming gig in Sydney to “design a house for some show called The Real World.” UM, EXCUSE ME? I quickly learned that yes, it really is the MTV proto-reality show, and their next season is going to take place Down Under. In Darling Harbour. About ten minutes’ walk from my house. (They’re going to convert the old bowling alley, apparently.) I also discovered that most Australians have never heard of this show. It just somehow missed their radar entirely. As you can imagine, I gave this designer person an earful. “But the Real World house is iconic! It’s always super-cool, and you’d be the one to design it!” Nah, she’s not interested. Whatever. I’m already planning to rejig all my jogging routes to go by the house. Watch for me next year!

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  1. I’ve never heard of this show. So how does it work?

  2. there will be a couple of australians in the house too!!!! You forgot to mention exhaustion was the reason that designer turned down the job!!!! and a commitment to another reality tv show and knitting

  3. The idea was quite revolutionary at the time it started, M-H. Way back in 1992, seven strangers got picked to live in a house in New York and have their lives taped. It wasn’t Big Brother; they had outside lives and were allowed to come and go. There was no prize and no winner. The first season’s “storyline” was mainly about a sheltered Southern girl (Julie) who had to adjust to living in the big city and dealing with other lifestyles, races, etc. It was pretty riveting and had fairly worthwhile aspirations, I think. They pitched it more like a documentary then anything else. Now it’s fourteen years later… and nowadays the formula has been reduced to sticking seven photogenic and oversexed college kids in a mansion and plying them with lots of booze. There were actually protests during the Chicago season. They’ve only done two overseas series before: London and Paris.

    So basically, the show these days is pretty crap. It’s like Big Brother crossed with a soapie. But Sydney will get a lot of international exposure out of it, and I’m just amused that people in the US will be able to see where I live.

  4. I should also mention the lauded San Francisco season, which featured an openly gay man with AIDS amongst the cast. Pedro was a lot of American teenagers’ first exposure to these issues. He died not long after the season finished airing.

  5. wait wait, there’s a bowling alley around here?

    and WHAT IS SHE THINKING.

  6. I don’t think the bowling alley’s been open for ages. It’s in that little stretch of shops along the water near the kiddie activity area.

  7. It is right near maccas and gloria jeans and the pond with the paddle boats – behind the imax theatre

  8. where the putt putt golf is now? at SEGA world?

  9. it was a bowling alley sports bar – and a cafe upstairs

  10. I’ve probably already mentioned this a thousand times, but it bears repeating that the husband kissed that Julie girl from the first season on a trampoline when they were in 7th grade or something.

    I never fail to mention this every time he criticizes the fact that—at 32 years old—I still watch that blasted show. “Well, at least I never KISSED any of them…”

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