Danny, Wes, Nehemiah, Melinda, & Johanna from The Real Word Austin came here to the University of South Carolina to talk about their experience on the show. It wasn't sponsored by MTV so they were free to talk about just about anything. I've always been curious about what goes on behind the cameras and in the editing room on these reality shows. It was pretty interesting and it was also nice to look at Melinda for an hour. Here's a few of the questions they answered that I can remember.

You know those "casting tapes" that MTV shows of the people who got picked for the show? They are suposedly tapes that people record of themselves and send to MTV hoping to get picked for the show. Well, MTV actually had them record those tapes AFTER they talked to them at open casting calls. (When MTV comes to a city and does interviews for the show) So, don't waste your time recording a tape if you want to get on Real World. Actually, Johanna said that after she got picked for the show, MTV told her to record a new tape b/c hers was too boring and they wanted to portray her as the party girl. Sneaky sneaky.

The cast had a lot of rules that I didn't know about too. One big one is that they had a 1:30am curfew every night. Crazy shit huh? I guess MTV wants them to come back to the house early so that they can tape them being drunk and stupid at the house. Also, they said that wherever they went people would yell at them or throw things at them and if they fought back, the producers would yell at them and tell them to ignore people. Oh, and whenever they break things in the house, they actually get charged for it. They buy all their alcohol too. I was surprised to hear that. I figured with the way marketers are paying big bucks to have their products shown in TV shows and movies, beer companies would supply free alcohol.

The people acted a lot like they were portrayed on the show eventhough they all swear that MTV chooses a type of character that they want each person to be portrayed as and only show them like that. For example, they said that Lacey went out a lot but she was never shown partying while Wes and Johanna said that they really don't party that much but were only shown on the show drinking and partying all the time. Wes was kind of an asshole. He was really heated that people see them on the show and assume that they know them and can judge them and hate them. I guess that would piss me off too but in the future, Wes might not want to say fuck you to an entire auditorium of people that came to hear them talk.

So, in conclusion, there's a couple shady things that MTV does but nothing too crazy. I guess the show is still pretty "real". Laguna Beach on the other hand, is a different story. LC and Steven came to USC last night for the same kind of Q&A. My next blog post will be about what they said. I now know more than I ever needed to know about Laguna Beach .... Stay Tuned.