MTV's newest season of "The Real World" is being filmed about 20 feet from my house. This blog will chronicle the pain and annoyance they put me and my neighbors through as well as the heckling my friends and I plan for the newest crop of "real worlders."
A friend of the blog, who shall remain anonymous, sent us the following of a recent photo shoot out back in the alley behind Busboys and Poets and Marvin on 14th Street. (Classy.)
This source speculates that several of these subjects seen in the photos here may be a few of the Real World D.C. cast.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
Now let’s take a look at the facts:
They appear to be young, 20-somethings and wearing douchey t-shirts. (Sorry dude in the orange shirt but only people who can destroy me are allowed to wear such things.)
There’s a combination of one guy (green shirt, light blue jeans from the ’80s) who looks like Anthony Michael Hall in the Breakfast Club and another guy (black shirt, white shoes) with way too much product in his ‘do.
They’re totally in an urban setting (just look at that graffiti on those walls!) and there’s legit photography equipment in the area.
Since we’ve heard the cast is reading our blog, we thought we’d let you know what you are missing. Yesterday, your house got a sweet outdoor grill. It’s still wrapped in packaging, but don’t worry it’s locked up so no one steals it.
More importantly, today you missed our fabulous gay pride parade! We hope none of the cast members are homophobes – you won’t do very well in our neighborhood!
So this morning I decided I’d waited long enough, and would just walk up to the house and ask for a meeting with MTV. Despite the local newspaper coverage, no one from the show has reached out directly to people in the neighborhood.
I walked over to the house and say plainly that I didn’t know who was with the show. Someone pointed to a man (let’s call him Man 1). He didn’t say much but took my contact information.
As I’m leaving, another man (let’s call him Man 2) started to get combative. Man 2 said “why the blog? are you anti-reality TV?” What this jerk doesn’t know is that ALL I WATCH is Reality TV – The Hills, Project Runway, and all of the Real Housewives seasons. I love those shows! What I’m anti- about is that I know how one should run a successful public relations campaign, and I know MTV isn’t doing a thorough job of reaching out to the community.
Man 2 mentioned a nightclub up the street and I said “yes, but when something goes into the neighborhood there are permits involved that the public knows about and that are approved by ANC.” I also mentioned to Man 2 that no one from MTV came to the ANC meeting the other night. Then the conversation went like this:
Me: There wasn’t an official MTV representative at the meeting.
Man 2: How do you know that?
Me: No one spoke up.
Man 2: You don’t know that no one was there.
Me: Well I sure hope someone was there and taking notes. But no one stood up and spoke and answered questions.
I’m really irritated and dismayed by how unprofessional MTV or their PR representation are being. Granted, people seem to think this whole production might not be disruptive to our city, but we’re talking about my street and my neighbors and my family. I asked a neighbor today as I was walking my dog, and he said he would probably come to a meeting of the neighbors on the street and MTV. He also knows the guy two houses down from us who is concerned and would definitely come. Both neighbors are probably in their fifties.
People have HOMES here, and we just want some answers.
DCBadger: Oh, totally, I mean what does that even mean? These people have no idea the sort of demographics we’re dealing with in Washington.
KLP: Agreed, I mean, DC has an AIDS epidemic, 3% of our population has AIDS. Are they going to spotlight that?
DC: That’s depressing, I mean, not the sort of hard hitting, award winning TV that MTV is used to producing.
KLP: Or the fact that over 50% of the District is African-American. Are we going to have a majority black cast?
DC: Of course not…I mean, look, some PR flack up in New York has absolutely NO idea what DC is like.
KLP: Agreed, hell, what’s the probability that any of them will even be able to name 3 Supreme Court Justices, or multiple members of Congress, or a political operative….
DC: Well there are only about 100,000 of us in town that could do that.
KLP: That’s not the point. This isn’t San Francisco, this isn’t New York, this isn’t Miami. This is Washington. I mean, what happens if some intern from [Redacted’s] office ends up in the background of a shot. They will get fired, their career will be over.
DC: And there will be 5,000 kids applying for their job tomorrow.
KLP: That’s not really the point either. Look, if this town is going to be featured in a show, it should take into account that this city is something different…it’s a dichotomy that no one understands. On one hand it is the most powerful city on Earth, on the other hand it has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation. We have the World Bank, the IMF, every dollar in the US is printed on 14th Street, and yet we have one of the most anemic public school systems in the world….I mean……
Here is a shot of the MTV Real World DC house I took from my living room. Hopefully this serves as proof to those who doubted my proximity to these tools.
MTV's newest season of "The Real World" is being filmed about 20 feet from my house. This blog will chronicle the pain and annoyance they put me and my neighbors through as well as the heckling my friends and I plan for the newest crop of "real worlders."
Tips, Photos, Stories can be sent to:
antirealworlddc [at] gmail [dot] com
