Nostalgia

I'm sitting in my apartment watching a four year old episode of Real World/Road Rules (for now on known as RR/RW) Challenge: Fresh Meat and am simply stunned by the fact that this seems so long ago, yet it has only been 4 years. I started thinking why that is and came to the conclusion that since they have done so many challenges in such a short period of time, new cast members are shuffled into the mix so frequently that some of the very first cast mates are now too old. For example, Kenny is considered one of the 5 biggest mainstays of the Challenge, yet he actually debuted only 4 years ago on Fresh Meat. MTV has done a laudable job in introducing new participants and turning them into the veterans in just two seasons. This is why I have no worries about the show ending anytime soon. The cast is constantly evolving and everyone is as insane and horny as the next.

If we could all agree that the Challenge truly began as the incarnation you see now when they had one location, then between 2002 and 2010 there have been 15 challenges. That's amazing when you think about it in certain contexts. Wes from RW: Austin participated in Fresh Meat and The Duel in the same year. So we can assume he chose to blow off college for a year at least. Now he is doing Fresh Meat 2, which safely assumes the actual real world was not so kind. It's kind of sad that these people seem to be putting off, and in some cases ruining, their lives for these shows. But it's great for us, right?

(I don't want to get into the fact that most of these people are around the age where they should have real life responsibilities (job, family, school) yet can drop all of that for a month or two, whereas the rest of us...not so much. Much will be discussed about this throughout the blog.)

The funny unintended result of all these challenges is we view some of the earlier competitors in a nostalgic light, harking back to the good old times of the Challenge when it wasn't about backstabbing or steroids, just the competition. One of my favorite cast members, Alton from RW: Las Vegas, embodied the old days of pure athletic competition without all the backstabbing. It was a simpler time... Except that Alton last appeared on a Challenge only three years ago. How can we possibly call something that happened three years ago "the good old days?" And one of my other favorite cast members, Dan from RR: Northern Trail, was also billed as a good guy, yet kind of screwed over Brad from RW: San Diego. People backstabbed others even in the beginning. So there was no different eras of the Challenge, except of course, the Steroid Era, which we are still in the midst of.

Yet despite it all, I still have nostalgic feelings towards the older seasons. I can't really see them all anytime I want on MTV or online, and the casts are rejuvenated far too often for my liking. Players are elevated to superstar status after only a couple of years in the league and if you blink, you'll miss the great ones. But not Tonya. That crazy train wreck of a human being will be entertaining us for years.