--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: The Real World image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt275febc6fbbb2fef/69869f34e8524b3d70604428/t100_tv_realworld1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 12, 2014 # _The Real World_ by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Everett Before it became a college internship in binge drinking and casual sex, this ur-reality show was an actual interesting social experiment—if not the kind it was advertised as. No, it was not really about what happened when seven kids living under cameras “start\[ed\] getting real.”(That’s why it was all the more arresting in season 3 when actual reality intruded on the show in the form of AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, who died soon after the season aired.) It’s about performance, and young people’s complicated relationship with authenticity and privacy in the Internet age. _Survivor_ added a million-dollar giveaway to the concept, but in _The Real World_—as in _Laguna Beach_, and for that matter, nearly every MTV reality show since— attention itself is the prize. [Get This TV Series](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006DXXR/?tag=timecom-20 "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103726/the-real-world/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103726/the-real-world/"},"headline":"The Real World","datePublished":"2014-08-12T15:08:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:01:39.729Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103726/the-real-world/","keywords":["MTV"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt275febc6fbbb2fef/69869f34e8524b3d70604428/t100_tv_realworld1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt275febc6fbbb2fef/69869f34e8524b3d70604428/t100_tv_realworld1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103726/the-real-world/","name":"The Real World"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Real World","description":"Before it became a college internship in binge drinking and casual sex, this ur-reality show was an actual interesting social experiment.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/QGCpj6qb/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2007-09-04T21:49:55.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QGCpj6qb.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103726/the-real-world/","duration":"PT31S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103726/the-real-world/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```