Old-school viewers remain adamant that 'The Real World' has deteriorated, as if the original enterprise were some pristine experiment that got sullied as the conditions in the lab got sloppier.
I watched the first episode of 'Survivor' in the spring of 2000, thinking I would hate it. My natural inclination steers me toward the indoors not only in my actual life but also in the settings of the entertainment I read and watch.
I'd go to the library so I could sit in a big, quiet room and listen to pages being turned. There was a boring librarian who everyone in fifth grade hated. But I loved her because when she would read us stories in her soft voice, she'd turn my head into a snow globe.
I'm definitely very interested in doing female narrators that aren't typically feminine or emotional or soft - especially teenage girls - because I have such a hard time relating to so many of them that I read. They feel psychologically cuter to me than I ever was.
I've never read any of the '50 Shades of Grey' books because the Internet pre-educated me about the 'my inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves' material.
Irvine is such a safe, stable, planned community, and I'm a person who has a lot of inner longing for drama and romance. So I think in some way the structure of Irvine made me more creative because I had these boundaries, and I thought outside them.
Louis CK knows that just because a joke is using space as a resource instead of something to be crammed like a hamper, this doesn't mean a story isn't happening.
My feeling for reality TV isn't ironic, guilty, or apologetic. Reality TV is one of the few remaining modes of popular entertainment in which characterization is permitted as plot.
I was 11 years old when I saw the first season of 'The Real World.' Initially, I was drawn to the show because it was what I imagined the adult version of my life should be.
'Real Housewives of New Jersey' has taught me more about the nature of a vacuum in space than any of the demonstrations in my high school AP physics textbook.
The first time I ever heard professional actors delivering lines that I wrote was completely surreal and was just a gigantic moment in my life. It was just a little bit mind-blowing and completely strange to have something that had been on my computer being said out loud.
The second book was probably the result of the relationship I was in at the time. We were only going to be compatible for a minute, and I think we both knew it. It's like how you can be a different person on vacation, but you know all along you're just visiting that mindset.
TV's not the problem, and I'm tired of it being posed as this antithesis to creativity and productivity. If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.
Ultimately, criticism that 'The Real World' has devolved into a lesser enterprise comes from the viewers who came of age alongside it, not the teens of the moment that MTV has always existed for.
Viewers make online requests to their favorite video-making whisperers to do the things that trigger their head tingles. Everyone's needs are different. It's like an interactive choose-your-own-adventure.
What 'Survivor' is really about is the inescapability of your being yourself, even when you have told yourself you can be someone different for 30 days.
When I left for college, I told myself that this was a chance for reinvention. No one on the other side of the country knew that I was an introvert, so maybe if I tried not acting like an introvert, I wouldn't be one.
