/* MOBILE FIX: stop forcing desktop min-width */ @media screen and (max-width: 800px) { body { min-width: 0 !important; } .content-outer, .content-fauxcolumn-outer, .region-inner { min-width: 0 !important; max-width: 100% !important; width: auto !important; } .main-inner .columns { padding-left: 0 !important; padding-right: 0 !important; } } .date-header { background: #000 !important; display: block !important; width: 100% !important; padding: 8px 12px !important; box-sizing: border-box !important; } .date-header span { background: transparent !important; } .post-header-line-1 { display: block !important; width: 100% !important; background: #000 !important; padding: 8px 12px !important; box-sizing: border-box !important; } .post-header-line-1 * { background: transparent !important; } /* --- XMastime fixes: titles + date bars + mobile --- */ /* Post titles: stop random centering */ h3.post-title, h2.post-title, .post-title { text-align: left !important; } /* Date header: make the black bar extend full width */ .post-header-line-1 { display: block !important; width: 100% !important; background: #000 !important; padding: 8px 12px !important; box-sizing: border-box !important; } .post-header-line-1 * { background: transparent !important; text-align: left !important; } /* Mobile: stop forcing huge desktop width */ @media screen and (max-width: 800px) { body { min-width: 0 !important; } .content-outer, .content-fauxcolumn-outer, .region-inner { min-width: 0 !important; max-width: 100% !important; width: auto !important; } .main-inner .columns { padding-left: 0 !important; padding-right: 0 !important; } } /* FORCE post titles consistent */ .post-title, .post-title a, h2.post-title, h3.post-title { text-align: left !important; } /* FORCE full-width date bar across common Blogger structures */ .date-header, .date-header span, .post-header, .post-header-line-1, .post-header-line-1 span, .post-outer .post-header-line-1, .post-outer .post-header, .blog-posts .post-header-line-1 { display: block !important; width: 100% !important; background: #000 !important; box-sizing: border-box !important; padding: 8px 12px !important; margin: 0 !important; } /* prevent inner bits from “breaking” the bar */ .date-header *, .post-header *, .post-header-line-1 * { background: transparent !important; text-align: left !important; } /* MOBILE: stop the fixed 1218px width behavior */ @media screen and (max-width: 800px) { body, .content-outer, .content-fauxcolumn-outer, .region-inner { min-width: 0 !important; max-width: 100% !important; width: auto !important; } .main-inner .columns { padding-left: 0 !important; padding-right: 0 !important; } } /* DATE HEADER: make the black bar go full width */ .date-outer, /* FORCE FULL WIDTH DATE BAR NO MATTER WHAT */ .date-outer, .date-posts, .date-posts h2, .date-posts h3, .date-header, h2.date-header, h3.date-header { display: block !important; width: 100% !important; background: #000 !important; padding: 10px 12px !important; box-sizing: border-box !important; margin: 0 0 18px 0 !important; } /* force the TEXT itself orange and remove any weird inner box */ .date-posts span, .date-header span, .date-posts h2 span, .date-posts h3 span { background: transparent !important; color: #ff6600 !important; display: block !important; width: 100% !important; } #navbar-iframe { display: none !important; height: 0 !important; visibility: hidden !important; } -->

Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Real World. Passing Me By. Sigh.

It's tough to ask anybody to take The Real World too seriously, but I've wondered several times before if the show did itself a favor by turning into, basically, The Jersey Shore, when in fact it started out as a somewhat ambitious experiment that went really, really well.

And thankfully, someone else has volunteered to watch the entire first season, so we don't have to:
Going into this, my hypothesis was that The Real World was once a more realistic and thought-provoking program than it's become. I was right. From Season 1 to Season 25, we've traded discussions of actual social issues for slapping fights and Jell-O shots. In the process, the show's also gotten a whole lot more fun.

Maybe I'm a child of my generation, pre-conditioned to like my reality TV with a heavy dose of cat fights. Or maybe that's just better television. In either case, if we're going to mourn the loss of nuanced discussions of social issues, we should probably start with the nightly news, not MTV. Maybe today's MTV is on to something with its whole "watch seven teenage idiots get drunk, grope each other, and punch things" approach. While the premise of watching real life on TV might sound interesting, in practice, it's pretty dull. 
Maybe I'm just an old codger compared to the writer, maybe I'm just a pathetic "back in my day..." guy.  But the current, "fun" Real World isn't fun to me at all - it's the equivalent of standing in a packed-to-the-gills club while the music is so loud nobody can talk to each other.  I'm a guy that wants the quiet, mostly-empty bar where I can talk to my friends.

Oh yeah - and this Mrs. Xmastime from the Chicago cast was a whore.

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