The Real World must be a truly depressing place to live. It’s apparently a realm where new ideas, unfamiliar approaches, and foreign concepts always lose. I’m told that the only thing that works in The Real World is what its inhabitants already know and already do. No matter how flawed or inefficient that way may be.
People who live there are said to be living Real Life. An existence filled with pessimism, despair, and every shade of pitch black imaginable. Yet strangely, these people living Real Lives seem not to be interested in getting out. They are not looking for a change of scenery of the dreary Real World.
Instead, they’re actually trying to recruit! In arguments everywhere, they’re trying to convince those of a sunnier demeanor that they must convert to Real Life or perish. That resisting the Real World is futile. This call persists even in the face of contrary experiences. Tales of people who actually did things differently and still lived to see the sun rise in the morning.
Please don’t be fooled, there’s nothing even remotely attractive about The Real World. It’s a bleak mirage suitable only as a place of communion for those who have lost all hope.
I originally wrote this piece almost nine years ago. Nothing has changed. Just the other day someone blasted Jason’s piece on Is Group Chat Making You Sweat? as not being of The Real World because that’s a place where “people need to talk”. Heh.
