I Can't Stop Thinking About Danny from The Real World
[Searches eBay for a grey Abercrombie and Fitch sweater]
I wasn’t allowed to watch MTV when I was a kid. We didn’t have cable for a long time, which made it easier for my parents to enforce, but when we got the extended networks around seventh grade, the dam started to crack.
By the time I was a freshman in high school, I would sneak MTV late at night or if my parents weren’t home. TRL, True Life, those stupid dating shows with the buses. I felt guilty about it the whole time, yes, but once I started, I couldn’t get enough.
Enter The Real World: New Orleans.
I was 14 years old when the season launched. I remember walking back from gym class and kids talking about the premiere from the prior night. They had to explain to me what a Mormon was because I had never heard of it before – which, I know. (I remember them saying that a Mormon was someone who didn’t drink coffee.) I had to see it – it was new, it was dangerous.
This was the first season I watched as it premiered on Thursday nights (I think it was Thursday?), and then caught the marathon re-runs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They could still be doing those marathons, for all I know.
There was the big fight when David sang the intro to their local access TV show – the scandal! There was Melissa learning to paint – the creativity and the laughs! There was Julie, the aforementioned Mormon, learning to live among the secular – the drama!
And then, there was Danny.
I had a weird crush on Julie, which in retrospect was probably a front for a crush on Danny. She was abstinent and moral or whatever, but she learned to like Danny and respect him as a person. Julie was my boarding gate onto the plane of homosexuality. Which, related, Julie was supposed to be on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the North Tower on September 11 but she missed the flight because she was having a fight with her boyfriend and I swear that’s another thing I can’t stop thinking about, that we almost lost Julie from The Real World on 9/11.
Anyway. Danny.
Danny – NOT Dan or Daniel – knocked me sideways with that grey Abercrombie and Fitch sweater. (He was ALWAYS wearing that sweater.) The big story from Danny was that he was dating Paul, an active military officer. Because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the producers blurred out Paul’s face. (Political!) Danny’s face, however, was not blurred out, and thank goodness for that because my god he was cute. He was from Georgia. He liked tennis players. He gelled his hair up and wore a little seashell necklace, I think, or maybe I’m just projecting on my memory what I thought was cool at the time.
Either way, I had a crush on him (via Julie) before I knew what having a crush on a boy was.
For a specific micro-generation – the younger Gen X and the older millennial, if you will – The Real World was a thing. This is before The Bachelor, before Survivor. Reality television wasn’t much of a term, much less an Emmy category. If you were on The Real World, you spent the 90s and early aughts as part of a rotating cast of reunions and battles with Road Rules. You toured college campuses and took questions from an audience of giddy children/young adults/peers who considered you celebrities (does this still happen?), even though your talent could range from strategic and star-powered to, simply, being dumb and hot.
It was like being a TikTok influencer today.
Shortly after New Orleans premiered, I went down a deep dive of Real World reruns. This was way before cell phones, way before the cesspool of social media and terms like “engagement” or “hey fans”. We didn’t have much. What The Real World provided us was a window. Here were people who were (capital-R) Real; this was the (capital-W) World outside of your hometown. Sure, it was edited. But these people exist. And soon enough, you’ll join them.
A couple of years ago, I found Danny on Instagram and followed him. He looked good (ugh he’s just so cute), if older. Yes, even the Real Worlders age. (They’re just like us!)
He was living in a cabin, had a kid, was active in politics (or at least posting about it) and seemed to be enjoying life. I responded to a couple of his stories; he wrote back with a simple heart emoji. I always hoped that he would respond and say more. When this happened, I felt disappointed, and then I felt silly for being disappointed. After all, what would we talk about? The more he popped up in my feed, the more I realized … I don’t know this person. At all. And to expect a connection through an app with someone based on who they were, 20 years ago, on an edited TV show, is unfair and, frankly, silly.
I unfollowed him.
I wanted that connection with someone I felt I knew. But, of course, my expectations had not aged alongside me. I still expected this man to be posting about things that interested me in 2000; hell, I probably expected him to be wearing that grey sweater.
My interaction with Danny from The Real World was a one-way media relationship in 2000; dropping that into a (complicated!) two-way media platform in 2020 simply didn’t work. His persona on the show was, of course, just that. It had no influence on how we interact in the (lower-case) real world, and he, of course, has no responsibility for so-called engagement, especially today. The college tours ended long ago. (I think?)
What I also felt was closure. Danny from The Real World has already done what he needed to do. He did it more than 20 years ago, by living his life on an edited TV show. He came into focus every week on the screens of so many kids, alone in their dark basements on Thursday nights, revealing a World that was waiting for them. That world is here now, and thank goodness for that.
Side note: you should read this interview with Danny from the 20 year anniversary of the premiere, where he talks about coming out as HIV positive and his LGBTQ+ advocacy. He’s still doing the work, people!