Livin' in Joe's World

What Possessed Me?

This is the true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house (have their lives taped) and start a business, to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.
--MTV's The Real World, Miami series, opening statement

Hi, I'm Joe, former cast member of MTV's The Real World, and believe it or not, I made it out alive. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I was selected to be on the show. It boiled down to five and a half months of extreme insanity. Everything from my personal life to my spiritual life drastically changed. I had zero privacy. Even when I went to the bathroom, a camera tried to follow me. I don't know if you can imagine this sort of experience, but it's certainly not common in any other real world. Considering the living conditions, I find it amazing that I actually did make it out alive. After spending a couple of years recuperating from living in MTV's Real World, I'm finally ready to talk. And believe me, there's plenty to say about how unreal MTV's Real World really is!

How I Got Hit by the Real World
It all started when I was surfing the Internet and found myself in the MTV on-line area, where I saw that MTV was casting its fifth season of The Real World in Miami Beach. I figured, What the heck, why not go for it! Especially because MTV was adding a new slant to this particular season: they planned to give the cast $50,000 in start-up capital to begin their own business. Ca-ching! They were talking my language. With business-school expenses and bills mounting, I was looking for an opportunity to take on new personal, professional, and potentially financially rewardingchallenges. My longtime buddy Mike Hayes could tell that I was intrigued by the business aspect, and he encouraged me: "Joe, go for it! What have you got to lose?"
Mike and I had spent lots of time together at Fordham University channel surfing, and occasionally we'd run across the Los Angeles installment of The Real World. We weren't addicted to the show, but if it was on, we'd watch. Sometimes we joked about what it would be like to be on the show. I remember watching those episodes thinking, Man, this is so silly looking. There's so much more I could bring to the show. I always imagined it would be a good experience, an opportunity to share my unique perspective with the world.

Apply Pressure
When I applied to be on The Real World, MTV requested a five-to-ten-minute video that captured me "just doing my thing," explaining why I wanted to be on the show. I figured the best way to do that was to show them around my three-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. I talked my buddy Nestor into filming my audition video for me.
At the time, I was two classes away from finishing my strategic-management and international-business concentrations for my master's degree, and I had a job as resident director of a brand-new twenty-story residence hall housing about seven or eight hundred students at Fordham University, located in midtown Manhattan. It was a really cool place to live and work, and it was only a minute's commute to classes and my office. Fordham paid my salary by picking up the tab for my room, board, and tuition and giving me a living allowance besides. Not a bad deal, huh?
As Nestor rolled film, I showed off my "wall art"--my view of the Hudson River--and generally gave the grand tour of the apartment. I'd converted one bedroom into an office, which was where I made my livelihood running a small computer-consulting company called Computane Corporation. Deep down, I'm a big technology-business nerd, which is a trait I thought would work to my advantage during The Real World's selection process. To my knowledge they'd never selected a person with heavy computer background to be on the show, and I knew that if they planned on starting a business, they'd better have somebody who knew how to use one.
Under my computer-nerd exterior lies the heart of a great big kid. When I applied to be on the show, I was twenty-five going on ten. I made sure to point this out in the audition tape by showing off my G-rated movie collection--Aladdin, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid--and the poster of a high school play I had been in that mirrored my life, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I also shared my family of stuffed animals, collected from the time I was born, including my first stuffed Snoopy. (My favorite character in the world is Snoopy. Just check out the Real World 1997 calendar and you'll see. United Media sent me lots of Snoopy goodies to parade around the house and during photo shoots for the press. I own tons of Snoopy paraphernalia--clocks, sheets, calendars, mugs, you name it.)
As a resident director with a team of awesome residence lifers, I had a staff of resident assistants to help take care of the building, the facilities, counseling issues, roommate conflicts, first aid, and emergency situations--anything that involved the well-being of the residents in the building. I loved it! I loved the diversity of the staff and students and loved being able to deal with their different personalities. It was a great mix of people, and I learned something from each and every one of them. It seemed to make sense that if I could live with so many students with such diverse backgrounds from all over the world under one roof, I could get along with six new strangers on The Real World.
At the end of the video I said, "I think being on The Real World would buy me time to decide whether or not running my own business is the thing for me. So give me a chance. I'd love to do it. I'm sure I'd bring a lot to the show. So thank you very much. Joe Patane, New York City, here I am, waiting for your call. Hope to see you soon. Bye-bye."