Real World 17!?! NES is 20!?!

As if there was any question that I'm older, two pop culture icons are marking anniversarys.

MTV's seminal reality TV show "The Real World" is set to begin its 17 (!!!) season today when we find out what happens in Real World: Key West. Yikes, as Slate writer Troy Patterson notes, "The youngest of these seven people having their 'lives' taped have known of the show for perhaps longer than they've known how to spell television."

I got past my Real World phase back around season 6 or 7. But there for a while, I wouldn't miss an episode - which wasn't hard since MTV airred them each about 1,000 times. Who can forget RW1 when the Alabama white girl asks the black rapper girl if she was a drug dealer after her pager goes off. Or the shower semi-orgy in Miami. Or the Seattle slap. Or Puck. Some things are better left to the young. I marked another milestone the other day when I took MTV off my "favorites" list of channels on my cable box.

Meanwhile, the other day LT pointed me to another sign of age: it's now been 20 years since the first Nintendo Entertainment System debuted and began the video game craze in earnest. Of course, I was around for the first one, remembering Pong and going crazy when I finally got an Atari 2600.


House Arrest - Another Trip to MTV's The Real World [Slate]
Top 10 Real World Moments (from the show's first 9 years) [MTV]
NES: 20-year-old Legend [Joystiq]