
Fakers Geoff and Alexis do their best impressions of “Real World” Denver cast members. Photo from Westword.com.
– On June 22, Denver’s alternative newsweekly Westword pulled an inspired stunt in which they assembled a fake “Real World” Denver cast and crew (all Westword staffers, mind you), then took them out on the town to let the fur fly. So convincingly vapid, overdramatic and drunk were they that many people completely fell for it, including a lot of spies for Get Real Denver.
– You can read about the whole thing on Westword’s website, but one of our faithful readers submitted a YouTube link to a video of it. Watch the whole thing here. It’s pretty funny, actually…
– As expected, some of the best moments on the video are the puzzled/angry reactions from bystanders. “I hate ‘The Real World’ and I think MTV’s disgusting. Disgusting!” chimes one woman at Mezcal. She may have been convinced it was them by the fake waivers Westword was having people sign.
– “The sense of date rape in the air was pretty strong,” the narrator says of the crew’s visit to Governor’s Park. They even ran into a former member of MTV’s “Road Rules: Latin America,” Holly Shand, and fooled her into thinking they were actually with MTV. Yikes.
– It’s also interesting to see them toy with preconceptions of homophobia, racism, celebrity worship and that ubiquitous frat/sorority attitude there’s so much of in Denver. A social experiment, indeed. Anyone looking for a college paper assignment out there? Analyze this video…

I *so* love a good prank. Especially media pranks. It never ceases to amaze me how people will do/say anything to get on TV.
Comment by Scott — July 18, 2006 @ 9:48 am
Very interestingbut how real can anything ever be once the cameras come out. It always seems like cameras never catch the good stuff as they never seem to be pointing in the correct direction when it happens and many times trying to “keep real” framed within a certain limited amount of space just flattens the world to a 2dimensionality that just isn’t worth viewing.
Comment by DJ Emir — May 23, 2007 @ 2:17 pm