Cameran and Brad, cast members of The Real World: San Diego, spoke last Thursday at the Quick Center at an open forum.
“You guys could be an Abercrombie catalogue,” said Cameran after skipping out onto the stage.
Cameran asked Fairfield University students if they thought their school was diverse and, after a loud “no,” she started talking about the most important lesson she learned on The Real World.
“The biggest thing The Real World taught me was not to judge,” she said, addressing an excited and somewhat rowdy audience of Fairfield students.
Coming from a small town in South Carolina, she spoke about the lack of diversity in her community and high school.
She had never been to a club before, or heard house or techno music before going to San Diego.
On the other hand, Brad, a Chicago native, had had a very different life before heading to sunny California.
“I never had a clique,” he said. “I was friends with a wide range of people.” Cameran then stressed the importance of branching out in college.
“You sabotage yourself by not meeting other people,” she said.
Cameran switched gears by addressing the audience.
“There’s always a few that want to admit to being intoxicated,” she said. A number of yells and catcalls broke out from the crowd.
She talked about how the cast members were portrayed as always being intoxicated. What the viewers didn’t know was that there was no television or music and the only entertainment they had was each other.
“We were a bunch of jackasses,” said Brad. “We’d sit around and drink 40’s and act out Chris Farley skits. We had some good times.”
While Brad made it clear that he was “not trying to preach” to the audience, he did address the more serious affects of alcohol.
He talked about losing two of his longtime childhood friends in a motorcycle accident.
“They were partying and decided to turn the key at the wrong time,” he said.
While Cameran and Brad supported drinking in moderation, they did talk about nights when they became too inebriated to remember it in the morning.
Cameran asked how many people had had a similar experience.
“Imagine a camera zooming in on you when you first wake up, trying to get your initial reaction,” said Brad.
He went on to say that the cameras usually captured the times when they “did some ridiculous stuff” or “definitely took it too far,” like at 5:00 a.m. after a night at the bar.
Brad said that no one wants to watch them sitting around playing Monopoly.
“You see the edited version,” said Brad. “A portion that was hours long, you’d see two minutes of.”
Cameran talked about what life was like after the show.
“It is different because you walk around and people think they know you and come up and ask you questions,” she said. “But I would never consider myself a celebrity or famous.”
Attendants of the forum had positive reactions.
“I really liked the laid-back atmosphere of it and how they answered questions shouted out from the audience,” said Kristen Vissichelli ’06.
Valerie Lombardo ’06 enjoyed the presentation as well.
“I thought that it was cool to see these two people who I watched every week for a couple months on TV in person, and it was cool to see that they really act just how they did on the show,” she said.
Britt Costa ’06 went to the show for another reason but ended up enjoying the show.
“I think Cameran is hot and they ended up being funny, too,” he said.
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