DC FORUM Special: Here's To The 2010's

A Word From The Editor...
BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Today marks the 3,652nd and final day of the decade that began in 2010 and ends here on this New Year's Eve 2019... and to say that this second decade of the 21st century and third millennium would be more than just a simple understatement. It's been that kind of decade, just as it was with the first one that began when we rang in the year 2000 nineteen years ago this day, and we are only hours away (at least in the United States and North America) of ushering in the new year. And for those of us who spent our Friday nights watching TGIF, the memories of Barbara Walters saying, "This is 2020" will be all over the place as we begin the new year.

For me, I've had a chance to mature a bit into my thirties as a product of being an eighties' baby, and this decade has seen me make a progression into becoming more open in our technologically driven world of ours - fittingly enough for someone who calls Silicon Valley home. I've expanded my social media reach from just being a simple, small thing among my circle of friends that began on MySpace and then Facebook (and even to this day, becoming a friend on that account there remains "by invitation only"), to now having many channels for which I can communicate with a larger group of friends out there in this world. As we enter 2020 come midnight tonight, my social presence consists of Twitter (two accounts), Instagram, YouTube, SnapChat, Facebook, Periscope, Tumblr, Vimeo, TikTok, Twitch, Flickr, MySpace and many others.

Perhaps, the most important asset I have now is the place you're at right now in reading this. Seven years ago on the advice of one of my good friends in the Twitter sphere Andrew Kirk, I got to launch this very blog site, which at first was gonna be just a mere site on the web for someone who loves to write. Eventually, it's grown to become a gathering place for those who follow this fan's passion of watching MTV Reality television and whatever else I have on my mind around the world of pop culture... and you and I have shared many dates in nearly 1,100 of these posts of joining me here on DCBLOG to "See For Yourself." And recently, I've pursued another passion of mine of video production to have my own YouTube channel to showcase my skills in videography.

For what seems like the past three years or so, I have promoting at the end of this year that I would have a year-end Reality Debrief, something that in 2014, '15 and '16 would see me go from being a reporter to being a voice of a fan, and having Andrew on to talk MTV Reality at the end of the year. Despite all efforts, the planned 2017 and 2018 installments of the Debrief have yet to get off the ground, and I'm still holding out hope of one day getting on someone to discuss this MTV world from Invasion of two years ago right up to War of the Worlds 2 this year. Once I get things together, you'll know when our long-planned fan discussions will finally be posted on here... we hope it won't get to save it for the very last post we ever get to do here.

Instead, as we bid farewell to the 2010's today DCBLOG has been able to devote well over 1,000 posts related in a way to the MTV beat... no wonder why I look at it as the gold standard in this blogging sphere, and right up there with some of your favorite MTV podcasts as essential content for those in the fandom. I've spent thousands of hours in the last seven years perfecting all of these posts that covers this community and always fascinating world. You can't imagine all of the hard work I put into making this all happen, as I've been able to earn my stripes in pursuing this favorite hobby of mine - and no one works just as hard as I do. Obviously, there's nothing that I enjoy or makes me happy than being in my own element of offering this talent to all of you out there.

With that in mind, we'd thought about how we wanted to close up this decade... and felt that this small FORUM post was appropriate to put a bow on the 2010's. For us here at DCBLOG, we've always thought of ourselves as a supplementary site of sorts... yes, we've done traditional coverage with recapping episodes and offered opinions, previewed every season of major series we follow and review other shows on occasion, introduce so many newcomers to this world in our Who Are These Newbies? series, and brought you an all-access pass to a few of the season-ending reunions. The blog, as well as my YouTube, uphold my never-ending commitment to quality and excellence, and there's plenty of great content to come there. But two aspects of our wide-ranging coverage stand out the most, and has helped to give us our unique identity in this marketplace.

The SocialPulse has brought you all of social media's reaction to each and every single episode of The Challenge since Rivals II in our first summer of 2013, the twist-era of The Real World, and the entire runs of Are You The One, Ex On The Beach and Floribama Shore. This has offered everyone a front row seat to the other show that goes on when the episodes air: on Twitter, all in its uncensored glory for the public to see as our post of record of a night in the life of some of MTV's biggest shows.
   So many jaw-dropping moments have gone down in the over 30 seasons of programming we've featured of those five shows and a few others that we've also featured that were of note of viewers of these shows. And while there have been so many of these in the past seven years, below are a list of ten of the most memorable nights in our DCBLOG MTV Reality Pulse history... episodes for which it garnered tremendous impact in not only trending on those nights but also had immense impact in the days after. And they've been chosen in no particular order other than just chronological.

● Real World: Ex-Plosion - Jay's Mom Dies
● Are You The One: Season 1 - $1 Million Richer & A Ring (2 Pts)
● The Challenge: Exes II - The Passings of Diem & Knight (2 Pts)
● Are You The One: Season 3 - The Miracle in the Islands
● The Challenge: Rivals III - The Steal
● Are You The One: Season 5 - "And The Dream Dies"
● Are You The One: Season 6 - "Eleventh Heaven"
● The Challenge: Final Reckoning - The Steal II
● The Challenge: War of the Worlds 2 - Laurel Wins! Ninja Wins!
● Floribama Shore - Bromance Broken (2 Pts)


We've developed a saying here of late that states, "Come for the big moments, stay for the stories." Inspired by the "up close and personal" features that introduce the Olympics' biggest stars to TV viewers in America every two years which helped inspire sports media's emphasis on storytelling, ExtraTime has featured a different side of the most-buzzed about shows in this reality genre and the people who are the stars of the show: the hundreds of cast members and alumni who have graced our screens since MTV wrote the book on how to do this genre a generation ago.
   The hundreds of stories we've told, long and short, span the gamut of this world with history, heart, humor and humanity, and featuring so many of these people - past & present. And they have varied from these castmates appearing on other shows or movies, and spending moments with the most fascinating people of our times, to inspiring stories of them meeting inspirational fans, and the list goes on. Sometimes, it's us offering our own view on events that have gone down on the shows themselves, and others are ones that have not been touched on that much, but are so fascinating it has to have an avenue for it to be told.
   Like any good story that those who work in the news business do, all of this content I do takes hours, days, weeks, sometimes months and even a year or so to work on and have it marinate, as well as being researched on to ensure that it's the best possible story with all the in-depth details covered and staying true to journalism's high standards. And nothing is more satisfying to me than hearing from the subjects themselves of how good a job I did of telling their story - that's a mark of the impact this site has had on the community... and this is where much of my site's finest content is on display through the ExtraTime prism.
   Trying to pick just fifteen out of hundreds of these stories was tough, but these are the ones that we feel best explains this site's wide-ranging storytelling, and some represent some of DCBLOG's very best work... and again, this is in chronological, but otherwise random order.

● Nany's Quest for the Dad She Never Knew (2015)
● TJ Lavin's Road to Recovery (2015) 
● A Challenge Life: Abram Boise (2015)
● A retrospective on Real World Las Vegas (2016)

● A retrospective on The Challenge: Rivals (2016)

● Johnny Bananas meeting cancer survivor Kasey Harvey (2016)

● The Caucus Challenge series (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)
● AYTO Alumni Become Disney Princesses (2017)
● Cory Becomes A Baby Daddy (2017)
● Karamo Brown Takes A Stand in D.C. (2018)
● Zach & Jenna's Challenge Love Story (2018)
● The Epic Super Weekend (2018)
● Floribama Shore Helps Post-Hurricane PCB (2019)
● Disabled social influencer Damion Gross (2019)
● Angela & Nelson's Couples Therapy (2019)

The decade that's about to pass us by in the MTV scheme of things started on New Year's Eve Eve ten years ago when The Real World traveled to Washington, D.C. during the optimism of the Obama administration, and we never imagined the kind of changed world that awaited us at the finish line of the 2010's. There's no need to elaborate much on everything that's happened since then, but reality TV represents an escapism from that reality... and we've been blessed to have had a memorable decade in the genre: not just what we call the Trifecta, but also the Shore franchise with the Jersey originals being there at the beginning and the end as well as the Floribama bunch; The Hills with its Siesta Key cousins in Florida, the Teen Mom franchise, Catfish and so many others.
   But there's a non-MTV post that speaks to something that happened dear to me two years ago and felt it had to be singled out here as well. The same week that The Challenge's first $1 million season premiered, someone who I was fortunate and lucky enough to meet fifteen years ago, Chester Bennington, took his own life. Like so many Linkin Park fans on July 20, 2017, we all suddenly had to come to grips with losing much too soon a man who gifted us with his voice and spoke to the struggles and hardships many LP fans had. Despite that heavy heart and having to still offer my MTV coverage that weekend, I still managed to have the time to pen an essay offering my memories of Chester, covering a rare moment of someone's death having a huge impact on me, and one of a handful of other posts covering pop culture, sports and everything else I do just on the side.

When I began doing this site back in 2013, I didn't have an idea back then that this would now be my primary hobby - and to me there's no better thing that getting to do what I love of pursuing this blogging profession with my favorite shows and pop culture as well. And I am eagerly awaiting what 2020 and the next ten years have in store for us. Until then, Happy New Year and thanks for reading.

- I AM DC
#DCBLOG