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Showing posts with label #FloribamaShore #JerseyShore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #FloribamaShore #JerseyShore. Show all posts
All the way back in summer 1999 when I watched The Real World Hawaii, it marked the first season of an MTV series that I watched with the kind of vested interest I do for other series now. It has been quite a past two decades of getting to follow on a regular basis television's most-talked about reality programming and those who have graced our screens either for a brief time or for as long as a handful of those who've been at this as long as I have followed this world. And in the decade of the 2010's, the relationship I've had with this section of the genre has only gotten stronger as I've only gotten up there in age.
On a summer's night in June of 2012, I signed on Twitter on the night of a most relaxed season ever of Real World debuting down in the Virgin Islands, which gave me the opportunity to directly interact with the same people who I get to watch each week. Less than a year later, I started up this very site and ultimately made this passion of MTV Reality my principal beat - which has since become the standard bearer in the written part in covering the shows you love to watch and discuss, with all the social reaction to the big moments, compelling original storytelling and everything else we offer.
It was eight years ago that I began befriending just about every single castmate who's been on our screens on the dozens of shows that's emerged onto the scene, starting with that RW St. Thomas season, followed by the first of the modern-day seasons of The Challenge that I've watched live. And in a way, these cast members feel like they're the high school friends you never had but wish you gotten to know, and we've gotten to know them very well. But I've also been able to get to know new people who share this passion of watching not just those two shows, but also Are You The One, Ex On The Beach, the Shore franchise, Siesta Key and many others along the way.
They are those who I have never met personally, but thanks to this world have become good friends of mine through this thing call social media and who share a passion for the shows that get us talking - too many of which to mention. And occasionally, we've showcased those who are not cast members or those from pop culture who we've featured regularly, but who are those who are touched by the people and shows they get to worship now on a daily basis in this social media age. There's the several posts we've done on the MTV-inspired Caucus Challengeon YouTube, or the young cancer survivor & soccer goalkeeper who got to meet her favorite Challenger in a now 7-time champ.
But there is no fan who is more devoted to this part of cable entertainment than one who, if the Guinness Book of World Records decided to add the title of "Meeting the Most MTV Personalities" to their large library of incredible feats, the subject of this post would not only be the first person to achieve that title but will likely keep that mark for a very long time. And in this installment of Someone You Should Know, we'd like you to meet the Biggest MTV Fan of All.
One key component of the ExtraTime series you are viewing right now is to provide this site with the chance to cover the times when the people you watch on the MTV Reality shows you love get to meet with those in and outside the bubble. It's been part of the DCBLOG MTV experience since this ride began seven years ago, and in an earlier edition of this franchise provides context to this story...
The reason there has been greater buzz around MTV these days is because of the channel recognizing that millennials like most of you reading this are tied to your past more than any other generation that is still roaming around. It's for that reason that you have two notable franchises being welcomed back to your screens in The Hills and Jersey Shore... and of course, The Challenge has had tremendous buzz this year with media coverage before the season began and now because of events in and outside the episodes.
All the way back in fall 2014, we got to feature one moment where reality TV royalty got together, and we can thank the brother of one Real World'er for letting us feature that in Briah, the skeleton counterpart of Bruno on the Skeletons season of The Real World in Chicago. He met up with key reality manager Johnny Donovan, Big Brother alum Gina Marie, and two people of our focus.
We all remember that winter's night in 2009 when Jersey Shore premiered and when the OG's got to meet up for the first time in that now-iconic timeshare house in Seaside Heights, NJ. For the least memorable entrance of the original eight, who can forget the moment of Angelina Pivarnick walking into the house with garbage bags acting as her luggage? It was the start to what would become a dramatic two seasons of her dealing with Snooki, J-Woww, Mike, Pauly, Ronnie, Sam and, of course, her fellow Staten Islander, Vinny Guadagnino.
Angeliner lasted all of two to three episodes the first time around when tensions she had with the house and Shore Store boss man Danny caused her to give in, and she came back to Miami the next year and once again she made quite an impression in only one half of Season 2. And when she moved out of South Beach, we all thought we had seen the last of her on the show, being replaced by Snooki's friend Deena for the rest of the show's six season run - she is that other girl in the pic above. But when the originals came back to Florida for their Family Vacation two years ago, it would take for the prank king himself to change the course of history with one call to her back home and one visit with one memorable entrance...
The look the Sitch had on his face once he opened that door and her asking him "You Think I'm A Dirty Little Hamster?" summed up the shock we had on ours when Angelina walked into the Miami humble abode. But her coming there for that visit must've been the best move she had ever made being much older than the one who we saw a decade younger: she's now a permanent part of this cast in being the spiritual replacement for the lone OG to not join the vacation in Sammi Sweetheart. Obviously, this was the prank to end all pranks in Jersey land.
Thursday night saw Angelina have her crowning moment: her being the second of the cast to have a wedding featured on the Vacation in the course of ten months. Last year, we got to see the Sitch have his wedding to wife Lauren and having a special appearance by Rob Base... and this week saw Angelina get hitched to her fiance Chris, who we featured on here getting tattoos for one another on the series premiere of How Far is Tattoo Far? also back in 2018. And while the two got to say their "I do's," the drama of this past week was the roast given by the girls to the new bride at the reception... and there will be more to this as the ninth overall season of Jersey Shore winds up as does Snooki's run on the series.
The girl who Danny called "Jolie" that first time there got to invite some good friends of hers for a viewing party two nights ago that saw her not only get to relive wedding night all over again, but also the Season 2 premiere of A Double Shot at Love, which we will be recapping on here in a couple days' time. A couple of the new guys who the Beast Coast Squad brought to Vegas for the summer of love and pleasure under the sweltering sun joined her for this Jerzday doubleheader, as did one other notable MTV fan favorite.
Seeing what's been going on with one certain Challenger on Total Madness this season (and out of respect for our other subject, we'll spare her the expense and refrain from mentioning his name even once) brings to mind a girl who delighted us two years ago... also on Thursday and airing after Jersey Shore that spring of 2018: Bad Girls Club alum Angela Babicz, who was part of the original class of singles who came to the U.S. version of Ex On The Beach. She had to deal with another MTV love alum, being part of a love triangle with him & another single, and then became the only girl to appear on two seasons of EOTB USA when she dealt with that player in the Shack of Secrets for that bad blood and then started a relationship with that Challenger which included that infamous daytime talk appearance.
Angela joined Angelina to watch wedding night #2 in the Jersey Shore community two nights ago as social media tagged them as queens as they were also given the new nickname: "Ang²." This is certainly a duo we can certainly stan - and one of the best things to happen during this turbulent springtime of ours.
As we at DCBLOG prepare to embark on what's now our eighth year of covering what is without a doubt the most talked about programming in one whole genre, there is a certain reason why the exceptional coverage of MTV Reality has evolved quite a bit on here. This site began in the summer of 2013, where our first MTV-related posts were on just The Real World and The Challenge. Sure, the ladder is the one constant throughout all of this, and we're looking forward to covering it extensively when we shortly begin covering the new season, Total Madness.
But the relationship I have had with MTV that stretches back to my childhood and then wall-to-wall in my adulthood goes beyond just watching Challenges and Real World, which brought me into this world into the first place starting with Hawaii over two decades ago. I am one who has an affection for just about any show that airs on the channel during this time, and it's with that in mind that I've been able to expand this site's coverage from covering just those two shows in that first summer of 2013, to now watching and covering the entire spectrum: dating shows, global franchises, tabloid-friendly series, and other things on the side. There's six major series I'm covering now with traditional recaps, the episodes as seen from the social verse, and the hundreds of stories we've told through ExtraTime.
Since the story of this journey began twenty-seven years ago in a posh apartment in New York City, MTV's focus has shifted from wall-to-wall music videos to helping to showcase a genre it pioneered to provide it with some much-needed original programming, but has wrote the playbook on reality television that others go by to this day. It has given us so many memorable moments, unforgettable people, series that have become cultural landmarks and so much more across the entire spectrum of youth, that everyone in the industry can say thanks to giving MTV more definitions than music TV.
If you happen to work on a reality series, then you have one of the best jobs out there of helping to make the magic happen. Whether it's working behind the cameras shooting and editing this content, or just having a hand in contributing music or time to build the sets, they're just as important to any show as those who are the real stars: the cast members and talent on camera. But nothing is as vital behind the scenes than those in the higher hierarchy who coordinates these shows for the production companies that produce these shows and then presents them on our screens.
In the summer of 2017, four of the reality TV industry's top power players and masters of this genre gathered in one of America's most vibrant cities to discuss the evolution and history of MTV Reality. The combined experience of the panel gathered on that stage comprise some of the most-successful programming in the genre, just before the start of the channel's resurgence that summer. And with the next chapter about to begin in a couple weeks of a new Challenge, it's worth a trip to take a look at where we've been before we take the next step...
Right about now, it's that time of year again where hundreds of thousands of college students will be thinking about that week in the coming weeks where they can just run out of school and just be free for a change. Spring Break is approaching for the many of you millennials who check out this website to escape reality for our view of MTV Reality - in fact for some of you, it's just begun down in South Padre Island, TX as Challenge vet "Big Easy" Eric and Real World alum (and Catfish guest star) Jay G. again handling partying duties. And this year MTV itself is bringing back its sacred March tradition with Cancun hosting the return of MTV Spring Break weekend this month.
Along with those two towns, Florida has long been a destination for college students to party down, whether it's in Daytona Beach, Miami or anywhere else on the state's many beaches. Florida has become an MTV hotbed in the course of the past two years, with a longtime Spring Break town of Panama City Beach having just hosted its second season of Floribama Shore, and down the way in a suburb of Sarasota which has been host to an addictive MTV guilty pleasure.
Season 2 of Siesta Key has no doubt seen the level of drama amp up a bit in the sun, and where the modern-day Laguna Beach has certainly offered plenty of high stakes among its elite clique. During the course of its sophomore season, we've had more awkwardness at the annual over-the-top gala of the Kompo house becoming an Egyptian mecca (which this site featured here last year), a music video causing two relationships to be in dire jeopardy, and this past week seeing Pauly get arrested again for a marijuana charge which could spell trouble ahead.
And while the other main characters have had their time in the spotlight, as always the main storyline has been the seemingly perfect but now not-so-perfect relationship of the royal couple of Juliette & Alex. And it has unraveled just as much as the Paulie-Cara-Danielle triangle, spurred on by the town's resident authority on eliteist gossip and who loves to stir the pot more times than you can say the show's name three times fast, Chloe, and a BFF friendship she's forged with one of Alex's many exes, Cara Geswelli. What's transpired with him and the rest of the cast in the past month has no doubt changed the complexity of the clique, and there may be more too if the midseason trailer is an indication.
Along with Cara in making a return to the town where they grew up, the other newcomer to the cast is Jared Kelderman, who came back to the Key just off of a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy, where he was a crewman and a drone operator out in California. Before serving in the military, Jared went to high school with most of the Siesta cast and dated Alex's high school sweetheart, Madisson, which helped to spur a vendetta in a local businessman's playboy son who's now the reason for unrest in the Siesta crew (if you saw Alex arguing with one-time friend Chloe this week, you have the gist of it).
Just as it was when the series began in summer 2017, Season 2 began with Alex's birthday party in his house's backyard, which coincidentally has the feel of a weekend rager at Spring Break, and where Rich Homie Quan got to perform. But while everyone else gathered to kick off another Siesta summer, both Jared and Cara came uninvited to the party, with her tagging along with Chloe, and him coming for the ride along with Brandon and Garrett. And it was when he got next to the birthday boy and Pauly that ignited a massive brawl, along the lines of what we've seen a lot of in PCB.
And the week after the first of many big blowups in Siesta, and at Brandon's 70's-themed outdoor birthday barbecue, Jared decided to stir the pot a little when he convinced Madisson's best friend, Kelsey, to have some alone time despite her having a boyfriend. They snuck off from a night at the disco for some nighttime fun by the beach, and they even got flirty too in them hooking up. This led a girl he got to go fishing with this past week, Canvas, to call him "the talk of the Key," all as he took the news of that hookup in stride with a smile, all as he initiated a love square of sorts among the OG's and newbies in Kelsey's ex Garrett getting close to Cara.
But this week, viewers got to see a different side of Jared, and one that those who known him all his life know who he really is behind that cheery exterior adorn with many tattoos. As someone who decided to take up one of the toughest jobs anywhere going into harm's way regularly defending our country away from home and from family and friends, he knew what he was getting into. And there, he got to experience all the stress that comes with being in the military, and the life after coming home which is just as tough as the time away overseas & in domestic installations.
Ask anyone who has served in the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Marines -- which includes Ryan Conklin from Real World Brooklyn of ten years ago, and they'll likely tell you that there is more to their job than just serving a duty as hard as anything on earth, most especially when veterans who return home suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome, best known as PTSD. When Madisson asked him what the transition was like, Jared told her, "What's another word for... awful? Before, I felt like I was doing something. Like, I was actually doing something, you know, like, I was somebody. Some people want to get out, I didn't want to get out. I just had to."
Madisson apologized to him for not being there when he needed the most, and asked him what the transition back to civilian life has been like, where he revealed that he drank every day to escape the haunting memories of his time in uniform. His answer echoed the sentiments of many who have found life back home from the home front so tough: "I get, like, terrible nightmares, I can never sleep. I'm okay with being depressed all the time. It became normal that I just feel like s___ every day. I don’t like people thinking I'm crazy. I don’t like the fact that someone looks at me and that's what they think — that that guy’s going to lose his mind every second now. I feel broken."
Being diagnosed with PTSD, later in the episode Jared went fishing with Canvas where he told her of his plans to see a local therapist in the Sarasota area who specializes in working with military veterans like him, and her adding that they would now look at doing other activities other than engaging in wild alcoholic binges, and doing whatever they can to support each other as he adjusts to post-military life. Also in the episode, Pauly was locked up for being a no-show for a court date after being caught having an open container of 20 grams of pot in his car, a potential felony that will see him face the music with his family this coming week.
As he dreaded the episode that introduced the real Jared Kelderman to America, last week he got to head up to Destin, Florida - a bit a ways from Panama City Beach, where he got to hang out with someone who's different from him in so many ways, but thanks to being part of the MTV family they have certainly bonded.
If you watched Season 2 of Floribama Shore both last summer and then in the winter and continuing to the week of The Challenge: War of the Worlds premiere (and of Gus making his way from PCB to Africa), Kortni Gilson certainly had a summer to remember. She dealt so many times with an abusive ex-boyfriend who lurked everywhere in town like an alligator, and making out with an elderly woman at the club, to violating girl code with Nilsa two times in snuggling with Gus and even a brief pregnancy scare... and even giving a new definition to saying sorry by having that word spelled out in a pizza, of all things.
When Kortni and Jared crossed paths at a local bar in the Florida panhandle last week, they instantly bonded with them appearing in each other's stories on Instagram and Snapchat, and posted the above photo on everyone's IG timelines. She captioned, "What’s better than cute men? 🤷🏻♀️ @jkelderman #siestakey #mtvfloribamashore," and he wrote in his description, "When worlds collide #siestakey #floribamashore". With Gus telling the Floribama gang in the Season 2 finale that he may not return for a Season 3 due to wanting to improve relations with his family, perhaps a spot could be open for Jared to join Kortni and company in Panama City Beach. Imagine what that could be like.
In another Siesta/Floribama crossover, Kortni's roommate (and fellow PCB local) Nilsa has been conducting biweekly debriefs with the Siesta Key cast on the key moments of the season from the local prison... check out those Siesta Key Interrogations on the show's Twitter and Facebook pages - including the premiere version where she grilled Jared, Pauly and Alex on their fight.
In the past few weeks, MTV has revealed big plans for the coming year: the show that started a new era for the channel, The Real World, will be returning to its roots and coming to the broad digital platform that is Facebook. Ex On The Beach will return for Season 2 of the U.S. adaptation with familiar faces from MTV and reality TV colliding with their exes. And the iconic rite of March, Spring Break, will return next year as part of MTV's renaissance, all made possible by a touch of old and new dominating the channel... now cable's fastest growing network.
Jersey Shore Family Vacation has been breezing along with what we consider to be Season 8 of the most-watched franchise in MTV history, officially the second season of their return engagement. As this blogger got to celebrate his birthday this week, as a gift for myself I bought the DVD of the first Vacation down to Miami, which marked the first time I've watched & live tweeted that show in real-time since I didn't catch much of their original run, but a move made possible by Kyle from Geordie Shore going onto Vendettas as well as the premiere of Floribama Shore.
During the summer & fall on Jersey, we've seen Pauly, Vinny and MTV's favorite dysfunctional family take an eventful trip out to Las Vegas, the ultimate throwback trip to Seaside Heights, and Angelina becoming more of a permanent part of the cast than it was the first time out. The big wedding of Mike The Situation & sweetheart Lauren is ahead, along with Deena holding her baby shower for her new kiddo with Snooki, J-Woww, Angelina and Sammi Sweetheart -- the first time all five Jersey original ladies have been in the same room at the same time.
A developing story that has been evolving during the OG's return to MTV over the past year has surrounded Sammi's ex: Ronnie and him adjusting to life as a dad, as a boyfriend having to deal with a turbulent relationship with his baby mama Jen, and whatever lingering feelings he has for the ex. Those who have watched him during this have no doubt seen the worst of that new relationship take place which has seen him again be put into the public spotlight. And just recently, Ronnie got to party it up with two members of one of MTV's breakout new hits of the past year & a half.
If recent posts on the show's Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages are an indication, then very soon MTV fans will again have a slice of summer in the wintertime when Siesta Key is slated to return for Season 2. The Laguna Beach and Hills-inspired docu-soap documenting a tight-knit clique of college friends who call the Sarasota, Florida community home debuted in summer 2017 and introduced the YouTube generation to the kind of show that made Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari famous.
The man who's called the king of the castle is Alex, who found himself with more romantic partners than the average AYTO guy when he started season 1 dating Madisson, but after having flings with Kelsey and friend of the group Amanda ultimately found himself in love with another of the exes, Juliette. A close friend of Alex's in his cousin Pauly, who found himself in hot water for body-shaming Chloe and who's also pursuing music just at is for friend Brandon.
Last month, a nightclub in Boca Raton just north of Miami brought two of these worlds together in the name of breast cancer awareness, and the two worlds that represent a couple of MTV's most-watched shows during its resurgence in the past year or so got to hang out. That photo of them is below, and to sort of whet your appetite for Siesta Season 2 check out our ExtraTime post from this summer when Alex threw one of his trademark lavish parties at his mansion, featuring not only his cast but also a live camel and a snake... yes, an Egyptian fiesta.
