Inside MTV Reality: The Masters Speak

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

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...

Inside MTV Reality: Cheyenne's Teen Mom OG Journey

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

As we're now in March, it's springtime and the shows that began in the fall on the network side of things get more juicier at the ladder half of their seasons. And during what's been a most eventful first few months of 2020, reality TV is offering us some much need escapism: Season 40 of Survivor: Winners at War, Big Brother Canada north of the border, and the juicy drama down in Siesta Key which tonight wraps up the winter portion of season 3. And after we cover that on here this weekend, our focus will shift straight to The Challenge: Total Madness which begins in three weeks from now, and that will come as good news to a competitor on that season, which brings us to this...

In the midst of Women's History Month, next Tuesday Teen Mom OG returns as the franchise enters its second decade in its various forms, dating back to when the two generations of women the show has featured the past ten years were first introduced on predecessor series 16 and Pregnant in summer 2009. The first group of moms -- Amber Portwood, Catelynn Lowell & Maci Bookout -- will welcome back the MTV cameras once again as they navigate parenthood and life as adults in their mid-20's, ten years after their debut when they were at the rightful age of sweet 16 and as teenagers. Also joining them is Teen Mom 3's MacKenzie McKee, who joined this sorority last season, and where this spring we'll be seeing her deal with family tragedy as her grandmother Angie Doughit passed away over the holidays after a valiant and courageous battle with brain cancer.

But there is one reason why many of those who identify themselves as part of Challenge Nation -- and viewers of the shows they're connected to -- have joined the Teen Mom audience: It's for that Cheyenne Floyd is part of the OG cast now, having joined as one of the two replacements for Farrah Abraham along with politician's daughter Bristol Palin (who MacKenzie replaced after she left last year). Cheyenne started on Are You The One? in 2015 as part of its legendary Season 3 class, went onto The Challenge the next year and met the man who now shares custody of their baby girl Ryder. And many times Challenger and Real World alum Cory Wharton has become just as part of her world despite not being together, as now he will now be a dad to two baby girls as his Ex On The Beach girlfriend Taylor Selfridge awaits her first kid in the midst of a busy spring for Cory.

With our almost total focus on The Challenge and other matters revolving around that show and related series, other than being featured occasionally in our episode coverage we've not covered Teen Mom since our introductory post prior to Cheyenne's October 2018 debut... it's OK since the franchise already receives extensive press coverage anyway. But if we got the chance to cover it more often (and with our deep respect to the other castmates who are special in their own way), then it's on just one condition that we only cover Cheyenne's universe. And after the jump, we'll have a look back at some of her journey (and Cory & Taylor's too), before it begins St. Patrick's Day next week.

DC ExtraTime: Another One for Mr. MTV Baby Daddy

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Megan Thompson/MTV for Us Weekly

On the pre-Christmas weekend in December 2017 -- in between the first $1 million season of The Challenge and the start of the ensuing invasion by the British and beyond, a tremor jolted the MTV landscape from, fittingly enough, earthquake country in Los Angeles. There on a winter's Saturday night - and while some of his fellow Challengers were partying in Chicago prior to the debut of Vendettas, Cory Wharton returned from a few months' hiatus from social media of filming that Challenge and Season 1 of Ex On The Beach back to back to announce something that happened to him while he was away on his extended fall sojourn.

There, Cory announced in a picture posted on Twitter, Instagram and similarly with someone he met on a past series, that he was the father of the baby of Are You The One? Season 3 alum and Rivals III finalist Cheyenne Floyd, Ryder K., who was six months old when the news was made public for the first time. For someone who started his MTV career on The Real World in 2014, competed on 5 Challenge seasons, appeared on the first EOTB USA season, and for her on what is the most successful alumni class of her original series, they were chosen to replace Farrah Abraham on Teen Mom OG nearly a year after that revelation... in part bringing the rest of the MTV fandom to a new frontier, and also to bring light to a health condition Ryder was diagnosed with upon his birth.

Of everything that went down on his first six MTV shows, Cory becoming a dad became his biggest moment yet - much bigger than being part of the next generation of Challengers and a twist that rocked the Bay Area. But perhaps, no one was expecting the news that emerged last week of the same thing happening once again: Cory meeting a girl on an MTV series and them getting knocked up... though this scenario of him getting a girl pregnant has become old hat - not just with what he's had with Cheyenne, but past instances before and during his time in San Francisco on Ex-Plosion.

For what he has this time around, the girl is not just an AYTO alum: it's the one Cory met on that maiden Ex On The Beach voyage last year: Taylor Selfridge. And now, the man who was minted with a tattoo that Cheyenne dubbed him "Mr. MTV" is about to become a daddy to two kids.