*** Reader Advisory: The Following Post Contains
Adult Language. Viewer Discretion is Advised. ***
By DC Cueva
Well, the busy guy who loves sports, entertainment & social media has become even busier: welcome to the first edition of The DC SocialPulse. Being that I've become such an avid tweeter & social media junkie over the last year, I have been addicted to all this all over again, reliving those days of being on MySpace much of the time (I'm still on there btw). And social media has also played a big role in being able to even greatly follow the things I'm most interested in, including my favorite shows.
The frenzied premiere of MTV's The Challenge: Rivals II on Wednesday night accounted, for me, the busiest day of tweeting (and retweeting) that I've had on twitter since the Super Bowl back in February - over 250 total tweets. I was so busy in doing all of that & flooding the timelines (and sorry once again to my followers), that two times I was sent to twitter jail for over-tweeting during an hours period. But then again, there are few things that get me going in the twitter world: the biggest sports events, music, entertainment events, and of course, The Real World & The Challenge.
What I've decided to do, in addition to doing a recap of every episode As DC Sees It, is to do my best to highlight the tweets from the RW & Challenge family from these episodes. The MTV Remote Control blog does highlight tweets from certain cast members of both shows, but is usually spread out among other shows. What I will do is to focus in on just Real World & Challenges.
First, some background & thoughts: last year when I joined twitter, I immediately became part of an online community that's now an essential part of our media landscape. Television has been a communal experience for as long as it has been around. From loyal viewers watching a favorite primetime show, to a country coming to a standstill for the Super Bowl or big cultural event, to even families watching a personal home movie, this medium has always created an enjoyable experience that brings families, friends & fans together. And the advent of technologies over the past decade have further enhanced the viewing experience: DVR, HDTV, VOD, and most recently social media.
For me, there was that agonizingly long hiatus from late March to early May when 30 twitter accounts were frozen for the entire time while they were in Thailand, plus for a brief time, two ladies from the Real World Portland cast just as their very own season was starting to air back home (they would eventually have their social media freeze lifted later just for them, similar to what the St. Thomas cast had with the last Challenge taking place near to their season premiering). For those 8-9 weeks while I was engaged greatly in RWPDX & other things along the way, I was also longing for the very day when they would all return, and it was a welcome relief when that embargo was lifted on the rest of the group on that RW Wednesday, it almost felt a bit like homecoming. Well, it was because of Rivals II that they were gone, and it has been a month or so since they ended taping. And I knew during RWPDX that while we wouldn't have the kind of strong social interaction during that season when everyone is overseas (including a couple other PDX cast members too), this would eventually be worth it because when this Challenge season premieres later on, everyone will be on social media, getting the great spontaneous interaction that makes it so much more enjoyable for them & viewers alike.
Obviously, the cast of Rivals II knows what to expect & what has happened since they got to film this earlier this spring, but there's nothing like being able to interact with each other and to be able to share & experience this with the rest of America. Last season's Challenge was not only the first one I've watched in a long time (and the first I've ever watched with a great deal of interest in), but it also the first time that I became enthralled by the power of television, its unique communal viewing experience and the interactivity & spontaneity of social media all coming together to create an experience that those TV pioneers could never have imagined. And it has allowed me to engage myself even more around the franchise I have followed for over a decade & a half, adding another dimension to this great, long relationship between me & the RW/Challenge world.
So, after that prelude, it's now gonna be a requirement for fans to not only have their sets tuned to MTV on Wednesday nights at 10PM, but also have an Internet device handy to follow the other big show on at the same time: the spontaneous interaction among cast, fans and all of us. And the following are the actual tweets of the cast & fellow alumni as they, fans and America got to see the premiere of The Challenge: Rivals II. Just before we begin, please note there is also explicit language in some of the tweets below, but I am keeping it uncensored in order to retain the heat of the moment. So, please read with discretion if you are mature enough. :-)
So without further ado, lets get it started...
