Jessica Suarez

I hate MTV. I hate it for so many reasons, but most of all, I hate it because it hates me. I tried to make peace with it. I went to its stupid "The Real World" audition.

"Hey, I know I think I'm too cool for you, on some level, and I do want to keep my human dignity, so let's compromise. You give me fame, a cool internship and the single bedroom. You can take my dignity and self-respect," I said.

MTV looked at my application, my photo booth pictures and deep into the well of my soul.

"No," MTV said.

I hate MTV. But I wanted to be on "The Real World." As I waited more than two hours for my audition, I realized that everyone else in Tucson between the ages of 18 to 24 wanted to be on too. And it wasn't just everyone in Tucson. I met a girl at Grill an hour earlier who had taken the all-night Greyhound to be there. Every half-hour or so, the Tucson Airport Shuttle would drop off even more people, headshots and printed applications in hand. The crowd would eye each other nervously, judging their competition. Minorities looked for other minorities, and gay men sized up other gay men, knowing MTV "only allows one of each per cast."

What was it about "The Real World" that made me want to be on it so badly? Was it because I could live somewhere without paying rent and without working? That's what my parents are for. And if I really wanted to be surrounded by gorgeous, lusty boys, I'd go to a gay bar. So what was it that made me and hundreds of other kids want to become exhibitionists? Maybe it was because we had all been voyeurs for so long.

MTV's "The Real World" is in its 11th season now, which means it's been on at least since I've been in middle school, just as it must have been for the other 18 to 24-year-olds who auditioned (you have to be in that golden marketing group to be considered).

MTV, and all of its programming, was the reference point for non-mainstream culture when I was growing up. It was where I discovered Madonna, Salt 'n' Pepa, and as I got older, where I discovered Nirvana and Weezer. Then as I got even older, MTV showed less of the music I liked, and I learned to look elsewhere. So did lots of other kids who discovered that the station was less concerned with being cutting-edge as it was with being marketable. But no matter how much older all of us have become, or how much we're grown to realize that MTV wasn't hip at all, we still seem to consider it, at least on some level, a barometer of what is hip and what isn't.

MTV deems what music and fashion is cool now and will be cool in the future. It makes sense then, that they determine which "regular" people are cool or not, too. Just as they make instant judgments on what they think their viewers will want to listen to or wear, they decide which people will both best interest their audience and best interest their advertisers.

This technique worked fairly well for the first few seasons. However, those former cast members didn't grow up with MTV like we did. More importantly, they didn't grow up with "The Real World" like we did. Being on "The Real World" means a lot more now than just living in a cool house with other people for a few months. For a lot of people (myself included), it's a validatation of our own hipness.

Or maybe not. Because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that MTV hasn't been doing a very good job of judging what's going to be cool and what isn't.

For all the bands the station has said would be next big thing (and MTV, I admit, has been more correct than not), why hasn't a single person on "The Real World" ever been famous afterwards? And, if these people who had been deemed by MTV as the next big thing were the current big things, then why do they have time, long after their season is over, to appear on "Real World" reunion shows, "Real World" challenges and guest-hosting shows?

It seems things have come full circle for the lucky few people who have gone on. They desperately wanted to be on MTV and then MTV desperately wanted them to be on their show. It seems like they're still hanging on, desperate for the attention.

But not me - I'm so much better than that now. I've got my application all ready for the Spice Channel's "Spice House," where people stop being polite and start sunbathing nude. I don't need you, MTV.

Besides, I still have four more years to audition.