The Real World's first LGBTQ+ cast member, Norman Korpi, recently took to Instagram teasing future content celebrating the show's iconic 30th anniversary coming up on May 21. The ground-breaking reality show featuring seven strangers living in a house and having their lives taped over several months became a cultural phenomenon in the early '90s, spawning several spin-offs including Road Rules, The Challenge, and most recently, The Real World Homecoming on Paramount+. The Real World produced seasons on MTV until 2017 with season 32 before airing its 33rd and latest season in 2019 on Facebook Watch.
The show's legacy speaks volumes as the first reality television show mentioned by a sitting president when Bill Clinton spoke of San Francisco cast member Pedro Zamora's activist work as an HIV/AIDS educator until his untimely end with AIDS drawing light on a national discussion largely ignored prior. Zamora isn't the only significant Real World-er to garner national attention, as Boston cast member Sean Duffy decided to step into politics as former U.S. Representative of Wisconsin while his wife, San Francisco alum Rachel Campos-Duffy, is now a co-host of Fox and Friends. Back to New York cast member Mike Mizanin would be known professionally as wrestler "The Miz" and become the highest grossing Real World-er at an estimated $14 million.
In the May 11 Instagram post, Korpi highlighted that he would be celebrating The Real World's 30th anniversary in the coming weeks with several RW-inspired posts revealing details about the series, "I'm going to have some interesting posts coming up about The Real World because as May 24th comes around that will be the official 30 years of being on The Real World." The following day on Instagram, Korpi is seen watching Homecoming featuring the New Orleans cast promising on what he said in his previous post of revealing behind-the-scenes details of when he met the cast, "I love this cast. I've been fortunate enough to have a great relationship with pretty much everybody. I don't think I ever met the Jamie guy, or maybe there was like a thing, he was in the background. And Julie, she was, I don't know where she was. Maybe she was, it wasn't her time to be interested in people." He went on to explain how he met fellow New Orleans cast members Danny Roberts and Kelley Wolf on The RW/RR Challenge: Battle of the Seasons followed by a David "Tokyo" Broom story on The Gauntlet season.
Korpi was last seen in the inaugural season of Homecoming sharing what it was like to be an artist and become an LGBTQ+ icon for the nation while trying to pull his life together as the pandemic ravaged his assets forcing him to move back home with his parents and work in a bakery. His friendship with cast member Becky Blasband was heavily featured as she struggled revisiting discussions of racism and confronting her own white privilege, which led to her departing before filming concluded. His story culminated with the roommates gathering around him in support so he could focus on making art while they helped market the content online in order to raise funds to get his life back on track.
Getting to catch up with Korpi on Homecoming after so many decades has been a delight. His Instagram content has remained fairly consistent since his Homecoming season has aired and given the shows iconic 30th anniversary, he will be sure to deliver quality content in the weeks to come. The Real World nostalgia is at an all time high right now and it pays to take a look at what your favorite cast members have to say on social media as it might not be polite and certainly not edited-for-television.
The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans is currently streaming new episodes every Wednesday on Paramount+.
Source: Norman Korpi/Instagram