In 1992, MTV premiered a new television program called “ The Real World .” In it, producers cast a handful of young adults who didn’t know one another to live in an outrageous mansion together for a few months and drink themselves nearly to death.

For children of the 1990s, these hot young people — hardly older than us — were a televised testament that maybe we too could be trusted to navigate the complexities of adulthood.

The show’s format and early seasons were particularly eye-opening for Utah Latter-day Saint teenagers, what with the partying and scandalous coed living. The unadulterated hedonism intrigued us while also allowing us to dip our toes into disrepute without ourselves becoming disreputable. “The Real World” was disconnected from our real world, filmed off in some dista

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