Now that the United States has a real, visible, broad-based youth movement for the first time in a couple of decades, everyone’s looking to cash in on — er, cover — it. So, when word spread last week that The Real World was seeking Occupy Wall Street protesters to audition for the show’s 27th season, we weren’t particularly surprised. We did, however, have trouble imagining how a reality series that has basically devolved into drunk people hooking up and shouting at each other would manage to incorporate a character whose main interests are of the political, as opposed to alcoholic, variety.
While there may turn out to be a vocal 99 percenter among the next crop of housemates, it looks like we’ll see MTV’s take on OWS well before The Real World starts shooting. MTV has announced that True Life: I’m Occupying Wall Street will air November 5th at 6pm ET and “profile a group of 20somethings who’ve pitched their tents amid the skyscrapers of Wall Street to see how they’re feeling about the event.” One featured participant, named Bryan, is a leader of OWS’s sanitation team, which nearly went head-to-head with the city over a demand that protesters temporarily vacate so Zuccotti Park’s owners could clean the space. If the snippet of his story that’s depicted in the True Life preview clip is any indication, it looks like Viacom’s cameras will be fairly sympathetic to protesters. Watch it and let us know what you think after the jump.