Irene McGee

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Irene McGee is a media ethics activist, San Francisco State University graduate student and radio DJ, best known for her stint on MTV's reality television series The Real World. She appeared on the show's seventh season, The Real World: Seattle, in 1998, and left the show mid-season over her ethical objections to the manner in which the show was produced. She was inspired by her experiences on the show to become an activist on "issues of media ethics, media manipulation and the falsehoods of reality television"^[1].

In one of the most controversial moments in Real World history, McGee's housemate, Stephen Williams, having been insulted by McGee as she was moving out, stopped her car as she was leaving, opened the passenger side door, and slapped her. The producers of the show gave the cast the decision to make Williams leave the house or not, and they decided to let him stay. Williams was then ordered by producers to attend an anger management class. On the final track of his Become the Media spoken word album, activist Jello Biafra discusses the event:

"We know Real World is not the real world. I recently met a woman named Irene McGee who quit this show and said not even the house was real. The fridges were all filled to the brim with Vlasic pickles delivered daily by the crate load along with gallons of Nantucket Nectar. If she drank anything else, the crew took it from her hand and made sure the Nantucket Nectar label was facing the camera instead. When she walked out, another guy in the cast of Real World hit her and the camera guy did nothing . . . When she spoke out, MTV sued her. And Entertainment Weekly rated Irene getting smash mouthed the 47th most interesting event on TV that whole year . . . Can’t you MTV think of a better way to raise audience awareness of domestic violence than to make it look cool?"

In 2005, McGee began a youth-oriented radio show/podcast, No One's Listening, which is now broadcast on two San Francisco radio stations, and covers a wide range of pop-culture and media-related issues.^[2]

McGee has toured colleges to discuss media manipulation and the falsehoods of reality television, as well as appearing on VH1 and E! Entertainment Television.^[3] During a reunion show for the various casts of The Real World, she appeared in a video in which she aired her criticisms of the show, and her bitterness regarding her time on the show. Roommate Nathan Blackburn, with whom McGee became close friends during the show, took offense at her statements.^{[citation needed]}