Unpopular Opinion- the pedestal we have put Danny Roberts on is Undeserved

I loved Pedro Zamora.

Pretty privilege.

OP- He was not the first GAY male on the Real World but he was the first gay male who was not effeminate and a generic/sceney type.

R3 I think you’re right. His being a gay man who was “straight passing” was a big deal back then.

R3, Pedro wasn't fem

Whose we?

Danny Roberts had preppy boy next door good looks and could pass for straight, so being out on a reality show had more of an impact.

R6 Weeeee!

R5 you’re right, but he was a Hispanic man who died of AIDS fast, which should make him an even bigger pioneer, but straight White Americans just saw it as he brought it on himself vs sweet precious All American Southern White Pretty Danny.

Not that Danny didn’t deal with homophobic assholes, we all have. But Pedro being Latino automatically put him below Danny back then to most Middle Americans.

Karamo came after Danny, of course, but I found him more impactful than Danny too, being the first Black gay man represented on the show, who came out on the show because no one back home knew he was gay.

Could anyone tell Danny was gay? If so, just wondering.

Yes, and he was a whore, darlin'.

You say that like it was a bad thing.

Fuck him and his stupid gray sweater.

The reason why he gets all the more attention is because he was handsome, athletic, and white, and having a relationship with someone in the Armed Services at the time. He was a fantasy at the time of the kind of men people wished were gay and out.

It's pretty ridiculous, because it suggests that Pedro, who was effeminate and slight and Hispanic, was not as heroic as Danny was for being out. But it's the typical self-loathing preference gay men make. It's fine with me that other gay men might have wanted to fuck Danny more than Pedro, but to suggest Danny was somehow more heroic than Pedro because he was hotter is ridiculous (though that is not to take away from Danny for being heroic in being out back then).

Only stupid people think "impactful" is a real word.

Danny wasn’t athletic.

R15- You forgot to mention that Danny also sounded straight.

Pedro looked pretty great to be on the verge of death during most of the filming of SF. And if that's what he looked like ill, I'm sure he was even more attractive before.

I remember this picture at the time, is this really Danny?

Yes r20. It is.

Thanks, r21!

I recall Danny being lusted over a lot, but not help up for admiration the way Pedro was. Pedro Zamora was essentially the patron saint of brave AIDS victims.

R16 has apparently never seen a dictionary

He seems very damaged in the new season. The last episode had him getting sloppy drunk at a gay bar and hanging all over some 4 who told him he looked up to him as a kid. I felt bad for him.

I was 14 when his season came out and it was a big deal for me. Like others said, the only gay guys we were ever saw on TV were camp and homely. A handsome, charming, masculine white gay guy never seemed like something we could aspire to meeting.

God forbid gay guys ever get wish fulfillment. There has to be a bunch of bullshit about Danny’s privilege and the racism of white gays.

R15, how was Danny athletic? He was skinny. Had no muscles and didn't play sports. Are you sure we're talking about the same Danny?

R26 they make up shit in their own heads and run with it.

One thing to consider: Danny was often likable; Pedro was not.

At first, Danny clashed with Mormon Julie who was deadset against homosexuality, but instead of fighting with her about it, he befriended her. I remember when his military boyfriend visited (face blurred) the trio got along so well and Julie wrote a song for them.

On the other hand, Pedro was a drama queen and was sometimes the cause/catalyst for drama in the house with Puck.

Norm was cooler than all of them put together.

OP Brooklynite Seacow Ed.win Mont.anez Jr. You are a fucking retard.

R29 Norm had game he was a meh looking guy but he could get men far above his league.

R29 And now, Norm is fatter than all of them put together. Norm must eat his feelings, but why does he feel so much?

He was so beautiful back in the day. And apparently post-RW took raw loads constantly from gang bangs (per a poster on another thread).

I love Pia Zadora

And it’s actually bad he put him on a high pedestal so easily because from what I’ve heard (and now seen with Homecoming) that had a negative impact on him in a way he’s never been able to shake off.

R31- He was a rather generic looking urban gay male.

I just watched a very recent video of him. He looks bearish now and his youthful pretty etc looks are all gone but what should I expect now that he's about 42 years old. If he went to a gay bar now he'd probably be invisible.

Sorry he's actually 44 years old now.

His impact on pop culture was at the heart of "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL" you dumbshit TROLL, OP.

This was the era of, YOU GOT FIRED BECAUSE YOU LOVED SOMEONE OF THE SAME SEX.

Men lost their jobs, lost their apartments, lost their friends, all because theY weren't STRAIGHT!

Stop being a TROLL, OP.

I wonder why he keeps that beard. It does absolutely nothing for him whatsoever.

I never got the Danny appeal. OG Norm was gorgeous (those eyes!) & Pedro was absolutely stunning.

How sad that he's now a disease ridden old whore.

He’s sick. That’s also why he doesn’t look well. Those meds may keep you alive but the disease is still there.

R39 that was acknowledged, moron. Learn to read. And what was said is that had no effect on Danny. PAUL was the one at risk. Not Danny.

Pedro and Danny did a lot more but as has really been stated ad nauseum, he was straight acting, good looking, and white. But yes...he seems to be a damaged mess now.

has already*

So, DL has a Real World troll?

[quote] it suggests that Pedro, who was effeminate

I never found Pedro effeminate. He was quiet, but not girly at all.

[quote] I wonder why he keeps that beard. It does absolutely nothing for him whatsoever.

Probably because he likes it and couldn't care less what others think about it.

So many self-haters (and at such an advanced age as well) disparaging a guy who is just living his life, minding his own business. Sad.

I'm the same age as he is, and I remember at the time thinking how beautiful he was. He took my breath away.

[quote]was sometimes the cause/catalyst for drama in the house with Puck

Examples please.

What pedestal--a reality show person (narcissist) from what decade? Who could be less relevant?

In what “real world” does anybody even think about this stuff?

R48 exactly and being quiet ie stoic is a masculine trait as well

R40- I’m slow . For a while I thought you were referring to a phony girlfriend he had.

Someone said he’s diseased- Is Danny HIV positive?

R55 Pedro wasn't stoical. He was always telling people how much he was suffering.

Pedro wasn’t stoic but he wasn’t fem either. His mannerisms were more your typical Hispanic, not gay.

I thought Danny’s story was appealing solely because he was dating a guy in the military. We were all debating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell so the production had to always block the Bf’s face

At the time, we had no one else like him. Remember, this was before there were actors like Matt Bomer who were both conventionally hot and out, without the out part being a career-ender. So yes, Danny being very attractive and more like an All-American boy next door (remember this was also prime Abercrombie era) was the big draw.

R57 yes he announcing he was poz a few years ago.

R61- Matt Bomer is a poor example because he looks GAY from outer space.

R61- Danny's good looks combined with the fact that he sounded straight.

Danny was cute but the overreaction to his looks are absurd

Wasn't there a rumor about Danny being a bug chaser?

He only had the face. He never had a muscular body.

R67- He was VERY good looking. He did not need to have a muscular body and anyway who cares about a muscular body.

His body look pretty good at r20!

looks ^

It’s clear Danny was better received because he was a masculine, mainstream dudebro type that most of America could identify with. Stereotypically gay men are not going to resonate the same way a guy who fits in with straight dudes will. Karamo was heralded at the time because he seemed so masculine and manly

Muscle bodies were not as big of a deal as they are now. In fact, it was just becoming a mai stream goal for men

R47 It’s just the Retard Brooklyn Seacow Ed.win.. He has a weird fascination with anything real world /road rules. He even tried out for that show.

I don’t know if it would be appropriate to call Pedro effeminate, but I do think most would say he was stereotypically gay in many ways, which in and of itself reduced his appeal to middle America

Plus he was Latino.

R74- Just like Will from Will And Grace was only mildly effeminate yet was still stereotypically gay.

True, although for many people, a stereotypically gay man can’t be masculine

[quote]The reason why he gets all the more attention is because he was handsome, athletic, and white, and having a relationship with someone in the Armed Services at the time. He was a fantasy at the time of the kind of men people wished were gay and out.

Agree with r15...I was also a young teen when New Orleans 1 was on TV. Danny's relationship highlighted the DADT era, it was so dark and mysterious whenever he had those scenes with this ex. It was impactful, but years later I never understood why gays here were so taken with him.

I never really connected with any of the gay men on The Real World. Danny seemed sad. Karamo reinforced negative stereotypes about black men. Willie always had his nose in the air and he was a mean girl.

Karamo was not even a stereotype. He was an asshole but not the ghetto thug you wanna paint him as, desperately

r79 I didn't say he was ghetto or a thug at all. But he did have a lot of anger that he flagrantly displayed on that season. I dont judge him, and a lot of it was likely encouraged by producers because most of that cast was largely forgettable.

I adore Karamo today (I know a lot of DLers dont) and he's still sexy.

Karamo was groundbreaking at the time. Most reality tv cast white gay guys. He was one of the first black gay men to be cast on reality tv.

And he was justified in his anger. You try being both gay and black.

Anyone know if Danny is a top or a bottom?

R82- He contracted HIV so I would say he's a prolific bottom.

Bottom

New NYTimes article

[quote] Danny's good looks combined with the fact that he sounded straight.

He looked like a standard white kid of that age. He wasn't really great looking or anything.

People have forgotten the stigma attached to being gay at that time. THAT was the attraction, plus his bf being the symbol of DADT

oh my.

[quote]He looked like a standard white kid of that age. He wasn't really great looking or anything.

Perhaps to you, but you were in the minority, because he was considered a heartthrob/sex symbol. I remember all of the excitement leading up to the premiere. I don't know how they do it now,, but MTV used to promote the hell out of each new RW season. Like month in advance. For instance, they would have a show where you met all of the hopefuls an they whittled them down to the final seven. So from the get-go, Danny caught everyone's attention. And they didn't reveal that he was gay until the first episode,, so almost immediately he acquired a large female fanbase. And then on the first episode when he announced to his housemates that he was gay, there was a lot of tears/wailing from these fangirls.

heart-throb?

hardly.

R88 is a rethug retard.

He wasn’t a heartthrob and his looks were and are overrated

I’m almost exactly the same age and came out the summer that his season aired. Every gay men I knew was obsessed with him.

He was VERY good looking back in 2000 and had a deep masculine voice. He was not sceney or bitchy so that was also innovative at the time.

His voice wasn’t deep.

The young gay boys who fell for Danny twenty years ago are now the middle-aged gays in media, hence all the attention. He was the first gay boy on TV a lot of us had crushes on. That makes an impact, even if it is superficial, although I don't think it is - representation matters and it meant a lot at the time. If Pedro was alive today he'd be far more heralded than Danny, and get tons of press attention.

Danny was so straight acting with his strapping body and gruff voice.

He was the type of gay who you just knew went out on the weekends and really tore up some pussy he picked up at a straight bar.

He didn’t have a strapping body

[quote] "What pedestal--a reality show person (narcissist) from what decade? Who could be less relevant?"

Seriously R53. I was aware he was on New Orleans, & that he had a closeted Marine boyfriend (which they more or less edited out), but I never regarded him as anything more than a reality show participant.

Some of you trying to rewrite history are either too old to remember or too young to know better, but before the reality TV craze started in the early 2000s, MTV's REAL WORLD casts were some of our first 'reality stars.' Yes, they gained national fame (or notoriety) and afterward they went on speaking tours and meet-and-greets. They weren't just 'reality TV show participants." There was no such concept yet. In fact, SURVIVOR and BIG BROTHER (which kicked off the craze) debuted the same summer as RW: NEW ORLEANS. Thus, Danny gained sex idol status among fans of the show, which were the high school/college demographics. I was 20 then and most everyone I knew was still watching RW.

It makes me laugh when people act as if he was the first non-obvious gay man ever. Rock Hudson was much more masculine than him and he came way before Danny...

But wasn’t out

[quote] "They weren't just 'reality TV show participants."

For me, that's exactly what they were, R99. I only watched bits of it on occasion when I was at a friend's house, because he watched it. And for the record: at the time the NOLA season aired, I was ALSO twenty years old. But I'd moved past MTV by that point, because I saw it for the boring trash it had become.

Sorry, but Justin from Hawaii (season before New Orleans) was my hero as a gayling. Tacky bleached hair? Check. Thought he was better than the rest of the trashy cast because he was a Harvard law student? Check. Left the show halfway through for a “family emergency”? Check. And now he’s an authoress!

R103 recently he is the one who said he didn’t wanna do Homecoming but said if the rest of the cast wanted to he would be willing to do it not to hold the rest back (the way Sean is doing to the Boston cast) but turns out it won’t happen because Colin refuses to. Not even the 6 figure paycheck can convince him to do it.

That whole cast seems to have done well though.

[quote]It makes me laugh when people act as if he was the first non-obvious gay man ever. Rock Hudson was much more masculine than him and he came way before Danny...

You realize the people who watched Danny on The Real World in their teens and twenties were not alive when Rock Hudson was still acting, right?

[quote]He looked like a standard white kid of that age. He wasn't really great looking or anything. People have forgotten the stigma attached to being gay at that time. THAT was the attraction, plus his bf being the symbol of DADT

To you, as someone else said. He was indeed a sex symbol. There weren't many people who were GAY, OUT and looked like him on TV in their early 20s back when people still watched a lot of TV.

Nobody has "forgotten" the stigma attached to being gay back then. You're just not remembering that the target audience of The Real World, weren't generally the people who would have had a problem with it.

No one talked about Dan, Norm, Pedro or Justin the same way they have always talked about Danny. Even without Paul, his tight body, southern accent and willingness to run around shirtless or completely naked would have made Danny a sex symbol. His BF being subject to DADT made him important.

R105 he looks fine. Nothing special. And he looks SUPER GAY there

Oh For Christ sake it was a reality show, never in my life did I rank any of these people in importance.

i don't worship any gay reality people. yuck.

if you get hiv in this day and age after all these years - you wanted it. losers.

I don't get what people are looking at when they say he had a great body. He looked like he never worked out a single day in his entire life. No arms, no chest, no ass, skinny legs, etc. When he was on The Challenge a few years after doing The Real World, he himself even admitted he was "skinny as hell."

R110 what did you expect from a southern belle bottom twink?

R103 He was ugly though and worst of all boring

[quote]He looked like a standard white kid of that age. He wasn't really great looking or anything. People have forgotten the stigma attached to being gay at that time. THAT was the attraction.

Um, no. He was hot by ANY rational standard, and the DL standard of a guy being "ugly" because he lacks a ten-inch cock and/or 5% body fat is nothing of the sort. *I* was a "standard white kid of that age" at the time, as were most of the gay guys I knew then, and without exception we all watched that RW season (I'd actually stopped watching it by then - after watching it religiously in high school - but tuned back in specifically after hearing about Danny) and lusted after him.

[quote]It makes me laugh when people act as if he was the first non-obvious gay man ever. Rock Hudson was much more masculine than him and he came way before Danny...

Thanks for reinforcing DL's eldergay stereotype, but I was a preschooler when Rock Hudson died and have no memory of him as a youth. (Not ALL of us are geriatrics.)

[quote]Perhaps to you, but you were in the minority, because he was considered a heartthrob/sex symbol. I remember all of the excitement leading up to the premiere.

r88 I was a horny young teenager watching Danny in year 2000, and even then I didn't have the level of thirst that some of you seemed to have had for him. I guess so little variety in out gay celebrities at that time factored into it? Danny was a very good looking guy, but to say he was a sex symbol is pushing it.

Every time he was speaking with his shrouded boyfriend all I could remember thinking is, goddamn this is what my life may be like one day. I give him all the credit it world as he is living testament and symbol of that time period.

I only ever found Danny cute. And no one I knew found him More than cute. Jamie seemed to be the one a lot of us found hot

R96- Are you suggesting this bottom was a PUSSYHOUND?

After reading he NY Times article, now he is my hero - “Marriage is a bad idea”. I guess we’re lucky to get to learn that for ourselves now. Progress.

Not as built as today's Instagays, but Danny's body back in 2000 wasn't bad. He had some musculature and looked good shirtless, whereas Matt just looked skinny

There is not one person on this thread that would kick Danny circa 2000 out of bed

Man, there are some mean bitches on here! Danny seemed totally harmless. He always reminded me of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone with his messed up hair. Also I met him one time after the show aired and he was perfectly nice. Simmer down, bitches!

[quote]Not as built as today's Instagays, but Danny's body back in 2000 wasn't bad. He had some musculature and looked good shirtless, whereas Matt just looked skinny

Danny had what is still more or less than standard-issue twinky bod: contrary to what the Instagay crowd might have you think, they're still the norm for early-twentysomethings who are already hot (like Danny) and don't need muscle to get laid constantly.

Wow, was I disappointed to see Paul. He looked like some Miami drug dealer, with that tacky unbuttoned shirt.

This is the author of the NY Times paean to Mr. Robertson. I assume that's some kind of hair restoration on top?

Danny was cuter. End of discussion. He wins.

R123 It is because the girls mainly Melissa and that white one ( I forget her name) were being nice to Danny and kept calling Paul gorgeous and stunning and blah blah from the photos Danny was showing them. They weren’t going to tell Danny “he’s average and you have a fetish for his uniform plus he has only been giving you dick for a month?? You are dickmatized Danny girl!!!”

Whoops meant to reply to r122. Also Paul was short and had small dick face!

Danny had a great face but would have been even hotter if he would have grown his hair out a little and shaved his face completely and worked out, etc... Who agrees?

Paul was actually pretty hot in the special they aired together on MTV in 2004 after his initial discharge. It was a fairly hyped event. They seemed more evenly matched at the time.

Paul has aged terribly and his style choices make him look like a slimeball.

Just finished watching OG RW NO season and I think Danny came off really well in it. He never once had a blow-up with anyone in the house and the only person he ever got miffed with was David (and rightfully so). I appreciate people who can keep their emotions in check. He was just a little hornball. A couple of the girls in the house described him as being the best cuddler on earth and I can totally see that--you just want to cuddle with that cutie like he's a kitten or something!

If Paul had a small dick as well, no wonder Danny was already cheating on the show. That bussy needs fillin'.

[quote]If Paul had a small dick as well, no wonder Danny was already cheating on the show. That bussy needs fillin'.

r130 and with this comment, I think this thread has officially jumped the shark! 🤣

If I were a bottom, I imagine I’d probably want it a lot — and Danny seemed like a very horny guy — so it would probably be more practical to have a long term top boyfriend with a modest sized dick for easy and less painful access.

She was probably a major size queen for anonymous hook ups though.

R129 he didn’t like Jamie either. Did you actually watch the show? He didn’t confront him but he did talk about him behind his back.

How do people know Danny is a bottom? Proof?

R134 Hiv, and paul is a dom top.

R135, oh I didn't know that. How'd you know Paul is a top? Just wondering.

I'm rewatching his season right now and it's quite obvious he only goes for other masculine guys who can "pass" as straight. So there goes my chance! He even tells Paul over the phone at one point that some gay guys he met out at the bar were "typical" which I believe was his way of telling Paul that they weren't his type and therefore weren't a threat.

Danny Roberts...generic, bland fag.

And, to the people trying to claim how "butch" he was...puh-leeze.

You could see him sniffing cookies from space.