The Zach Nichols Podcast - The Nehemiah Clark Interview | ZNP EP. 81

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

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Everybody, I'm Nehemiah, but you should already know that. Make sure you come and check out the podcast. I'm talking to all things, challenge my life, the struggles of being single, everything. So make sure you come and check it out. Welcome back to the Zach Nichols podcast. Warm up your Thanksgiving leftovers because we're coming at you hot today with my co-host, the big Feduccini. What's up, bro? And again, more importantly than both of us, we have the OG of OGs, Nehemiah in the house.

Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Now, thank you. I say, oh, gee, because do you know, do you know, you know, you know when Real World Austin filmed and aired, right? Yeah, I think, I think you definitely know. You know, I think now what I hear is, I was in high school or I was in middle school when you're show aired. That's what I hear now.

Because it filmed in 05. Yep. And it aired in 05. 05. Okay. So I wasn't sure if it was different, but I know it filmed in 05. So in 05, I was a junior slash senior in high school. See what I'm saying?

Which is crazy to me. See what I'm saying? 05, you're coming up on that 20 twin twin. 20. I think it's already past it. Right? Almost, yeah. Almost, yeah.

20 years on television. Oh, goodness. Man, that's probably what I'm all fucked up. You know, I don't even need therapy. Thanks. Actually, of all the cast members, you seem to have, like, have, not all of them. I say a lot of them do, but you have your head on your shoulders. Thank you.

Thank you. You know, you can, you, even when I seen you get heated, you don't really snap too bad. Yeah. But I do want to talk about some of those times. Of course. But I'm sure he has a chronological order of how we're going to go through things. I sure do. You know, we like to start with some accolades.

First of all, we got eight challenge seasons, five flagship three, all-star, three finals, finalists in the house, multiple-time finalists. Some of y'all are you all on 48, never been to a final. And I'd like to make sure everybody knows that. And we got a champion in the house. round of applause for the champion. We got a... On the elimination record,

you doubled up your wins to your losses. You know that, right? Yeah, okay. I had to. I could go out like that. I could go out like that. When it comes to winning percentage in any sport in any discipline, 66.6.667% is pretty well regarded.

I appreciate... Well, you know what? I don't count anything before All-Stars. Oh, really? I don't even really count myself as a champion. Even though you win the gauntlet? No, I mean, it's on paper, but, you know, like, since the game has changed so much and a lot of wins have come from just two players or one player, I feel like I got a win in this era for it to really count. You know what I mean?

Because the game is, the game is changed. Yeah, I won with the team. I'm still counting mine. Yeah. That's why I know he's counting yours too. But I will say, yeah, it was, it has the finals all in the, just like the, just like the, Even people's attitude and preparation for the game has definitely changed. And I mean, by the time I think I came around, which was 23, about all the seasons,

it was kind of already becoming that serious sport. Yeah. And then you came in looking like the fucking incredible Hulk and made every single man in there and you'd step their shit up. Yeah, people start hitting the gym. For real. I was like, yo, they called me and I was like, is that going to be there? No, I'm good.

Well, you could have changed Austin's team for sure, but it wasn't the guys on Team Austin on Battle of the seasons that held them back. It was probably the females. Yeah. Also putting a, you know, ex-married couple on there. Never good thing. And Wes not really, I don't think, that was one of those seasons where I think West was kind of like, I'm going to show up, but I don't know if I'm going to really, you know, clock in.

He has some of those seasons. He has quite a few. He has some of those seasons. You never know which one you're going to get with them. The best part was on rivals, too. He showed up and then after they, TJ was like, oh,

this is who you're with. And it was him in CT. He was like, yeah, I got to make a phone call. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like,

yeah, I'm going to actually call my business partner and tell him like, I'm not coming home next week. Like, I'm going to win it. And then they ended up winning it. But I think your real world season

was the most viewed of all, ever. Yeah. I think the only one that was close to it were a few before it, but then Second Vegas got close, but it didn't eclipse it. Is that factual? Like you had the most viewed

real world season ever. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. They did an award bash and we won the best season. And I think they kind of mentioned that at the time. That's crazy to think. That's crazy to think.

For a lot of people, the real world is what synonymous with our childhoods, with our adolescence, with some for a lot of people. And we know a lot of our listener base is in there, you know, older than us, older than you. So it is such a, and you're what the definition of. If you talk of the real world, that's your season. What were you saying? I'm just, yeah, that was like a lot of, that was what our generation.

Like that was what everyone grew up watching. That was what you got home. If there was DVR, we would have devoured it. But yeah, no, like that was something. I watched a few seasons of the real world, but I was locked in. Once I got to college, I was like, okay, I'm going to watch the challenge, whatever this shit is. We watched a few seasons, my sister and I were younger.

Here's the crazy thing is when we were younger, we were watching it. And my mom, we weren't allowed to watch MTV in our house, but we figured out the code. And so they'd go to bed and we'd be watching in the basement. And as a joke one time, I was like, yeah, I'll be on that show someday with no plans of actually being on it. And then, you know, it came to fruition. But isn't that crazy?

You know what's crazy is that we're so fortunate to have grown up in that time where I feel like TV bonded everybody. Right. There was no streaming. I feel like now everyone's just all on their own device looking at something. But back then with the real world with my show, you had to watch it when it came on. Right. Like if you had DVR, you were lucky and rich is what we said.

DBR is not in everybody's stuff. You had to be lucky and rich. So it was like we had to be there Tuesday at the 10 spot watching TV. You be on the phone during the commercial break. So it's like we got such a dope time. We got blockbuster. We got such a dope time of like really being able to put ourselves into the shows. And I think that might be a reason why the real world is not around right now.

I also think it's not around because back in the day when you watched the real world, the reason you watched it was the reason why they made it because they were like everyone grows up in in their you know their area like you know click yep but let's take someone let's take seven people from different walks of life and see how they react and there wasn't as much uh i don't think there was as much toxicity in the world at that time so it was like you could see people fight you could see people disagree and live together and whatever and it wasn't so divisive it was more like oh wow it made you think You know what I'm saying? And then people that went on the real world, I truly think back in the day they went on the real world for the experience and to learn something about themselves. And then that opened the floodgate for all these other shows. And people just, then social media came out.

And then social media, people started to monetize all social media. And now I think when you get these newer kids, you're like, why are you doing things for the camera? That's not what this is about where you see these like OG real worlders and challengers and fresh meat people. who came on for the experiment experience and they came on to grow. And that's where like our mindset still is.

It's like, yeah, it's about a competition. We love to compete and we love winning money. But also like there's nothing fabricated for camera time. Right. Which was what you get a lot of these days. And that started to kind of trickle in when I was on the real world. I started to notice like even at the audition,

I'm like people were talking and I'm like, you're trying too hard, you know? It's almost like they wanted the people that weren't going to try hard. Right. You know, and that's why I think the real world's gone is because people will go on there being like they're going to cast someone like this. So I'm going to portray what I think they want rather than just giving them an authentic version of themselves. That's so true. And I think you hit so many important things on the head because even with social media, I think the biggest thing about the science project called the real world was putting these people in from different places and seeing how they would react.

But right now with social media, we have access to so many different cultures. I can go and just meet someone in Brazil and just be exposed to their culture just from my phone right now so then if you throw me in a house with a Brazilian, it's not going to be as crazy because I've already been exposed to it. So I think social media kind of changed that

and for us being OGs, we couldn't monetize on this. There was no monetization. So when we went on TV, there was no money after it. So we really did go on there for the experience. Like how can this make me grow? Like this is a once in a lifetime thing where I'm going to learn more about myself. And I think, you know, one of the reasons why I am the way I am is because of the real world.

Like, people are like, you're so zen. I wasn't always like this. Yeah, no. I wasn't always like this. Speak on it, man. Like, man, speak on it. Man, before I got to the real world, I mean, I was arrested from school multiple times. I barely graduated high school.

Um, stealing cars, fighting, like, selling weed and, like, I was, I was unhinged. Yeah. I should not be here right now. But the real world allowed me to, for the, first time putting myself in a third person and see myself from how someone else viewed me. And I was just like, oh, wow, I don't want to be like that. I don't like how I talk to her there. I don't like how I talk to her there.

Wow. Damn, is that how I am? Holy shit, I need to make some changes, you know? So it was like for me, that growth really came and it changed who I was because, man, I'll tell you right now, I'll be, it'll be a whole, we wouldn't even be having an interview. It'd be a whole different type of world if I was not exposed to myself. Right. That exposed to myself sounds funny.

As the kid saying, pause. Pause. But, uh, no ditty. Talk about the upbringing. Like, where'd you grow up? Like, why were you in trouble? Yeah, dude, I was a rebel without a cause. My mother was a drug addict.

So I wasn't raised by her. I took my first flight at four years old to, from Baltimore, Maryland to California to come with my grandparents and my aunt. It was about nine of us in, four bedroom, two bathroom, two-bathroom, place. place. Didn't meet my dad until I was 31. So when I was in middle school, my mom came to live with us, but it was a real rough household, a lot of fights, a lot of drug use. So I had to go live with my aunt when I was in middle school. And then I moved out on my own at 17. So at 14, I'm in a middle school dance. And my mom comes and she's like, I had to come out of the dance. And she's

like, look, I mean, your grandmother's gotten a really big fight. So you have to choose which aunt you want to go live with. So I'm like pulled out of the high school, like the middle school dance to have to now decide where I'm going to go live. And then my aunt ended up adopting me. I was like a ward of the court, had to go through all types of stuff. So growing up, man, from elementary school to middle school, it was like a lot of seeing my mom in AA going to a lot of that. So I was a rebel without a cause. Like when I was in school, I had no guidance, no one to really put me in the right path. And I, you know, I was always bright and always smart, but I just, I always lashed out and I had no one to answer to just like anything, you know, it was like I just wanted love. And that was my way of like,

of trying to get attention in a world that wasn't giving me any attention. That's probably why and I think that's why I got on TV. You know what I mean? Like there's a part of that that was just like, maybe this will make me be loved more because of how much my family loved TV and what my grandmother used to tell me. So yeah, my upbringing was crazy, man. It was, it was, it was, it was Wild kicked out of school. First time at fifth grade for fighting. Kicked out in middle school. I got arrested in middle school for making a false bomb threat.

So I was arrested in middle school, pulled out, then I had to go to like four schools. Man, you were doing it all, bro. My life was lit. So fast forward to the casting story. Did it fall upon you? Did you seek it out? That concludes the free preview of the Zach Nichols podcast. So go to Patreon and subscribe to see the rest of the shit that we talk.

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