Synopsis

Rob Thomas moves through a surreal version of everyday life, beginning in a bowling alley while leading a camel by his side. The video shifts between disconnected comic scenes: Kyle Cook serves raw meat from an ice cream truck, Brian Yale appears in a chaotic news studio, Paul Doucette works as a diner waitress, and Adam Gaynor appears in a bizarre cereal commercial. Rather than following a conventional storyline, the clip presents a series of odd vignettes inspired by the song's desire to imagine different versions of reality.

Factoids & Trivia

• The band conceived the video around the idea that "Real World" should depict a surreal world through a collection of unrelated vignettes.

• The camel was originally meant to be an aardvark, but the animal could not be used for the bowling-alley sequence.

• A zebra was also considered. The production ultimately chose a camel after being told that camels were easier and safer to work with at close range.

• Rob Thomas later recalled that the camel was exceptionally friendly and would rub its head against him between takes.

• The raw-meat ice cream-truck scene was one of several deliberately absurd ideas developed by the band during the video's planning.

• Paul Doucette said the group wanted an absurdist video and viewed the finished clip as an unusual result of that ambition, even though it did not turn out exactly as they had envisioned.

• The bowling-alley scenes were filmed at The Dust Bowl in Alice Springs, Australia.

• "Real World" appeared on Matchbox Twenty's 1996 debut album, Yourself or Someone Like You, and became one of the album's major follow-up singles.