Played up or played down, edited, produced, or otherwise portrayed, “MTV’s Real World” characters Julie and Justin have counterparts in that other real world – the big one in which we live.

Julie Stoffer and Justin Deabler, as they are known off camera, have real lives and real causes. Last night, they brought “Dealing with Difference in the real world” to Stephens Auditorium.

“Things that are unfamiliar are the best places of all to learn,” Deabler said.

The unfamiliar in Stephens included honest talk about racism, sexism and dealing with people in new environments.

“Your dorm is like a smaller universe of what happens in our country,” he said.

Deabler studied at Harvard and abroad in Israel. Stoffer studied at Brigham Young University and recently moved to Huntington Beach, Calif.

They stressed they are real people who deal with the same situations as everyone else.

After his flight into Des Moines, Deabler went outside for a Parliament cigarette to stave off a bit of pre-lecture nervousness.

Half an hour later, Stoffer arrived in the Green Room backstage, carrying a skateboard in her arms. She was late, but with a bounce she briskly walked to the stage.

Deabler talked about his high school years in Houston and how it was “scary to walk down the halls there.”

He’s gay, and violence was a problem in his school.

Stoffer spoke about her favorite lesson learned on the “The Real World” from her castmate Matt.

“He told me he was an open canvas, and everyone he met added a little color,” she said. “He said he hoped when he came to the end of life, he’d be the most beautiful mosaic in the world.”

Stoffer and Deabler spoke as peers – they just happened to live a little bit of their real worlds on television.