Songfacts®:

• The lyrics to this one are pretty opaque. Tonight the Stars Revolt!, as with Powerman 5000 as a whole, were built around a science fiction and comic book aesthetic. This song fits into that.
  
  The other hit to come off this album, "When Worlds Collide," clearly references an old science fiction film, but "Nobody's Real" has no such obvious connection. It seems to reference the notion of genre fiction in general, judging by the opening verse:
  
  Scary monsters
  And super peeps
  The more you dream the less you sleep
  Life as you know it
• This song was popular during the post-grunge period when industrial music was a popular flavor on "alternative" and "modern rock" radio stations. The Tonight the Stars Revolt! album went platinum, but the band never came close to those sales figures again.
• The song was featured on the soundtrack of the 1999 Arnold Schwarzenegger film End of Days.
• Like all of Tonight the Stars Revolt!, the video for this song was built around the theme of science fiction and superheroes, featuring a boy who gets powers through a robotic mask. In a 1999 interview with Hip Online, Powerman 5000 frontman Spider One said he was heavily involved in the making of the video. He's listed as co-director, along with David Meyers, who also directed the video for "When Worlds Collide."