Twenty years ago, MTV was born. So was I, incidentally.
I have grown up with Music Television - the most popular music video cable channel in America. At one point, it was packed with music videos, hosted by ’’veejays’’ who actually had senses of humor and appeal, and was regularly viewed by people of all ages and backgrounds, as MTV did not generally focus on one particular generation’s musical tastes.
But, somewhere along the line, MTV went down the porcelain tubes. It began replacing much of the video airtime with stupid reality programming such as ’’The Real World, ’’ and ’’Road Rules’’ - in which groups of young adults are thrown together and are forced to either fight it out or interact with each other peacefully. Personally, I think it’s a load of garbage.
There are too many commercials for my liking. Back when ’’Daria’’ was actually shown on this channel, I tuned in faithfully on Saturdays to watch my favorite animated series. However, I had time to take a nice, hot shower during the commercial break! It seemed like about half of the program’s airtime was devoted to long, windy, boring, annoying commercials that had nothing to do with anything I personally liked, much less wanted to know more about.
On the rare occasions that videos are aired, they are the same stupid things over and over again. In recent months I have seen more lame rap videos than I care to mention - and they are played to death! The same video several times a day? Give me a break, guys!
I also hate Total Request Live. Carson Daly is probably the most annoying television personality alive, which only adds to the misery I feel when watching bits and pieces of this half-hour program. Let’s see...the ten most popular videos are determined by the viewers - who are generally absorbed in trendy Britney Spears and boy band garbage. Isn’t that lovely? No. The final blow to this program is that they don’t even play the entire video: Rather, they play a clip, and interrupt it with people from various parts of the country screeching, yelling, and ranting about how much they love the song or musician. Disgusting.
MTV also happens to have its own awards program, which is usually nothing shy of an embarrassment to American society. I feel sorry for other countries who view the ridiculous songs, outfits, and people we hail as ’’great musicians of today, ’’ lavishly awarding them with trophies and allowing them to ramble on and on about their ’’people’’ back in the city they grew up in. Personally, I would rather stand in my bathtub and shave my head with a cheese grater while bathing in kerosene than witness the spectacle that is Music Television, a.k.a. MTV.
So, if you can possibly avoid it, don’t even bother to tune in. It’s a waste of your time. If you’re bent on music videos, there are several other channels out there, two of which are VH1 and MuchMusic.