August 1 will make the 30th birthday of MTV. Like so many of today's 30 yr olds, MTV is a lesson in hope, promise, thrills, and failure.
When I was a kid, MTV was amazing. In those early years, it was my favorite thing. Hour upon hour of videos of pretty British boys with makeup and strange hair. Comments from the band members, interviews, and bumps with them. Even now, years later when I live in a state of almost pure jadedness, I can still remember the rush of my love for MTV.
Actually, I can't even call it a rush. Rush implies something that shows up and leaves. This was a constant high, a constant happiness. Even the bad videos fascinated my tween mind. I loved it all.
MTV kind of ruled the world at this point, or at least ruled popular culture (which is basically the same thing). Videos changed how we viewed music and changed what music because successful. A good video could launch bands that would have been ignored otherwise. Of course, this wasn't always a good thing. Right or wrong though, it was now THE WAY of things.
As I matured, so did MTV. It began to diversify, grouping music in genre blocks. This could be somewhat annoying, but it was also helpful once you knew how to avoid the blocks of stuff you didn't like. The station also branched out into cartoons . . . some of the most interesting and visually odd cartoons of the time. During my early college days, watching Aeon Flux and The Maxx filled me with the happies in the way videos did when I was younger.
Things were changing though. It seemed that video blocks were becoming shorter and even in some cases being put on at later hours. Regular shows were starting. Things like Making the Video and Cribs rarely held my interest, but I understood why they were on the station. It was still about music.
But at some point, the real world began to creep in and suck the music out of the MTV. And by "the real world," I mean The Real World. Instead of a show about music or musicians, suddenly we had a show about regular young adults who were all living in a house together.
I guess the pitch was something like, "let's look at the youth culture, the people who listen to music." At least, that's my pure theory on it. I doubt it was that nice. It was probably more like, "Okay, these shows cost too much money. How can we put on crap people will watch and spend next to nothing? Make sure there's titties!"
Once reality TV crept into MTV, there was no stopping it. The Real World lead to Road Rules, which was kind of the traveling trainwreck version of TRW. Even then, there could have been a saving grace. The characters who truly represented the edginess and provocative nature of a generation. They could have found people, real life people, who evoked the kind of mystery and wonder found in the earlier videos and cartoons. They could have kept it going and made something even greater.
Instead . . . we got titties and drama and drunken jackasses and idiots and kind of the lowest common denominator of youth culture. Sadly, the tweens who watched now, latched onto that. They grabbed for the lowest rung and demanded more.
Turn on MTV these days, and you'll get marathons of The Jersey Shore or Teen Mom. The station that once launched a thousands British bands now make stars of orange douche bags and turns Snooki into a best selling author. People watch videos online and lament the days of old when MTV was great. They find their wonder in three minutes on Youtube.....and then they walk away.
As for me, well, as you can tell, I'm pretty bitter about the whole thing. I told my roommate earlier tonight that when I was in fifth grade, there was nothing more horrible than being grounded from MTV. These days, watching MTV would be more of a punishment.
I hate that. I hate it for the kid who loved her music TV. I hate it for the college girl who sat in a dorm room with two of her best friends in total awe of the animation she was watching. Most of all, I hate it for me now. As an adult, when I could really use that feeling of total love and perpetual high, there really is no MTV to give it to me. And that sucks.
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