In 29 short years, MTV has ruined music, television, New Jersey and birthday parties. That’s literally a bold statement, allow me to build my case:

Exhibit A) Sure, image, marketing and visual appearance have always had their places in pop music… but it wasn’t until the popularization of the music video that those things completely eclipsed musicianship. Janis Joplin would NOT have a record contract in a post-MTV world, nor would Justin Bieber in a pre-MTV world.

Exhibit B) The first season of The Real World aired in 1992. Arguably, the series’s success was instrumental in America’s reality TV explosion. It is the illegitimate father of The Simple Life, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, The Hills and any number of little person, human litter-raising and/or cake decorating docu-crapperies. The majority of reality TV programs celebrate the worst of humanity and grant celebrity status to dismal people for doing dispicable things.

Exhibit C) New Jersey has long had its problems but Bon Jovi and Jersey Shore is a one-two punch from which the garden state may never recover. A conservative estimate is that 80% of all Jerseyites idolize and/or emmulate one or both.

Exhibit D) My Super Sweet Sixteen taught us that a birthday party isn’t a celebratory gathering of loved ones nor ritualistic rite of passage… it’s a pissing match for rich people.

Case closed. The floor is open for debate.

10 Responses to “I Don’t Want My MTV”
  1. Mr. Maribel says:

    There is no debate.

    MTV doesn’t even have anymore M in it.

  2. Russian Paul says:

    yes and Tod you can also watch the Vhi? this is a place where sometimes a music vioed is played and you will see TOm Peety or Fleetwoos Mac. i donot like these but these are on there, you see? MTV is a place for no music and i am living in NJ and cannot emolate Bon Jovi and he wears too tight pants and plays music only for girls. itis OK and there are some good guitar parts.

  3. Ron says:

    I am sad to say there is only 1 way to win this argument: Apathy.

    …but in the spirit of debate, that channel created the very thing it ruined. Music and culture always did and still does exist outside of it. Plus with all of the available ways to consume “stuff” today as compared to 1982, it seems all media outlets need to specialize – almost like magazines. Is there any catch-all, everything-I-need-to-know-in-a-single-channel left? At our ages, could there be? Anything you can to do to consistently grab a measurable percentage of the viewing public has to be considered a success.

  4. Todd Marrone says:

    What is success? Selling advertising airtime to pimple cream manufacturers?

    Arguably, a non-commercial media service like PBS or NPR is the last remaining POTENTIAL everything-I-need-to-know-in-a-single-channel choice. That or the Trinity Broadcast Network.

  5. Bevan says:

    great stuff

  6. Phil says:

    Too true, Todd.

    At some point, I am sure that someone complained that opera and ballet were abominations of the entertainment industry. If only people had listened, the opera house wouldn’t be the cultural cesspool it is today.

    That tradition carried through to our modern times and got even worse with MTV. I’m with Todd… before MTV, nobody would have dreamed of image, marketing and visual appearance eclipsing musicianship. When MTV first launched, I had hoped it would have been used to give us more bands like the Monkees, ABBA or the Partridge Family.

    Alright, I’m playing Devil’s advocate… MTV helped refine an emerging medium in the 80’s – the music video. They then destroyed it because there were better ways to make money. Video didn’t kill the radio star, but MTV killed the music video star.

  7. Ron says:

    Don’t get me started on ballet…

    But I can only assume that MTV is not run by artists, so their goal is not great art. This is probably the case of virtually all TV stations. If you’re looking for good art, look for good artists – and realise that the people who deliver the art from the artist to the consumer do it for profit, and that’s probably about it. There has always been that flaw in the system.

    My opinion is that if you eliminate as many of these middle-men as possible, your experience will be better and truer – but that’s completely an opinion.

    Burn your television.

  8. Damon Black says:

    The MONKEES

  9. Bruce says:

    Hummm…

    1st, to be positive, I agree with Phil when he fearlessly reports that “…the opera house wouldn’t be the cultural cesspool it is today.” Hear, hear. But, quoting Ron, “Don’t get me started …”

    As for the pea under the mattress of Todd, perhaps we are experiencing “Global Artistic Cooling…”

    Is it real and true or just a perception thing? Heard this before?
    (The Princess knew it was a pea. She was a Princess–duh)

    We might be losing the language to discuss the “work of individuals” that survives from generation to generation. Art History as told in school uses a picture or two to describe 200 years—then hundreds to explain 30.

    Is it possible our youngest and most rebellious, have lost their will to rebel? Today, Artist is another word for Brand Specialist. This is what they are told in Art school. Not much about the font of individuality as the source of inspiration seen through objects rendered by blind determinism.

    Perhaps we are in living in a period to be described with a only a 0 (zero) and a 1 (one) and you must be a weatherman to know the wind is not blowing … now. (Unless they’re Idiot Wind)

    Gotta cool my tool…

  10. Fashion Diva says:

    xoxo I totally adore Justin