Why I Hate MTV
Yeah I could rant and rave about how Music Television doesn't show any music, but whatever. I've gotten over that during the last decade.
Or I could go off about the true shitty quality of their teeny shows.
Or how shows like TRL have ruined our musical culture.
However, there is a really strange example of double standards that I noticed several months ago that really bothers me.
The majority of their realty shows' characters are underage kids. In these shows they have no problem showing these kids partying and drinking. In fact, they seem to flaunt it. Rarely does the audience get to see any negative consequence, other than maybe a girl fights with her friend over a boy or something. I remember one episode of the Real World where some girl is going around looking for a fake ID so she can go drinking. The only bad thing that happens is a bouncer takes it away and she throws a fit.
Maybe I don't have a huge problem showing this, especially since I was probably worse than these kids when I was underage. However.......
Several months ago I was watching Subterranean and saw the video for "This Year" by the Mountain Goats.
The song contains this line:
I played video games in a drunken haze
I was seventeen years young.
However, when John Darnielle sings "seventeen years young," it is censored out.
Later in the song is the line:
I drove home in the california dusk.
I could feel the alcohol inside of me.
Here the word "alcohol" gets censored.
I thought it was pretty strange, but maybe it was just a glitch and a weird coincidence. A few weeks later, however, the video was on again and the same words were left out.
I really don't see a huge problem leaving these words out of the song. But when the same things described in the song are shown with no consequence in many of their shows, that is wrong.
Also, I saw the "This Year" video after 2am on a Monday morning on MTV2. That time of day isn't very friendly to the teenage demographic, and MTV2 is more adult-oriented than MTV. The shows on MTV that don't have a problem with underage drinking are marketed for their teenage audience and are shown in teenage-friendly timeslots.
You see the lousy double standard?
Or I could go off about the true shitty quality of their teeny shows.
Or how shows like TRL have ruined our musical culture.
However, there is a really strange example of double standards that I noticed several months ago that really bothers me.
The majority of their realty shows' characters are underage kids. In these shows they have no problem showing these kids partying and drinking. In fact, they seem to flaunt it. Rarely does the audience get to see any negative consequence, other than maybe a girl fights with her friend over a boy or something. I remember one episode of the Real World where some girl is going around looking for a fake ID so she can go drinking. The only bad thing that happens is a bouncer takes it away and she throws a fit.
Maybe I don't have a huge problem showing this, especially since I was probably worse than these kids when I was underage. However.......
Several months ago I was watching Subterranean and saw the video for "This Year" by the Mountain Goats.
The song contains this line:
I played video games in a drunken haze
I was seventeen years young.
However, when John Darnielle sings "seventeen years young," it is censored out.
Later in the song is the line:
I drove home in the california dusk.
I could feel the alcohol inside of me.
Here the word "alcohol" gets censored.
I thought it was pretty strange, but maybe it was just a glitch and a weird coincidence. A few weeks later, however, the video was on again and the same words were left out.
I really don't see a huge problem leaving these words out of the song. But when the same things described in the song are shown with no consequence in many of their shows, that is wrong.
Also, I saw the "This Year" video after 2am on a Monday morning on MTV2. That time of day isn't very friendly to the teenage demographic, and MTV2 is more adult-oriented than MTV. The shows on MTV that don't have a problem with underage drinking are marketed for their teenage audience and are shown in teenage-friendly timeslots.
You see the lousy double standard?
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