The Saddest Overheard Idea Ever

Disbelief.  Anger. Shame. Disappointment.  These were my feelings the other day after overhearing a conversation on a train ride home from Boston.  Sitting in front of me on the train, and distracting me from reading my book with their nasally sounding/half-shrieking voices, were two girls probably 12 or 13.  Conversations were ranging from cute boys to gossip about some girl named Amanda who double crossed someone the prior week Mean Girls style.  Anyways, since I couldn’t focus on my book, I gave up and just spent time staring out of the window and listening to these brats talk about the daily struggles of a 12 year old, when a bombshell suggestion was dropped.  One prepubescent said to the other, “you know what would be, like, cool?” “What?” said the other.  “They should make a tv channel that just plays music videos all day long”.  “Yeah that’d be pretty cool”. 

Shock.  Awe.  Puzzlement.  Sadness.   How is it that these girls had no idea that MTV used to be mainly music television, known for showing music videos?  It just doesn’t seem possible.  I had to tune these girls out for the rest of the train ride, and I’ve been thinking about it for the past few days trying to figure this out, and some things have hit me.  First off, if my guesses were right and these girls were 12-13ish, then that would put them being born in the 1999-2000, which is frightening.  This being said, it makes sense with the unfortunate fact that MTV hasn’t played music videos (besides at 6:00 am for about 15 minutes) in years.  I mean even when TRL was still on, Carson Daley spent more time hogging the spotlight than showing music videos.  I can remember in the early 2000’s, when TRL was on the decline where I would become incredibly frustrated with the fact that TRL would only show 30 second clips of Sum41’s Fat Lip or In Too Deep videos.  What I’m saying is that it actually is hard to see music videos on MTV these days, so perhaps it’s not crazy for this idea to seem brilliant to these preteens. 

To be honest, it actually does seem like a pretty good idea.  Why can’t they just show music videos instead of reruns of such great television like Teen Mom and My Super Sweet Sixteen.  I mean yeah people for some reason watch that garbage, but to show repeats for hours on end every night is a bit much.  Can’t they just show some music videos?  Kids used to stay in some nights and just watch videos one after another, like it was a social thing.  Today you hear 10 second clips of songs inbetween shows, and that’s about it.  It makes me wonder if these two girls actually knew what MTV stands for.  I’d actually be willing to bet that they don’t.  I mean, I don’t know what UPN, CSPAN or G4 stands for, and I bet to them MTV is just a name with no meaning behind it.  This is one of those moments in time where I wish this blog was relatively famous and could just point out how far MTV has their head up their ass, because for a pair of 12 year old girls (isn’t this the age where crappy pop music matters the most?  Think of Britney Spears and *NSYNC back in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s) to not know the intent and original purpose of MTV, or that a music television channel even existed is pretty pathetic.  I would personally love to see some stats regarding the VMA’s this year, take all the nominees and artists who are up for, you know, music video awards, and get some numbers for exactly how many times their full length videos actually were shown on MTV.  I sort of have a feeling that if your name isn’t Rihanna, Lady Gaga, or Katy Perry then the numbers are going to be pathetically low. 

Now I don’t mean to rant about MTV, but it was this statement just stuck with me, and sort of bothered me.  I try to keep the blog focused around pop culture and what not, but to hear this girl say that they should create a television station that just plays music videos truly blew my mind.  I understand transitions, like when vinyl went to cassettes/walkmens, to cds, to ipods and mp3, but this is a television channel.  Besides HD, nothing much has changed, so for something so vital to pop culture to become an unknown entity to these teeny boppers is really saying something. 

In other news, I’m turning 22 tomorrow.  Shoot me.  Also, I will start giving $5 to people who start giving me quality, legit, pop culture-related blog topics.  This is not a joke.  I’ll seriously do it.

Finally, after ranting about a lack of good music, enjoy Belong by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.