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MTV: The King of Pop Culture, Not Music

By sweet_fog - Posted on October 20th, 2006
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MTV is constantly being critisized for not playing enough music on a television network that used to be soley dedicated music. I agree that if your name is Music Television, that there should be a certain amount of musically related programs. And though I could go on and on about how MTV needs to change back to their "glory days", I won't. This is for the simple fact that I love it's current programming. Yes, that's right, I'm addicted to such shows as Laguna Beach and TRL. Call me immature for not seeing what was so" glorious" about when they first came out in the eighties and played music 24/7. MTV has gradually become much more than music, which isn't bad at all (my p.o.v.). It used to lead a generation with only music. Now it has broaden and reached out to all aspects of the current culture- music, movies, obsession with celebs, and of  course, teenage drama. I would like to applaud MTV for giving me great T.V. to watch, which still plays music every once in a while, and for connecting teens across the world on much broader views.

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Culture? I'm not seeing it.
Submitted by QuiteMercurial on Fri, 10/20/2006 - 1:35pm.

This "pop culture" of ours seems more pop and less culture. It's full of superficial flavor-of-the-weeks that many teenagers seem to find oh so fascinating when it's nothing but some kind of constructed fixation. The most MTV has ever done to connect teens or help give them "broader views" of anything would be their Rock the Vote. Other than that, MTV is full of fake "reality" TV shows, mindless countdowns, and petty instances of so-called "drama." The only time MTV is worth watching is in the wee hours of the morning, when one can watch quite a few music videos almost uninterrupted, similar to VH1's Insomniac Theater.

If MTV should be applauded for anything, it should be congratulated on being one of the greatest examples of what TV should not be.

Of course, that's just me.

"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."

"Freedom of press is limited to those who own one."

H. L. Mencken

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TUFFGONG's picture
MTV's "glory days" can only
Submitted by TUFFGONG on Sat, 10/21/2006 - 3:49pm.
Member of the Progressive U Alumni Association

MTV's "glory days" can only be considered glory days if the viewer considers a channel that aired nothing but advertisements 24/7 glorious. MTV was never about music, it was about the music industry, which is not the same thing. A "music video", as most people like to call them, is known in the advertising world as a "promo", because that is what it is, a piece of promotional advertising. MTV saw from day one, a way to get young people to watch advertisements for major record labels and the acts they were pushing. Not much has changed in MTV, except it's advertising techniques, now it's all product placement and endorsements interwoven with clever programme development which supports the marketing agendas of MTV's sponsors/advertisers. MTV and other youth orientated media are not there to support youth culture, they are there to understand it, so they can use this insider knowledge to sell young people products, they are there to manipulate youth tastes, and basically to manufacture consumers. They actively kill youth cultures by over-exposing and commercialising them.

So you keep watching your shows and buying the products you barely realize they tell you to, as long as you keep doing that, you will never have to face the reality that "your" taste in everything was predicted a season or two in advance by a bunch of marketing executives and advertising agencies....rock n' roll.

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