Opinion
Music channels swap bad videos for worse reality shows
October 27, 2006
Waking up in the wee hours of Monday morning to prepare for an exam that I was sure would be the demise of me, I found something on TV completely out of the ordinary: music videos...on MTV and VH1.
With the little time the two networks have allotted for music videos, which is usually between 3 a.m. and 9 a.m., you would think they would at least offer a little variety. Apparently that’s not feasible. Instead, the same videos pop up about every hour, on the hour. I was watching MTV for maybe two hours and saw at least four videos twice. And they weren’t even good. I could certainly go without hearing that much Justin Timberlake, Ludacris and Christina Aguilera. And the good videos they do play every now and then are songs I have grown tired of hearing, thanks to KDWB and KS95. I realize they are popular this week and all, but what ever happened to playing a whole variety of videos?
Country fans have it really nice because CMT airs videos throughout the day. I do enjoy listening to country music on occasion, but one can only take so much sappy, beer-drinking honky tonk in one day. I really miss the days when I could watch videos all day long and not be tempted to change the channel once a “Surreal Life” or “Laguna Beach” marathon began.
I find it quite odd that two cablen channels that pride themselves on being the epitome of new music and videos air everything but. That is, unless you are an insomniac or tend to wake up before the sun rises. It seems that both MTV and VH1 have jumped on the reality TV bandwagon that has been suffocating primetime television, and they’re not looking back. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy watching my fair share of reality shows, but enough is enough.
As soon as Flavor Flav was given his own TV show on VH1, I knew society had hit a new low. I honestly don’t know how anyone could take a man who wears an actual kitchen clock around his neck seriously. What makes it worse is that all these women are swooning over him and fighting each other for him. Are they honestly that desperate, or do they just see dollar signs?
It’s funny how all these washed-up celebrities are cashing in with these shows, even though their actual careers ended decades ago. Without this new reality trend, Hulk Hogan would probably be just another hasbeen wrestler with no future. And Christopher Knight aka Peter Brady most likely would not be married to someone 24 years his junior. That would be comparable to me being married to my dad.
And MTV isn’t much better. If they want to devote endless hours to reality TV, they could at least bring back “Jackass;” watching those guys voluntarily abuse themselves is quite entertaining. It sickens me to think people even watch “Parental Control” or “Date My Mom.” They are cheap rip-offs of somewhat decent dating shows like “Blind Date.”
Equally repulsive is “Yo Momma.” Really? A show based on who can diss whose mother the best? Even Wilmer Valderrama can’t make that show good. And then there’s “My Own.” Without a doubt, the people who go on that show are way too pathetic to be entertaining. Anyone who would date a girl just because she has an ass like J-Lo’s really doesn’t deserve 15 seconds of fame, much less 15 minutes.
But the worst by far is “My Super Sweet Sixteen.” I honestly don’t see how snotty little rich girls complaining because their millionaire parents can’t find enough money in their pocketbooks to spring for a band could be considered entertainment. And nobody cares if the cutest guy in school is going to your birthday party, so shut the bitch up. Maybe if you’d quit whining for two seconds, you would hear the world’s tiniest violin playing a song just for you.
Jennie Oemig is a student at UW-River Falls.