MTV Rehab

-I hate MTV. And this is coming from somebody who worshipped MTV growing up. I mean, I was the #1 fan/supporter of MTV. I wasted months in the summer watching Kennedy, Jesse Camp, Matt Pinfield, Pauly Shore, Duffy, Simon Rex and others walk around on the Jersey shore in between videos of Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It" and TLC's "Waterfalls". I would sneak around watching Beavis and Butthead, Unzipped, Sifl and Olley, The State, The Real World and Daria. And now, just a decade later, MTV is the biggest piece of crap on TV. It's just a big corporate mess of bisexual dating shows, "reality" shows about rich kids, "Jackass"-style pranks and faux hip-hop variety shows. They've even screwed up The Real World (more on that later). They can make time for a 4-hour marathon of "Date My Mom" or whatever but won't show any music videos. They've even messed up the VMA's since they took it from the Radio City Music Hall.
I was still a MTV junkie even a couple years ago. I used to seriously watch all these Gauntlet challenge shows and Next marathons religiously. But I've been on a complete MTV fast for over two years now, and I feel that it's positively influenced my life. I suggest a MTV withdrawal for you. I know it's hard, but you can do it. I should start a support group or something.




-While I'm on the subject, I'm so disappointed in MTV's "The Real World". Like everything else on MTV, I haven't watched "The Real World" in a couple years. Last month I was hanging out with some friends when an episode came on, but I couldn't watch it. I just sat there and talked to them while playing on my iPhone, I just felt sick every time I glanced up at the TV screen. It just confirmed to me how much "The Real World" has fallen off.
This is a pretty big deal for me because I used to be a huge "Real World" fan. I watched every season religiously, dating back to the first season in New York. Here's the thing... "The Real World" actually meant something back then. It was important. I really feel that it was an important landmark in the history of television. It was a sociological experiment. They really did stick seven strangers in an apartment in an unknown city and just watched what happened. And here's why it was successful... because these people were all different. They were real people. Some of them had real problems. Heck, some of them were flat-out dorks. I mean, Pedro from San Francisco was suffering from AIDS. Irene was a little frumpy and had Lyme Disease. There were militantly pro-black African Americans. Now the show is filled with attractive alcoholics who unleash their id nightly in the dance clubs or at the impromptu hot tub orgy. It's just sad that they've abandoned the "real, even slightly nerdy or sick" people of the earlier, sociological seasons for the drunken rejects of "Flavor of Love III". It used to be an experiment, now it's the debased "document" of the party-till-you-puke, date-rape set.