I Don't Want My MTV (Irrelevancy, the Shark)

What happened, MTV? Irrelevancy is a cruel animal, and you’re drowning in infested waters. I know I’m more than a bit late on publicly complaining about this, but I figured I’d give you some time to pull it together. I thought, perhaps, a sound piece of advice from Justin Timberlake, of all people (“Play more damn videos. We don’t want to see the Simpsons on reality television,” spoken proudly onstage at the 2007 Video Music Awards, as reported by Just Jared last year) would at least bloody the water enough for you to take a glance at the shore. But, alas, the shark has bitten; the shark has eaten; and the shark has claimed victory.

Even more pathetic than your rapidly increasing irrelevancy, though, is your blatant willingness to not only allow it to happen, but to feed the shark with everything in your power. Artists don’t need you anymore. Instead of properly re-launching true music-oriented programming (and possibly regaining some respect) with shows such as Unplugged, Hard Rock Live, and blocks of music videos other than the unacceptable ones you tend to run sometime around 4 in the morning, you chose to launch what felt like 56 new versions of the exact same show … the exact same show over and over again, with absolutely nothing related to music, a word which, as you may or may not remember, actually appears in your name.

Yet, with all the Hills spin-offs, faux attempts at creating buzz around bands that long ago graduated from such fare, and horribly sad attempts at awards show reinvention by having bands play in poker rooms (the aforementioned ‘07 VMAs), I still manage to keep a little bit of hope for you. People have walked away from a shark attack before; it’s exceptionally rare, but punching them in the nose supposedly works. So please, MTV –- start punching.