To my long lost friend, MTV

I happened to catch about 45 minutes of the MTV Video Music Awards the other night. Most of the 45 minutes can be summed up as... Huh?

There was a time when the VMA's were one of my favorite nights of the year. It was one of the few nights my sister and I would argue for a "tv-tray" dinner, where we got to eat our dinner in front of the TV instead of in the dining room (these were the days before MTV aired the show repeatedly for a week after it first debuted). These were the days when seeing Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers perform back to back songs was the highlight of the year, or watching Nirvana's bass player bang his head with his bass guitar, or seeing Jon Bovi and Ritchie Sambora doing a 2-song acoustic set, or seeing Eminem get a hundred look-a-likes to walk through the crowd. Not to mention all the non-music highlights, like seeing Pee-Wee Herman make his public reapperance, or Lil' Kim's scandalous outfit, or Eminem getting in a fight with Triump the Insult Comic Dog.

But this year, when I flipped through, two things came to mind:
1) Who are all these people?
2) This is lame.

The first thought made me a little sad. I always thought I'd be able to keep up with pop culture, especially in regards to music. But apparently my efforts to stay in that demographic are failing.

But even when I did see people I knew, I couldn't help but feel very underwhelmed by what was happening. And I'm not the only one. But then again, when I was growing up, didn't I hate reading the reviews written in the papers trashing the pop culture I loved so dearly?

I still watch MTV. One of my top 5 guilty pleasures is that I still watch The Real World. And I love watching Pimp My Ride for its absolutley ridiculous ideas (and it's also one of the few shows on TV that always has a positive attitude, so it's hard not to feel happy after watching that show). I haven't seen a video on MTV in a long time though... which probably explains why I don't know much about what's going on in the awards show.

But at least now it's easy to watch videos on the internet, so it's never too late for me to catch up.