MTV2 for who?

Do you remember watching music videos? I mean really watching them, like for hours. My brother and I, along with some neighborhood kids at times, would sneak snippets of MTV. We were banned from such filth as kids though we seemed to watch endless amounts of it, our parents not as quick as they were prudish.

I was enamored with George Michael. Funny, he never seemed gay to me at age 10, but then again I didn't know what gay was then either. He was the perfection of hotness to me and that song, Careless Whisper, where he crones after a lover lost and that stubble, whew that stubble. These days, he's not so hot and I wonder why I never saw the obvious "batting for the other team" going on, but again, this was the 80s, I don’t think he was letting many people in on his secrets, lest he lose album sales.

A few months ago I was flipping through the channels and found FUSE, a music video channel here in Richmond where all they do is play videos. I was stunned. Some flashy hip-hop song was on and I paused, filling the commercial time during another program and actually watched a whole video. I felt like I was 12 again, the volume turned down, the den door closed, and my finger on the remote ready to switch channels should the door open and my mother walk in.

I haven't watched another video since that FUSE moment months ago. I miss the old videos where the stories were weak, if anything, the bands were overly made up, and the women had clothes on. The current generation has no idea what endless, mindless hours of music videos are like. They think MTV was created to expose the unreality of 18-23 lives. The teeny boppers today won't have slumber parties and stay up late to see how many times their favorite videos appear. They're lucky if they see their favorite video once during the terribly drab TRL.

And, what happened to a music video doing magic for the unknown artists? The one hit wonders of the 80s would be nowhere without their videos. Remember Divo and the whips? My brother's band made a video a few years ago. And if you blinked you missed it. It did nothing for them because kids don't watch videos anymore, they want the (non) reality shows or the watered down, over-produced, uncreative pop star in their mist, and they only want the 10 best knows videos of the day. Or at least, this is what MTV thinks they want. MTV has gone from groundbreaking to heartbreaking. And VH1, don't even let me go there.

And it's sad to realize that I am no longer the target audience of MTV. They don't care about my demographic anymore, even though I busted my bum sneaking hours of videos into my childhood. Sorry Dire Straits, you can have your money for nothin'. It turns out I don't want my MTV.