MTV

I don't watch a lot of TV these days beyond my regular shows, and since I don't live in the USA, and, you know, I'm not 18 or obsessed with celebrity culture, I've barely had any exposure to MTV. but tonight, thanks to my TV-tuner (which I admittedly hardly use), I decided to tune in to the quazi-music station for about an hour. So far I haven't seen a single music video.

I'm only 27, but there's no better way, I assure you, to make you feel old and out-of-touch, than by watching MTV. The first show during my watching-span: '5 Gays, 1 Girl'. Basically, it's a round-table 'The View', but with more (and very) vulgar discussion, no studio audience, and the people aren't household names. What gets me about this show is not the topics of discussion, which often falls back to talks about gay sexual experiences, fellatio, etc., but what's underlying and observable is the fact that these non-celebrities have gotten a following, and people actually care about their discussion, and 'follow' the individuals. From what I gather, there's not really a fixed 5 'gays' on the show - or maybe there is, but they either rotate participants, with the exception of 'the girl', or they've gone through about ten guys over time. The most notable thing, again, is the fact that somehow these people have gained some level of socially-constructed importance, and there's obviously some twitter-esque fan-following, even though there's nothing especially remarkable about them, and the show isn't even that glitzy. Apparently all you need these days to gain a youth fan following is a spot on a station widely watched by young people, and some sense of trendiness - which in this case is achieved by the fact that the guys are all gay.

Next up: MTV Cribs. Longer running than 5 Gays, 1 Girl, and I even occasionally watched it as a teenager, back when, you know, it actually featured the houses of celebrities. Or maybe I'm just out of touch, and don't know who the people are, but what's evident is that the quality of the celebrities, and homes, have fallen drastically. These 'celebrities' often live in rather normal, not-extravagant homes - but even more evident: many don't bother much anymore to clean their homes before the show is filmed. One chick had bottles of makeup and clothes everywhere - and not nicely, and another guy had stuff lying on the floor, and paintings and shoe boxes against walls. I don't expect 'famous' people to live in fantasy-land, but isn't the point of watching these shows to admire how much greater the lives/homes are of people at the peak of capitalist success?

Heaven forbid I stay tuned for MTV's "reality" shows...