When MTV Still Played Music and Other Fairy Tales - The 80's #5

 Gather around for a twisted tale. More twisted than usual, anyway.

A story from a mythical land where television channels were based on themes they actually stuck to.

Whaaaaaaaaaat??

Truth. Like MTV - Music Television - played music videos. Of actual music. All day. On purpose.

Gen Z'ers out there are going to believe this is folklore whispered by an aging writer staring nostalgically at flowered wallpaper and wondering where all the time went.

Well... phooey. It's the truth.

In the days of yore (the 80's), MTV wasn't just a content dump; it was cultural rewiring at its finest.

We were hit with guitar solos, face melting riffs, synths, eyeliner, and a mystery glow from the ole boob tube that helped us cope with new and exciting feelings we didn't yet have words for.

Video Jockeys (VJs) announced new videos like they were royal decrees. They told us what mattered. 

We wore leather jackets indoors because it was cool and sunglasses at night because Corey Hart said so.

Cinematic masterpieces - such were the videos. At least that's how I remember them. When MTV premiered, I was 10 years old and had never seen a fog-machine-based-intro. 

Like, whoa.

Every video promised intrigue, danger, romance and rebellion. Or at the very least a healthy wind machine budget.

Bands didn't simply sing. They brooded. They strutted. They gazed meaningfully into the distance. Nobody cared as long as the hair was long, the music was rad, and the front-man didn't OD on stage.

MTV taught us that music was something you inhabited rather than heard. There was no such thing as casually liking a band. You adopted their whole persona, especially their style of dress and grooming.

We all tried to look cool, too, by mysteriously leaning against walls for no apparent reason.

MTV Forged Identities, Man!

Entire personas were built around what music you were into. Hair metal, new wave, power ballads, or whatever Prince was up to that month. (Everything, and better than almost everyone else.)

The first cracks were subtle. An interview show here, a countdown there, the occasional music-based movie. We were forgiving. Understanding, even. After all, they still played music videos.

That's how denial works, by the way.

One day, we turned on MTV and made a sudden realization: someone was TALKING!

Whaaaaaaaaaat??

Not introducing a new video or discussing an older one. Just talking. About feelings, roommates, conflict. Or how roommates gave them conflicted feelings.

No guitars, synthesizers, or screaming while singing. Faces remained melt-free.  Merely people. Regular, often extremely uninteresting people.

Thus began the reality TV pandemic. Surprisingly, like a raccoon breaking into a wedding to steal the cake. Unexpected, messy, and impossible to stop once it figured out there was sugar to be had.

MTV suddenly made the decision that ticked-off debutantes arguing in hot tubs were more "relatable" than the art of music.

By the time realization set in, it was too late. Music videos on MTV were now as rare as a total eclipse or a polite conversation on the internet. Music would occasionally wave hello from a distance, in passing.

We were outraged. How dare they operate their channel like a business that grows with a changing market?

Because that's the uncomfortable truth: MTV didn't abandon music. We slowly did. We stopped sitting still and waiting for the next video to come on sequentially.

People started wanting everything immediately, on demand, no delays. No commercials, patience, or commitment. We became so involved in the "too long; didn't read" culture that even that had to be shortened to TL;DR to keep brains distracted.

Music Doesn't Thrive in Distraction-Built Environs

Fairy tales end for any number of reasons. The original content of MTV ended because:

• The world changed, and attention spans shrank.
• Algorithms replaced real people as gatekeepers to culture. Who else misses the VJ's?
• Shared experience became millions on millions of personalized feeds.
• MTV had no say over what mattered. People decided for themselves. Very loudly. All the time.

If there is a life lesson here, and not just nostalgic rambling, it's this:

Nothing that seems magical remains that way unless we protect it.

Not channels. Nor art. Nor relationships.

Stop showing up, stop paying attention, and stop valuing depth of content over volume, and that magic doesn't die... it simply gets crowded out.

MTV didn't stop playing music as much as we stopped listening in the way that made the most sense.

We traded fog machines and four-minute stories for endless, voluminous noise.

We need to reflect, ponder, and perhaps even step back to a time when we remembered what it felt like to wait for something truly worth watching.

Cue the static.