Why MTV doesn't suck as much as one might think, or why...

is the new

Another terrific Bill Simmons podcast (this one featuring an interview w/ Chris Connelly in which they debated why MTV stopped playing music and went all reality all the time) made me reconsider MTV's move away from music. On (in?) the podcast, Connelly essentially argues that what musicians were for an older generation, reality stars like LC, Hiedi, and Spencer are for this generation. More specifically, he argues that because people who are now 35 and older formed their identities in their teen years by listening to popular musicians, they want to keep listening to popular music. Hence, popular music is no longer the "adult-free" zone it used to be. If it isn't adult-free, then it can't be used by teens to forge identities.

Rather than find a media space that parents can't get access to, teens find a media space that parents just don't (or can't) understand. It used to be rock and roll, then it was hiphop, and now its reality TV (which, interestingly, doesn't have the interracial threat of RocknRoll & hiphop, and so is perhaps seen by white parents as just as confusing but less threatening than pop music).

Maybe teens' obsession with popular music (during the rock and roll craze of the 50's, the rise of MTV in the 80's) was never really about the music in the first place. Maybe it was about the lyrics and the celebrity singing the lyrics. In those lyrics and in the celebrity, teens found someone to commiserate with and aspire to be, something to talk about with friends, a way of judging another person in shorthand ("oh, you're the type of person who likes Dave Matthews Band, or the type of person who likes Kid n Play"). What if you stripped away the music but kept the person to commiserate with/aspire to be? You'd have reality TV. It performs the same functions, and so MTV remains popular. And, according to Connelly's interesting theory, they had no choice if they wanted to keep the teen audience. Popular music was tainted by the interest of adults.

Now, I know teens still listen to music, and I know that most adults are as confused by/contemptuous of Asher Roth as 1950's adults were by/of Buddy Holly. But I think we're back to listening to music for older reasons - to enhance or bring about a certain mood, as a kind of drug to escape the world. The "social comparison" identity-forging uses (see above paragraph) were a contemporary phenomenon relegated to youth culture. I think youth culture now has LC and Heidi (and Kevin??? BTW, College Life seems really promising to me - like Laguna Beach/Hills/City w/o the unachievable glitz and glamour). They don't need Eminem or Kanye.

Important to note that there's a strong gender element at play. Most of the guy students I talk to are less about TV and more about movies and sports for forming identity (TV = domestic = female, even in the online TV era?).

NB: As far as MTV playing music videos, it certainly didn't help when the teen music business model collapsed. MTV played videos to promote the purchase of music, but it remains an open question as to whether teens will see music as something you purchase.