Ellen, the bitchy drama queen, tearfully shrieks to Dan, the flamboyant gay guy, that Puck, the crazy white boy, threatened to kick her ass, as Aneesa, the angry black chick, strolls in topless. It’s just one moment among so many others that illustrates the big ol’ crap factory that is MTV. The particular gem described above is from an episode of MTV’s RealWorld/Road Rules Challenge. Not that it took a lot of research to find a moment of such pure, pristine stupidity. MTV serves up a steaming pile of dung programming just about anytime. There’s the mean-spirited and forced sexuality of the dating elimination show Dismissed. (“Hey, how are ya? What’s your favorite sexual position?” is a typical exchange.) Or the mindless yammering of Total Request Live (TRL), where vapid VJs introduce videos before a howling studio audience, while kids out in Times Square give unintelligible “shout-outs.” Sorority Life and Fraternity Life , two of the channel’s newest programs, are simply Real World In College so instead of a bunch of shallow, self-absorbed kids lounging in a penthouse, we now see a bunch of shallow, self-involved college students pledging fraternities and sororities. Although there’s a plethora of other equally bad shows, critiquing the channel any further becomes redundant, not to mention depressing. Suffice it to say, never before has garbage been so reliable, consistent — and popular.
So are teenagers and young 20-somethings really that stupid? Submit yourself to an hour of MTV and it’s hard to believe otherwise. Granted, I’m teetering on the very edge of the MTV demographic, so I’m no longer a typical audience member. Plus, one generation being out of touch with the tastes and interests of the next one is nothing new — and that’s as it should be. Youth are supposed to drive innovation and create unique new movements that are dangerous and challenging — and some jackass lighting his crotch on fire doesn’t count. In fact, it’s the complete lack of innovation or creativity that makes MTV so repulsive. It’s all so hopelessly homogenized and manufactured. The sameness — and the noxious level of inanity and pettiness that permeates it — is numbing.
Of course MTV doesn’t have a monopoly on drivel. E! Entertainment, the network that takes you to exotic, culturally rich destinations all over the world where they show drunk, half-naked people going “Wooo!” is another example of brain-dead programming. Even supposedly serious news channels like CNBC have devolved into nothing more than panelists shouting over each other in 30-second zingers. And The Simpsons is the only thing saving the Fox Network — birthplace of Temptation Island and Married By America — from going straight to hell.
Still, nothing encapsulates the dreary, trivial nonsense that makes up so much of our current media and “official” popular culture as effectively as MTV. Add in the relentlessly obnoxious commercials for useless products and the huge money machine that fuels the channel’s ubiquity, and you’ve got a media force whose influence, and manipulative prowess, can’t be overstated. That’s why, for the purposes of this article, we’re using MTV to represent “mainstream” pop culture.
After even a small dose of the drivel that makes up what used to be optimistically called “youth culture,” you can’t help but wonder: do kids really swallow this crap? Are they aware of how ruthlessly programmers and advertisers are trying to manipulate them? Do at least some of them feel their intelligence insulted?
We contacted several local high schools, and put together a diverse group of teenagers to get their take on the state of pop culture and their place within it. All the students we interviewed have a keen interest in pop culture and the media, and felt they had something constructive to say about the subject. The discussions have given us new hope. As many parents of high school kids will tell you, most teenagers are far smarter than the creators and sellers of pop culture give them credit for.The Players Adrienne Rosado, 16, junior, West Mecklenburg High School
Danielle Webb, 16, junior, West Mecklenburg High School
Cordaro Rodriguez, 16, junior, West Mecklenburg High School
Fred Pfeiffer, 17, senior, Northwest School of the Arts
Zach Sigmon, 18, senior, Northwest School of the Arts
Alex Doyne, 17, senior, East Mecklenburg High School
Leslie Wilhoit, 18, senior, East Mecklenburg High School
Mallory Cash, 17, junior, East Mecklenburg High School
Katie Henderson, 16, junior, Myers Park High SchoolDo You Want What They Want You To Want? CL:Do the creators and sellers of pop culture reflect your tastes and desires, or do they manufacture those desires in an effort to capture the lucrative market that you represent?
ROSADO: It can work both ways, but I think it leans more toward them indicating what should be a fad or the popular thing to do. They target teenagers by finding out what interests them — everything from cars to clothing. They know we’re at an age when these things are a priority.
WEBB: It’s a little bit of both. We get our cue from them and they get their cue from us. If it was all manufactured, we’d still be buying jeans from some 50-year-old guy and wearing fishes in the bottom of our shoes.
PFEIFFER: Today there are so many different sources for finding culture. I know there are people out there creating culture in tune with who I am, but at the same time I look at what’s most prevalent, like what’s on MTV, and it’s difficult to find any kind of connection with who I am. It’s like I’m removed a bit from popular culture.
DOYNE: I don’t really watch MTV that much. I think it’s pretty crappy. And with movies, a lot of them seem so manufactured and fake. A lot of the movies about teenagers having these huge parties — I’ve never seen anything like that. And I hate seeing people who are 30-something playing kids in high school.
RODRIGUEZ: It’s a feedback cycle. The media is out there looking at what youth are doing. They take that, juice it up, and sell it back to the kids. The kids watch that, mimic what they see, then the media comes back, and it starts all over.
CASH: It’s definitely manufactured. They don’t give people a chance to develop a taste of their own. They play the same things over and over.
WILHOIT: A lot of kids feel like MTV is this all-powerful thing, so whatever they see on TV they automatically think that it’s the best thing. It makes everybody act the same.
SIGMON: It’s manufactured. I don’t see the trends until suddenly they’ve become products. So it may reflect our tastes somewhat, but they’re getting the news pretty quick. It just seems to pop up out of nowhere.
HENDERSON: It’s probably more of a creation. They wouldn’t be able to know what we thought was cool. It’s them taking a shot in the dark. It’s not taken from teen values.
Excavating for CoolTeenagers like Sigmon and Henderson might be shocked to learn what lengths MTV and other corporations go to in trying to find out what they think is cool. Teenagers are the hottest consumer demographic in America. At 33 million strong, they comprise the largest generation America has ever seen — larger, even, than the Baby Boom generation. When you include teenagers within the larger “Generation Y” demographic (usually considered those born between 1977 and 1997), the number grows to over 90 million, which represents 33 percent of the population. This market isn’t just mighty in number, but also in its ability and willingness to buy stuff. Persons 12-34 represent $250 billion in spending power and accounted for 41 percent of all retail shopping dollars spent last year.
Given such astounding numbers, it’s easy to understand why MTV is rooting around in teenagers’ closets and CD collections. When MTV experienced a ratings dip in the late 1990s, the music channel embarked on a new teen research campaign called an “ethnography study.” While they had long conducted market surveys and focus groups, during ethnography studies MTV staffers actually rifled through teenagers’ closets, went through their music collections, and followed them to nightclubs in an attempt to discover “the next big thing.” At the end of the visits, the information was passed on to MTV executives, who then got busy cranking out marketing and promotion ideas. Similarly, many corporations looking to market and sell what’s “cool” will hire companies like Look-Look, which specializes in identifying trends and fads within the youth culture. Look-Look offers expertise on youth via a global network of over 10,000 youth correspondents, respondents, and photojournalists, who report on their own culture.
What lessons do MTV and companies like Look-Look draw from these exhaustive studies of teenagers’ lives? Do they result in a more nuanced portrait of the American teen? Or do they merely stoke hot-button issues like sex (Britney, and the increasingly desperate videos of Christina Aguilera), or violence and anti-social behavior (Eminem, Fred Durst and a slew of other rap/rockers who’ve turned misogyny and the middle finger into a dopey rallying flag). Do these kinds of images really reflect what kids are thinking about?
CL: Do you feel that you’re getting fed more sexually and violent explicit material by the media, or that you, as a generation, are asking for it?
WEBB: It’s a little bit of both, but probably more on the end that they know what’s going to sell. Just like in journalism, we know what will catch the reader’s attention. If you open up the paper and there are two stories — one about three people getting killed at a 7-Eleven and one about little Mary walking her dog Fluffy across the street, what story are you going to read? People would rather read about the people getting killed. So it’s about what will sell, but what we want is the sex and violence. So it’s a cycle.
PFEIFFER: Of course that kind of stuff (sex and violence) is going to sell. People wouldn’t be putting out records or videos like that if there wasn’t a market for it. So I don’t think the media is creating these horrific things. So much emphasis is put on this idea that kids are being sucked into this world of sex and violence. I think it’s just reflecting part of our culture. Maybe we need to ask ourselves why stuff like the over-the-top sexuality of Britney Spears is so prevalent. Ultimately, it’s my decision. If I buy a sexually explicit CD then that’s the statement I’m making. I can’t blame some nebulous force that’s out there supposedly watering down my culture.
SIGMON: I don’t think it has anything to do with the media trying to sell us something. But that kind of stuff is really easy to push, especially to younger teens.
WILHOIT: Kids aren’t really asking for that stuff, that’s just what they get.
HENDERSON: It’s a combination. We’ve grown kind of numb to it all. When the Beatles came out it was scandalous for them to have long hair. Today, every artist has to have something new and exciting, and a lot of that has to do with how far they’re going to push the limits — how low is their shirt going to go? That’s what keeps people engaged.
CL: How do you feel about the images portrayed on MTV? Do hyper-sexualized artists like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera or angry, crude artists like Eminem ring true?
ROSADO: Sadly, as much influence as music has on teenagers’ lives, I don’t think they use it in a positive way. Too much of it has a negative influence. There are some musicians that do have a positive effect, but the whole thug or gangsta thing is very popular now. They’ve taken people who’ve lived in poverty and didn’t have any other means of surviving and made it into a fashion. You ask somebody who really grew up in that environment and they’ll tell you it isn’t cool. Even with some of my friends, they try to act like they’re from the slums, when they really have no idea what it’s about.
RODRIGUEZ: Eminem is just vulgar. But the beats can get stuck in your head real easily. And when it’s repeated over and over, it can have a negative effect and you start believing the song. Music has a spirit to it. It can cause you to feel and think a certain way.
WEBB: I love Eminem. Somebody accused me of being anti-feminist and anti-gay because I listened to Eminem — it’s a joke. I definitely wouldn’t play it around my mom or grandmother. But I say if you don’t like it, don’t listen to it.
PFEIFFER: I don’t really care about their personas. If people feel that Eminem or Fred Durst are representative of who I am as a white male teenager, I challenge them to talk to me or any of my peers and they’ll see it’s not true. What’s more, it’s probably not even representative of Eminem or Fred Durst. It’s just an aspect of their image that they use to sell records.
DOYNE: It’s really false because they keep reinventing themselves to whatever they think is popular or will sell more records.
CASH: It’s not genuine. But as a result of being told how to act or dress, that’s what they end up turning into. And that is why you’re on TV most of the time — to be someone else.
WILHOIT: Their image does reflect a part of who they are. If they were totally against it, they wouldn’t do it. It may be a character, but it does have some of their real feelings and personality.
HENDERSON: Britney is an artist, but she’s also trying to sell herself to the consumer. I think Christina has a really good voice, so I can respect her talent, but not as an artist. For something to be art it has to challenge you spiritually, emotionally or mentally. I don’t know when the last time something really challenged me. 8 Mile doesn’t exactly make you think philosophically. But the sexy image thing is never going to get played out, although I’m not sure where it’s going to go from here. Dresses can only go so short. There’s nothing else to take off. Once you get past the initial shock there’s not much there. But people like Eminem are just so old. No one listens to him anymore. That whole “cash/money/ho” thing is so overdone.
Out With Old, In With The OldEven the most generous critics dismissed the recent wave of boy bands and pop tarts as vacuous and contrived. But if record sales and video airplay are any indication, that whole phenomenon is being replaced by a new wave of more serious, thoughtful singer/songwriters like Avril Lavigne and John Mayer. And countering the plastic pop of bands like “N Sync and Backstreet Boys are The Donnas, The Hives, The Strokes, Queens of the Stone Age and Sum 41, all of which openly embrace the swaggering sex, drugs and rock & roll lifestyle.
Curiously, the majority of rap on MTV seems stuck on the same tired videos serving as a vehicle for the artist to showcase his cars, mansions, assorted “bling-bling” and booty-shaking bitches. And the recent stardom of rapper 50 Cent upped the equally tired tradition of “keeping it real.” It seems 50 Cent’s true star power lies not in his rapping, but in the fact that he’s a drug dealing street thug who’s been shot multiple times. What’s next? Are rappers going to have to start amputating limbs to appear legit? “Yo, yo, give it up for MC Stubby and Snoop Nub Nub.”
But are any of these groups and performers any less contrived or manufactured than their predecessors? Is the carefully calibrated rebellion of Avril Lavigne any more genuine than the sexuality of Christina Aguilera? Is the bland earnestness of John Mayer just as much a marketing ploy as the party boy persona of Sum 41? How carefully were 50 Cent’s gangsta credentials marketed in the hopes of cashing in on the hardcore drought brought on by Tupac and Biggie’s demise?
CL: Does the new wave of singer/songwriters like Avril Lavigne or John Mayer seem more genuine than groups like “N Sync or Britney Spears? Are they any less manufactured?
RODRIGUEZ: I think they’re a lot less manufactured. People like Avril Lavigne are really being themselves. I think their songs are more real, and come from deeper inside.
ROSADO: I think a lot of them are very genuine when they start. However, being in the music industry and the media spotlight has an effect on them. I’ve seen artists interviewed before they were stars, and they seemed so humble and nice, but after being in the spotlight, they became a completely new person.
WEBB: I think they start out being themselves. To me, an artist like Pink used to be really original. At first all the black people liked her because she had the soul. But then she dyed her hair blond and started singing pop. All the black people were like, huh? And all the white people were like, yeah!
PFEIFFER: I can’t say what’s going on in Avril or Britney’s head, or what causes them to make the songs that they do. But I do think there are executives saying, “Well, kids are sick of this now, let’s go after something else.” That’s why artists like Avril are going to get a lot of money and exposure. All I can do is use my values to judge the music they produce.
SIGMON: They’re just as manufactured. They’re just “anti-the other thing.”
DOYNE: People like Avril Lavigne are just trying to play to the market that they feel hasn’t been capitalized on yet. I don’t know if she writes her own songs or not, but they seem pretty much the same as everything else. I think she’s just as false as Britney.
CASH: Avril is no different than anyone else, except maybe for the way she dresses. If you didn’t know what she looked like, you’d think that she was on the same level as Christina, Britney and all the rest of them.
WILHOIT: I definitely think people like Avril are manufactured. I think she’s terrible. She had her band made for her. If you have to go around saying “I’m the epitome of punk” all the time, then you definitely aren’t what you say.
HENDERSON: They’re not really saying anything new. Avril Lavigne actually started out wanting to be a country singer, but then some record execs told her that’s not going to work, do this. Once they get out there they can be more themselves. It’s like if you’re popular you can be more yourself because you’re already accepted. You can take more risks. But I think there’s always going to be an aspect of manufacturing. If MTV is the one putting out her video and endorsing her, she owes a certain amount of loyalty, and she’s going to have to compromise.
CL: Do you ever feel that you’re being manipulated or programmed by the media? That it’s not your choice?
ROSADO: Yes. A prime example is we have a dress code here at school, and the girls’ shorts have to be a certain length. A lot of the girls say, “Well, they don’t sell shorts that long anymore.” Which I guess you can call manipulation. Because of popular demand, some things are going to be more in your face.
RODRIGUEZ: Yes, I really do. You see guys walking around trying to rap, and girls trying to dress like what they see on TV. Youth want to fit in, and whatever they see is working on television is probably what they’re going to do. We’re at the age when we’re trying out all these different identities to see which one will suit us. I don’t think too many adults are trying to conform to what they see on TV — they already have a sense of who they are. But youth don’t have that sense, so they try to mimic the roles they see on TV. That can be healthy, but it can also be dangerous. I think if you subject yourself to anything long enough it can gradually have an effect and change your mentality.
WEBB: There’s a girl I know who last year acted like one of the girls on Friends. This year, she’s all like, “Yea, what up girl, I only date black guys, you know what I’m sayin’.” She thinks acting “ethnic” makes her more cool. Or you have these guys from average, middle-class families who’ve never been to the ghetto. He watches BET and sees 50 Cent slap some chick, and all of a sudden he wants to go out and slap some chick.
PFEIFFER: That’s how things are sold. You have a product, and you try to program people into thinking that’s what everybody wants. It’s a sales tactic. I try to think about that when I’m listening to or buying music. I’d be foolish to say that I didn’t fall prey to that — that I go out and buy things because they’re supposed to be “cool.” I think things like MTV can shape our view of so many things, especially about how we think people should look or act. I know people who watch so much MTV their view of what’s attractive is completely skewed. Relying too much on MTV or other mainstream media sources reduces our ability to really think about culture. We’re being spoon-fed, and that’s dangerous. It reduces your ability to think.
SIGMON: Not personally, but I certainly see how younger teens are more susceptible to the media telling them how to think and act. Older teenagers have more sense than that. I think it’s unfortunate how easily some kids can be manipulated. They can just be told anything is cool and they go along with it. It’s easy to sell them stuff.
DOYNE: I feel like I’m getting some crappy stuff shoved down my throat, like when I turn on the radio. Everything sounds the same. It’s either some guy playing an acoustic guitar or a guy screaming, some guy rapping, or a girl singing bad songs to a drum machine.
CL: Are there any original movements anymore, or is everything co-opted by the industry, homogenized, and then mass-marketed as though it’s “underground?”
PFEIFFER: At the core, everything is original and independent, but it gets co-opted. But that’s just a way to sell things and for somebody to make money off it. But that doesn’t necessarily always water down the original message or art. There are still people making music who are concerned and passionate. It’s like you have these great writers who write these incredible, passionate books, but then you also have pulp fiction. You can’t say because pulp fiction exists that other great works of art are any less legitimate. It’s up to the reader to discern between the two, and decide what’s important and what’s drivel being sold by somebody just to make money.
SIGMON: No, I don’t think there’s really anything underground anymore.
DOYNE: Yes, there are definitely still underground movements. My favorite example of that is Phish. Most everybody thinks they’re some crappy, hippie pothead band. But bands like that have a whole sub-culture that follows them around. But just because a band gets big doesn’t mean they’ve sold out.
CASH: There’s a devotion people have with underground bands. When you get a ticket, you feel privileged. But then when you see them at a huge venue, you almost feel like some people don’t deserve to be there. So even as much you would like your band to succeed, you still want to keep them to yourself.
WILHOIT: I think underground can sell out. I go to hardcore shows a lot, and there are people who go there just to be able to say, “Oh, I’m at a hardcore show.” But I guess you find that anywhere.
HENDERSON: Anything that has potential is eventually going to be exploited by the media; that’s their job. A lot of the punk rock fans at school are always talking about who’s a sell-out, and who’s still underground. There’s something more romantic about listening to music that only you know. It’s like your special band. But then when they become more popular, it’s not as unique or special.
CL: How do you feel about the way MTV and programs like The Real World or TRL portray teenagers?
ROSADO: It’s realistic in many ways. They take the things that they know are going to be on teenagers’ minds. But they’re also very selective about what they decide to show, and they exaggerate. They don’t show the stress of doing homework or things like that as much as they show sex and partying.
WEBB: On shows like The Real World, they always have this formula where they pick out the air-headed blond, the angry black guy, the gay person, etc. But I do think some of the situations are real. It’s more intense because they’re forced into this environment, and their reactions are more exaggerated, but I think it’s just different roles, and people try them out. In a way it’s helpful. Without it you wouldn’t know what else was out there.
PFEIFFER: It’s hard to watch MTV for more than 30 minutes and not get depressed. This is how people view my generation? That’s really sad. And if people underestimate us that much, then that’s equally depressing. MTV has reduced our culture to something you can fit in a 30-minute TRL segment. It’s mindless. I can’t say I completely reject MTV, but sometimes it’s like I watch it out of morbid curiosity.
SIGMON: It makes us look stupid. It doesn’t say much for our generation.
DOYNE: It seems like all kids do is go out and get drunk and have sex, and that’s just not true for most people I know.
CASH: They only show an extreme section of the population because they know that’s what sells. But that’s not what real life is like. Especially on those Spring Break shows — I mean people don’t act like that.
WILHOIT: People act that way because they think that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re on camera. All this “real life” stuff is just people doing what they’ve already seen on TV.
HENDERSON: When you watch the Spring Break shows and stuff like that, I can understand why parents are so paranoid. There’s definitely an aspect of the drinking and sex that goes on, but the people who don’t do all that are very under-represented. They’ll have these Spring Break show with all this drinking and sex, but then they take a commercial break and it’s about safe sex or how harmful marijuana is. It’s such conflicting messages. It’s like they have to be PC but they’re also winking at all the drug use and sex.
Bigger and Better?“No Actors! No Scripts! No Limits!” So goes the rallying cry of New Line Cinema’s latest film, The Real Cancun, being released this weekend. (Rated R for “extreme partying.”) As the reality genre increasingly dominates television, it was inevitable that the trend would make the jump to the big screen. And who else to better pioneer this scary transition than the good folks at MTV? They’ve already had one hit with Jackass, the cinematic masterpiece that included a guy shoving a toy car up his butt. Now, with The Real Cancun, the same production team behind The Real World and Road Rules has put together a film that promises to “explore reality’s barriers beyond the limits of television while on the ultimate Spring Break vacation, with surprising and electric results!” Gee, I wonder what those “electric results” will be? My money is on lots of drunken hooting, plenty of pointless, overly dramatic catfights, and the non-stop, roller-coaster joy ride of watching college kids trying to “hook up.” It’ll probably do quite well at the box office.
While the current glut of reality programming probably doesn’t signal the end of Western civilization, it’s certainly having a significant influence on our pop culture landscape. Industry experts — particularly those not involved in the reality genre — keep saying that all programming trends are cyclical, and that eventually the whole reality thing will end. But then again, MTV’s The Real World is heading into its 13th season, and The Real Cancun is just one of three reality-based movies coming out this summer. As one TV producer said, frustrated over the “reality”-dominated nature of the media, “stupidity will always overcome greed.” But if the kids featured in this article are any indication, smarts still has a good fighting chance.
Contact Sam Boykin at 704-944-3623 or sam.boykin@cln.com
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2003.
