You’d be forgiven for thinking this year’s MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) were a rerun of the previous show. From performances by Lenny Kravitz and Public Enemy Archive red-carpet looks Dressed by many attendees and host Megan Thee Stallion, the show’s tributes were the focus of the celebration as current artists were nominated.
The overall throwback vibe was supposedly in service of the award show’s 40th anniversary. However, the show didn’t look that different from last year’s VMAs, which featured a tribute Honoring the now-dishonored Diddy or other recent shows Busta rhymes, Red hot chiliesAnd LL Cool J. That seems to be MTV’s playbook: force-feeding older viewers 80s, 90s and 2000s nostalgia, especially now that they’re struggling to get back into the youth in the age of streaming and TikTok.
For a brand that once represented the freshness of youth culture, it seems frozen in time. The cable network is at an interesting crossroads: Should it try to court an elusive Gen Z audience, or should it chase the last generation that saw them?
Starting in 2019, the network is banking on reunion-style shows and all-star editions of iconic series. teenage mother, Jersey Shore, Catfish, and, most recently, the former VH1 show surreal life If you’re under 30, there’s not much on their current schedule that will immediately grab you, especially when streamers — like Netflix and even Peacock — are creating more content, including popular reality shows for teens and young adults. love is blind Love Island USAAnd the traitor.
This is the ultimate case study of MTV’s uncertain future rules of the road spinoff the challenge. Now the longest-running show on the network, having started 26 years ago, rules of the road Competitive series have successfully carried on MTV’s legacy during structural changes and mergers, most recently one All-Stars version on Paramount+ and Challenge: United States on CBS, and some international versions.
However, the current iteration D the challenge MTV didn’t quite live up to the spirit. Currently, the show is trying to define the memories of its golden era War of the agesThe show’s 40th season, but the program is falling flat without the unvarnished edge of the past. What was once a compelling clash between personalities and amateur athletes is now just a simple sports competition.
to see the challenge From day one to now where MTV has lost its way as a brand is to be seen. The series may seem like an unstoppable force on television, but it’s only as fun as the infrastructure around it. But what is MTV nostalgia worth without all the weirdness and unpredictability?
The challenge represents MTV’s tough policy. Now it’s something much safer.
the challenge It has gone through several changes since its premiere in 1998. The show eventually became a competition between MTV’s cast members. rules of the roadWhere a group of attractive strangers live in a traveling RV, and real worldWhere exactly seven attractive strangers share a house. (In later seasons, they added cast members to the dating show What are you?) usually set in an exotic location, the contestants are essentially housed in a frat house while competing in a series of physical and mental games. These assignments range from outrageous stunts – like shoving food into a fake chicken’s mouth while dressed in a chicken suit – to brutal elimination challenges. There is a quarrel where players wrestle each other to reach the end of a narrow path.
Over time, the production budget increased, and the show became more physically demanding and stunt-y. Die-hard fans refer to it as “America’s fifth sport,” and some competitors even train intensely to prepare. However, the brawls, romantic dramas, and rivalries that spanned the seasons were always as important as the actual gameplay, so much so that the premise of several previous seasons (Battle of the Exes, rivals, etc) depending on personal beefs and alliances. the challenge It maintains and expands on the years-long storylines by reusing many of its infamous and messy competitors, such as Johnny “Bananas” Divenanzio, Chris “CT” Tamburello, Laurel Stuckey, Cara Maria Sorbello and Anissa Ferreira.
While the fights and profanity add an exciting layer to an already impressive athletic showcase, these moments of chaos have often been genuinely ugly, coming at the expense of women, people of color and queer people. Especially in previous seasons, there is an uncomfortable amount Misogynistic languageHostility, and contempt for female players. Black contestants have been met with similar, if not less, aggression shameless racism.
Producers tried to rectify this in 2020 when they hastily postponed Contender De Guen For making an inappropriate joke on Twitter about the Black Lives Matter movement. They also made the controversial choice to edit him out for the rest of the season. It predicted a more censored approach to the program, which would completely change the feel the challenge.
The network’s efforts to remedy a culture of poor behavior the challenge Well-meaning but ultimately had additional amendments. For example, night-out scenes, where fights might break out or cast members hook up, are now used as opportunities for the contestants to discuss game strategy. In podcasts devoted to the show, cast members constantly complain that the show’s omission is sloppy drama.
“You can see that there’s a kind of progress being made in terms of the show not being as problematic as it used to be,” said the challenge Fan Kelly Williams, who co-hosts the podcast Beyond the Blinds. “But then there’s also that [newer] The problem is that it takes away from the drama of the show.”
BLM’s response and changing moral standards in reality TV, the challenge The show struggled to evolve while focusing on the aspects that made it fun In the new season with the present War of the ages Over the course of the season, the show’s tone became almost comically serious and motivational, as if the contestants were competing in the Olympics or for some greater reason than winning money and being on TV. Even the show’s dry, no-nonsense host, TJ Lavin, struck a polite pose. It hardly seems like it came from the same network that discovered Snooki and Spencer Pratt.
“You think of somebody like Leroy,” said Williams, of fan-favorite Leroy Garrett, one real world alum who compete first Challenge: Competitors. “When he came on the show, he was a sanitation worker, and you see him jumping on cars over water. You’re like, ‘Wow, he’s not trained to do that.’ Where people have to prepare now the challengeAnd they call it the ‘fifth game’. Get real now. this the challenge“
War of the Ages Catering to Gen X and millennial fans is theoretically exciting. But the neutered flagship show cannot revive MTV’s original DNA.
Where does MTV go from here?
MTV was always going to have a hard time sustaining itself as a cultural tastemaker, especially as a cable station in an online world. But the network has a history of reinventing itself to meet this moment. Founded in 1981, the channel was initially targeted at white, male rock fans until public pressure forced it to show music videos by black R&B and rap artists, debuting the program. Yo! MTV Raps In 1988.
When MTV’s first generation of viewers began to outrun the channel in the early 90s, it pioneered reality programming. real world And, later, looks like The Osbornes, mountains, And Jersey Shore. As Amanda Ann Klein writes in her book Millennials killed the video starMTV executives have always had to work hard to maintain MTV’s core demographic. “Young audiences are fickle because the moment a company figures out how to create content that pleases them, they age out that content,” he wrote.
Reality shows have sustained the network for nearly two decades, in addition to music-centric hits Total Request Live (TRL) And MTV Unplugged. First saw the final season in 2010 Jersey ShoreLike the surprise scripted hit awkward And Tin WolfAnd the last truly memorable VMAs were thanks to Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke — before entering the proverbial programming wilderness a few years ago. Current episode of clip show ridiculousness By about 24/7 2019, MTV seems to have found a solution by upcycling the successful IP. The reunion show Jersey Shore: Family Vacation Got great ratings and followed by a teenage mother Reunion series and its not a successful reboot the mountain On Paramount+, MTV is launched The Challenge: All Star And The Real World: Homecoming.
Much of MTV’s library from the 90s and early content is also available to stream on Paramount+. in the book The streaming wars of televisionFlorida State University Professor Leigh H. Edwards writes about how MTV’s nostalgic marketing strategy cleverly (if not temporarily) revived interest in the brand. “In effect, MTV turns existing IP into new content on streaming that targets older streaming audiences and encourages those audiences to re-watch older content,” he told Vox. “These series create nostalgia by including flashback footage that encourages viewers to go back and watch the original episodes.”
This nostalgia approach, however, is more like a life jacket than a sustainable business plan. The Real World: Homecoming No longer available to stream and apparently cancelled The Challenge: All Star Casts became less and less distinct from the original series as they overlapped. All relative star power notwithstanding War of the agesThe landmark season still represents a ratings decline highly regarded 35th season, Total Madness. last year, diversity Report that MTV was the 44th most-watched television network in 2023, an 11 percent decrease in total viewers from the previous year.
If there’s any hope for an MTV revival, it’s the viewership for this year’s VMAs 8 percent increase Compared to last year’s show. One has to wonder if that has more to do with the presence of big, next-generation artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappelle Roan — as well as ratings magnet Taylor Swift — than the show’s homage to its peak era. At a time when networks are constantly being renamed, rebranded or canceled altogether, losing MTV wouldn’t be surprising, but it would be a huge cultural blow. Unfortunately, a network can rely on nostalgia for so long it looks like a graveyard.
