Showing posts with label popular culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label popular culture. Show all posts
I started this blog over three years ago. I played with the idea that I can write for a larger audience. On and off. On and off. It was not until around this time last year that I made blogging top priority with my hilarious 2009 VMAs post. Things have changed over the course of the year with volunteer work, a new perspective on life, and an opportunity to gossip about popular culture like it is no one's business. And now I am here to bring that fun and passionate personality once again with a stellar preview of this year's MTV 2010 VMAs Awards.
I used to be a big MTV fan in the 1990s and early 2000s. Undressed. TRL. The early Real World seasons. Fanatic. You named it. I saw pretty much saw it. Now I barely watch it because of MTV's commitment to reality-TV programming than actual music. However, I do carve out some time every year to watch the Video Music Awards because many of my favorite artists either present awards, win awards, or perform on stage like beggers wanting an award. I forecast this year will be different. Here are the top three reasons why you should watch the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards:
1. This is the year of the Lady Gaga.
Not the year of Beyonce (that was last year) or the year of Justin Bieber. If you do not know who Lady Gaga is right now, you must be living under a rock in the outskirts of outer space. She is everywhere. She is the most popular pop star and social media queen of our generation so far. When mankind invented the word "ubiquitous" for the English language, you can see her picture inside a Webster dictionary next to the word. Currently, she holds the title of Twitter Queen with over six million followers and counting, beating out the ubiquitous crowned Twitter prince, Justin Bieber. Sweet.
I thought about this long and hard. Why did not Lady Gaga win any VMAs last year? Well she was still in her underground phrase of her career. People knew about her but did not catch on until her VMA debut "Paparazzi" performance last September. With eleven thirteen nominations under her belt including Video of the Year, Lady Gaga will reign as this year's Moon Man queen. I wonder, with her ridiculous sense of fashion, who and what will she wear to the event? Entertain us Gaga, although you are not performing this year! Maybe she will. :)
2. Chelsea Handler, A Funny Female Host for Once
What does Chelsea Handler and I have in common besides being Jersey girls? We love dark humor, sarcasm, celebrity gossip and brutal honesty. I watch her amazing show, "Chelsea Lately" on the E! Show occasionally every week and I think her little antics and sarcasm will reshape MTV, its VMA image, and its low ratings.
I tweeted her once. It read along the lines of, "If anyone could save the VMAs, its u @chelseahandler! Grats I will be watching and Chelsea, if Kanye interrupts u, beat his ass for me. :)". I hope Chuy is on stage with her. And speaking of Kanye West, here is my top reason why you should watch the VMA's this year.
3. The Unpredictability of the Show:
Remember in 2003 when Britney Spears gave that infamous lip-lock to Madonna on stage? Remember the infamous "Taylor Swift, I am going to let you finish" comments Kanye West made to Taylor Swift before she made her Best Female Award speech last year? Those little moments in VMA history will always be a part of the collective consciousness and American pop culture. These moments keep tabloids busy and wealthy, the paparazzi the celebrity fiasco they drive for, and the American public a reason to read those tabloids and view those paparazzi photos. This year, Glee cast members and True Blood's Joe Manganiellio (squeals ^_^) will be award presenters. You never know what is going to happen or who will show up.
Although I do not like the direction that MTV, as a channel and global brand, has headed in the last five to ten years, I will say is that the MTV Video Music Awards is one of the last MTV gems that I will continue to watch until it gets stale like bread. For the last five years from moving to Miami to Las Vegas back to its home in NYC, the VMAs was heading in that direction, but last year's VMAs revived the craziness that is the VMAs. We just have to watch the Jersey Shore cast but seriously, I do not know why MTVs thinks these people are entertaining enough to produce two seasons of a reality show around their lives and then invite them to this award show. Oh, I forgot, $$$.
So sit back and relax. The 2010 MTV Video Awards will premiere live this Sunday, September 12th at 9:00pm EST in LA. Performers include Justin Bieber, Usher, Paramore, and Drake. To find out more information about the show and the ways you, the viewer, can vote on your favorite artists, click here.
I am so excited! Who are you excited to see at this year's VMAs and why?
What does Chelsea Handler and I have in common besides being Jersey girls? We love dark humor, sarcasm, celebrity gossip and brutal honesty. I watch her amazing show, "Chelsea Lately" on the E! Show occasionally every week and I think her little antics and sarcasm will reshape MTV, its VMA image, and its low ratings.
I tweeted her once. It read along the lines of, "If anyone could save the VMAs, its u @chelseahandler! Grats I will be watching and Chelsea, if Kanye interrupts u, beat his ass for me. :)". I hope Chuy is on stage with her. And speaking of Kanye West, here is my top reason why you should watch the VMA's this year.
3. The Unpredictability of the Show:
Remember in 2003 when Britney Spears gave that infamous lip-lock to Madonna on stage? Remember the infamous "Taylor Swift, I am going to let you finish" comments Kanye West made to Taylor Swift before she made her Best Female Award speech last year? Those little moments in VMA history will always be a part of the collective consciousness and American pop culture. These moments keep tabloids busy and wealthy, the paparazzi the celebrity fiasco they drive for, and the American public a reason to read those tabloids and view those paparazzi photos. This year, Glee cast members and True Blood's Joe Manganiellio (squeals ^_^) will be award presenters. You never know what is going to happen or who will show up.
Although I do not like the direction that MTV, as a channel and global brand, has headed in the last five to ten years, I will say is that the MTV Video Music Awards is one of the last MTV gems that I will continue to watch until it gets stale like bread. For the last five years from moving to Miami to Las Vegas back to its home in NYC, the VMAs was heading in that direction, but last year's VMAs revived the craziness that is the VMAs. We just have to watch the Jersey Shore cast but seriously, I do not know why MTVs thinks these people are entertaining enough to produce two seasons of a reality show around their lives and then invite them to this award show. Oh, I forgot, $$$.
So sit back and relax. The 2010 MTV Video Awards will premiere live this Sunday, September 12th at 9:00pm EST in LA. Performers include Justin Bieber, Usher, Paramore, and Drake. To find out more information about the show and the ways you, the viewer, can vote on your favorite artists, click here.
I am so excited! Who are you excited to see at this year's VMAs and why?
No more TRL. No more music. No more iconic MTV logo. Do not get me started on these dumb reality shows! Do you want to know why I will only watch MTV for the awards shows now? When I heard that the cast members of Real World: Jersey Shore were given $10,000 per episode contracts to produce a second season! Oh my fucking god. MTV, what have you done? You substituted a generation of wonderful music shows such as TRL, Diary, Fanatic, and MTV Jams for a bunch of tasteless, attention whores? MTV is like Tiger Woods. It was married to popular music and well-respected by celebrities who acknowledged it as the catalyst that launched their music careers. But it ended up sleeping with Snookie instead. (Thank god I do not watch Jersey Shore!). MTV has clearly lost its morals and is only here to cash in on the latest reality show craze it helped generate in the early 1990s instead of being relevant again.
YouTube could end up on the same path to self-destruction. Unlike MTV, I will continue to use YouTube to watch videos because it is still relevant to me. After reading Wired Magazine's "5 Secrets to YouTube Success" article, I realized that YouTube has come a long way since its founding in 2005. YouTube has transformed average people and local bands into semi-famous individuals overnight and I hope that the exchange of communication and ideas continues to thrive between YouTube vloggers and their followers.But after playing around with the new YouTube layout, I learned that YouTube needs to rethink its website design strategy. I initially thought the new video page was a April Fool's joke. However, when I realized it wasn't, I spammed Twitter, tweeting that YouTube needs to figure out who is on its user-experience team before it makes another decision because the homepage is horrendous. It may have taken YouTube ten months to listen to user feedback to create this new layout, but it needs to reconsider this disaster. First of all, I do not like this thumbs up, thumbs down policy that YouTube implemented to replace the five-star system. What if I like a video, but think it is not worthy enough of a thumbs up? So, the rating of the video is somewhere down the middle. With the new system, there is no middle ground. With the old system, I could have easily graded the video with three stars.
Secondly, I hate the excess of white space on the left side of every page. I think the font size and columns (ie. related videos) were rearranged to give the users a more "user-friendly environment". Despite the influx of spam and racist comments, I personally like the old layout a lot better. This is coming from someone who is a YouTube consumer, not a vlogger. I knew where to go, which buttons to press. Now each page looks bare and out of place. The only new feature that I like is the you can now easily share your favorite YouTube videos with your Facebook friends. Other than that, nothing.
I am glad that the people that I have talked to in person and on Twitter about this issue agree with me 100%. We as fans should contact YouTube and demand the old video page back somehow because I do not want YouTube to be the next MTV. If more fans complain about it, then YouTube will get the message. If they don't, YouTube might continue to develop new design changes without our opinions and eventually go downhill, allowing another online video-sharing website will take its place.
What are your thoughts on the new YouTube video page? What should YouTube do next? Is MTV a has been?
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