How The Hills Has Helped Kill MTV

As any child of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s knows, these days, MTV is a virtual wasteland. A repetitious, celebrity obsessed, materialistic channel that now seems to hire VJ’s based on their height and weight rather than their music expertise. My Super Sweet Sixteen makes any girl who had less than 1500 people and 17 white ponies at her birthday feel like she was cheated, and if you happen to be out of high school, there’s almost nothing—with the exception of True Life—that deals with your issues.

And I don’t have to even get into the music video problem. Or the fact that the channel’s completely lost its bite. The argument is old. Everyone knows MTV has sold out to big business and bling.

The show that highlights everything wrong with what was once our beloved edgy escape? The Hills.

This show is trash. Pure garbage. White 20-somethings bitching and whining that their deep pockets aren’t deep enough and their amazing jobs aren’t amazing enough. Bleach blond, breast-implanted bimbos who aren’t doing a thing to make this world a better place. Interning at Teen Vogue and working the door at some Hollywood club? This is supposed to drama? This is supposed to interesting? This is supposed to be camera worthy?

And god forbid the producers let a person of color or of a different race step into the frame. Darkly tanned and brunet does not count as diversity.

Why do people watch it? Mostly because it’s there, but also because it covers fantasy with a realistic sheen, making most of us mistakenly think we can live the same way. Not many people who move to the Hollywood Hills have millions of dollars in their bank accounts, not many people can stride into any club they please, or land topnotch internships without any experience. The characters on The Hills are famous. Camera crews are following their every move. You and I won’t find that kind of attention and excitement in Hollywood.

I’m sure if we all got together and bombarded MTV until they took these vapid girls and their bitchy boys off the air, they would disappear in a heartbeat, but something tells me it won’t happen. Something tells me this new cooperate MTV has got its claws too deep in the younger generations. Preteens and teenagers who think the shit this channel pumps out is what life is about, and they’ll hold onto their boring TRL and annoyingly egotistical Making the Band 4 until they grow up and realize there’s so much more to living than being rich and popular and knowing all the lyrics to the latest machine created pop hit.