A Walk Through the mtv.com Website

I think it's about time I visited everyone's favorite amoral TV network, don't you? No, I don't mean actually going there and interviewing people or anything -- I prefer to let a company's online presence do the talking. What does one see when one goes to mtv.com? Let me tell you, it's really pretty but also strangely empty, just like the girls on their teenage pseudo-reality shows.

When you pull up their entrance page today (8/19/06), here's what you see (that is, if you have flash installed in your browser): Near the top on the left, ads for many upcoming MTV shows are on an 8-second rotater. They just show pretty pictures with text that says something like, "Ultimate Beyonce'. Watch her work it." I don't know what "it" is, though. These pictures are links to sites that display giant ads for Gatorade and then calm down and give information about the show.

OBSERVATION: The MTV site is so flash-intensive, it's slowing my poor laptop down. The pages take forever to load, and I'm not sre if that's a flash problem, a poor site design problem, or a server problem. Anyway, not only does MTV not want you as a viewer if you're over 22 (or do they?), they don't want you as a surfer if you don't have a new computer. This is age-ism, pure and simple, and I'm not going to stand for it. Well, ok, yes I am, 'cuz I don't care.

The main things being advertised these days on the rotater are the new season of Laguna Beach (feat. 6 new girls and 3 new jerks, er, guys! Plus reappearances by Jessica and several Alexes! This time, they're edited in such a way that they're guaranteed to all be repellent! Yayyyy! And on the website picture, the girls all appear to be wearing stylish shiny cloth bags!), the new MTV show Two-a-Days (a pseudo-reality show about high school football in the south. This actually looks good), the by-now-totally-irrelevant VMA's (hosted by Jack Black), and "watch Beyonce' work it" (which links to MTV Overdrive, MTV's broadband content centerpiece. When Overdrive comes up, you don't see Beyonce'. This probably ticked somebody off.)

In the middle of the screen there's a spinning MTV News cube, and in its section are links to stories about Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and others. When you click on a news story, you get an actual news story, and that's good. However, a flash animation ad also attacks you as you try to read the story, and that's evil.

RECCOMMENDATION: Don't surf mtv.com with anything other than Firefox, and that only if you've got "AdBlock" installed. Otherwise, you're just a pair of eyeballs to be advertised to, and they have you right where they want you.

There's also something called "Urge," which takes you to an outside link (www.urge.com). It sensed that I needed to be using Internet Explorer, though. Those jerks just want me to stop blocking their ads. Ok, fine, I'll try it...

In internet explorer now, it turns out "Urge" is just a $14.95/month music download site with extra blogs from some of music's "leading voices." Hopefully that doesn't mean Christina Aguilera, who has nothing of value to say. Wow, that's a horrible thing to say about somebody. Prove me wrong, Chrissy. Talk about something besides being a dirrrrty fighter.

But let's forget about all that boring stuff and go to the whole point of mtv.com: Overdrive, the "extra" show content you can only find on mtv.com. When that comes up, the first thing you see is an ad for some crap you don't want. Then, you can click on whatever "aftershow" you want to watch (they're really just boring presentations of stuff that only rabid fans want to watch, i.e., a tour of Zyndra from Laguna Beach's house from her vapid point of view), and another ad comes up and assaults you before you get to see what you clicked on. It's typical commercialized broadband timewaste hell, and therefore, I give MTV Overdrive an F for both content and character.

OBSERVATION NOT RELATED TO OVERDRIVE, BUT INSTEAD TO KYNDRA, WHO IS ON OVERDRIVE: Kyndra, as you might imagine, is a self-absorbed fashion queen who doesn't stop to think for one second about her opulent lifestyle and its inflated importance in her life. She also never stops to think that she has been arbitrarily awarded a posession-filled life, and with that life comes responsibility. She also never thinks about what her possessions cost her or where the money comes from, except in a braggy way. These are snap judgements I'm making after watching a 7-minute MTV-edited clip of her (and carrying the baggage of 1000 other MTV "Young Reality Stars" that came before her), so take them with a grain of salt. I'm uncomfortable with writing this about a real teenage girl, but I think society needs to point out the absurdity of it all so we can grow past it as a people. Plus, she signed the waiver and gave her body and soul to MTV, and her parents just sat back with dollar signs in their eyes. The sad part? Little girls will totally look up to her.

Kyndra also likes "shabby chic," old crosses (because they look "gaudy," or "God-y," I couldn't tell which), taking her dog shopping with her (yick), and as many gold accessories as she can fit on her fake-tanned body. She also bolts her windows shut so that her sister can't come in and steal her clothes. The parents clearly have full control of things.

In other MTV news, the velociraptorization of Hillary Duff continues. She's clearly still competing with Lyndsey Lohan, this time in the category of having a disturbing life. Instead of just getting trashed every night, Hillary has decided to turn herself into a half-girl/half-dinosaur. Soon she will be able to take Lyndsey's head off with one bite.