Is MTV Finally Done?

Is MTV out of favor with today’s youth? Are the young kids, that used to be the foundation of the freewheeling culture, completely ignoring the former beast of the industry?

My youngest daughter came down to breakfast the other day and as we were scrambling to leave for school I heard her singing a famous song. It went a lil something like this, “we’re not gonna take it, OH NO, we’re not gonna take it, we’re not gonna take it…anymore.”

I’m betting if you are over 40 you weren’t able to read that sentence without singing it in your head or even out loud. It’s a song synonymous with our childhood and loosely reminds us what “rebels” we were back in the day. I laughed and let her know I remembered the song from when I was a kid. It was THE song back in the early 80’s. I told her it was one of the big songs that put MTV on the map. To which she replied, “what’s MTV?”

She’s 12. About the same age I was when I, and the rest of America, was wrapped up in the emerging concept of music videos on a channel dedicated to entertainment. For years to come MTV would be the trend setter when it came to what was hot, who was the emerging artist, and which songs were running the charts. If you were cool, you watched, or at least knew what was happening on MTV. It was a cultural movement and probably the first thing that was easily available to the youth to express themselves, engage with one another, and rebel just a lil…way before the advent of the internet.

Now, with the prevalence of entertainment streaming directly to your hand via your phone, on-demand videos on YouTube, and digital music libraries available with a simple touch, there’s no wonder MTV as a fundamental pillar of the youth experience seems to be fading. You also have to believe it’s the programming as well. They seem to never show music videos and settle on overly dramatic, nonsense reality shows. I went out and pulled today’s schedule lineup as an example.

Are you kidding me? This is not exactly “must see TV”. Over the years the channel has morphed into a lineup of ridiculous show after ridiculous show. Maybe it all started going downhill with Jackass. Who knows? All I know is I barely watch the channel these days and kids appear more detached than ever. Maybe MTV’s demographic target is the college crowd and my kids just aren’t into it. But I’d venture to say that even that group isn’t tuning in to this garbage on the regular.

In a similar fashion, I think Facebook has found themselves skating this line as well…at least with young kids in their tweens and early teens. I’ve yet to hear from my youngest that she wants a Facebook page. When my oldest daughter was her age, she was clamoring for it every day. The interest just isn’t there now. Kids have moved on to the next bright shining object. There have been numerous stories published recently detailing this decline in kids using Facebook so I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know. However, I do believe Facebook has done a much better job of pivoting and embracing the fact their main demographic has changed.

Are your kids watching MTV these days? Or is it just another channel lost in the mix that you occasionally tune into for an award show?

One thing to take away after reading this is that as parents, when you interact with your kids, sometimes they’ll surprise you with the things you take for granted. Things you assume they know about may not even be on their radar. Never be surprised by the generational gap, not only between you and your child, but also between your own children.