Sexual Innuendos- Not just Rap Videos

While there is no question as to whether or not sexual content makes its way into almost every rap video, and consequently into the minds of hormone-filled teenagers, reality programming on MTV has almost more examples of sexual content than any other programming out there. A good example? -MTV's One Bad Trip: a young man licks whipped cream and cherries off the breasts of a young female; -MTV's Room Raiders: A young man sifts through a potential date's underwear drawer and then comments on what he finds; MTV's Spring Break fantasies. A young man is given a lotioned body massage my a yound woman using her feet; MTV's Real World: showing camera footage of actual sex taking place in a dark bedroom without actually showing any nudity.......... and the list goes on. If this is what it takes to sell viewership these days, we are a classy society. No wonder there is such a high rate of sexual activity at such a young age these days. My argument isn't enough? Check out the provided links.

Violence In Media

Although they don't take sole ownership of violence over the television medium, MTV provides an abundant source of sadistic violence through their various shows and music videos. With a target audience of adolescent teenagers and young adults, finger pointing toward the media giant, i feel, holds a much higher level of legitimacy than many other stations that foster violent programming. MTV's Jackass, although preceded with a disclaimer for every episode, provides many examples of extremely dangerous, if not fatal acts being carried out by adolescent role models in a comedic light. During a study that took place during the 60s, the effects of media violence on young individuals were assessed, and it was found that young people are much more apt to imitate the violence they see on television, if there is some level of positive reinforcement handed to the perpetrator (Bandura; Bandura, Ross and Ross). In MTV's jackass, this positive reinforcement is shown in the form of laughter. Witnessing violent acts that are reinforced with laughter, despite the exitence of a disclaimer, holds petentially dangerous consequences for young viewers.

Evolution of MTV-

When it began in the early 80s, MTV set out establish a new medium, dedicated solely to the worldwide love for music. Throughout the 80s and early nineties the premise by which MTV based it programming upon stayed the same: provide viewers with a medium through which they can not only listen to their favorite artists, but view the creative visual artwork by which the artists feel their music represents. Though the evolution of technology took place throughout these decades, the company's product stayed the same, creating an entirely new culture in the world of music.

Somewhere along the line, it was decided by MTV executives that the MTV model did not raise sufficient viewership in order to compete in the Music Television arena with VH1 and BET. The solution? Throw sex, violence, fowl language, illegal acts, and materialism into the picture to draw more viewers. What MTV now represents is a corporate powerhouse that no longer embraces a modern array of musical genres, but now uses extremely questionable content to force a very negative visual portrayal of music upon, young, ignorant individuals. Continually redrawing the line between what is appropriate and not appropriate for public television, the company sends the message to its viewers that the behavior they see on TV is completely appropriate to duplicate in real life. While fowl language may be censored from its programming, the underlying meaning is never lost, leaving teenagers with a very confusing definition of real life.

Rap Video's......don't get me started

Relaxing on the couch one day, enjoying a cold beer, my channel surfing escapades brought me to MTV where something that someone actually deemed to be music danced before me on the screen. Mike Jones, a hardcore rapper was uttering some sort of nonsense that I could not even translate into english. The beat was horrible, the lyrics were even worse, and to top it off, he was Swerving down the road in a croamed out ride that his mediocre record sales actually paid for-or leased. Gold teeth, phat rides, annoying beats, fake women, the gangsta genre.......how does this crap make it to television. Tupac is probably turning in his grave. Somewhere along the lines, actual talent was brushed aside for mainstream, ghetto blasting crap. Does anyone feel me on this one?

Real World- or something even close?

Amidst the reality craze, the Real World is about as far from anything real I have ever seen. Who, at any point in their life, lives with a bunch of random strangers in a house that is only affordable to the extremely affluent. While it may offer viewers a chance to see what happens when a diverse group of individuals are chosen to live under the same roof, to a much greater extent, the Real World simply shows the adolescent world that drinking, hooking up with random strangers, getting in fights, cheating, and getting arrested is fine--cause it works on MTV.

I want a famous face

I want a famous face is a show that provides MTV viewers with real life examples of mixed up individuals that aspire to look like their favorite celebrity. Although I find it almost painful to watch such rediculously stupid individuals go through with something like that, I also realize at the same time that some MTV viewers will in fact take what they are viewing literally. This turns the program into a promotional piece for plastic surgurey. The fact that prime-time television is taken up with such garbage is just disturbing.

MTV's Content is horrible

MTV sucks, because the quality of MTV's programming has a detrimental impact on today's youth. Shows such as I want a famous face, real world, viva la bam, and many others send extremely mixed messages to today's youth, and provide a very false sense of reality that over and over again becomes an object of immitation for today's youth.While they are simply just annoying to listen to, the rap videos that are continually forced down our throats provide images of fake women, expensive cars, gold teeth, and almost every other possible stereotype you can think of that are in all reality, not even a close semblance to what these rappers experience on a daily basis. I will provide specific details regarding MTV's content below