Yes it is that time of year again, when the celebs battle it out to be the most relevant and grab the biggest headlines. What will happen this year? Who knows?! Let’s all tune in and find out together! After all, we all know that you aren’t socially relevant unless you know the exact rundown of the annual scandal at the MTV Video Music Awards. Because it’s a talking point. It’s impossible to escape the scandal. When Miley Cyrus came out and stunned the world by “twerking” during her performance, you knew about it. When Lady Gaga wore her meat suit, you knew about it. I mean, fallout from the infamous “Imma let you finish” moment with Kanye West and Taylor Swift is still going on today. The VMA’s exude controversy, and everyone laps it up.
I could go on to talk about this year’s nominations and do an in-depth analysis of what it means or who’s most likely to win and why and the ramifications of such a result on the music industry and yada yada yada. Basically, I could pretend like the VMA’s are in any way a serious awards show but, I mean, come on. They haven’t been a serious awards show for years, they haven’t even tried to pretend they have a single ounce of credibility left.
Look, I have nothing against the VMAs. Just like I don’t have anything against Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It’s all entertainment, and people get a kick out of it. If people are smart enough to realise how to make tremendous amounts of money for very little work, then respect to them. They’re doing better than me.
The issue comes from when people don’t realise what it actually is. When people still think that it’s surprising when something controversial happens at the VMAs. When each new scandal is treated as the first and last shocking vignette to occur at an awards show. The MTV in the current era is a vacuum for controversy, existing solely to generate clicks for celebrity trash news sites. It’s this time of year that music journalists rub their hands together in glee of all that #content that will be falling into their laps. If there’s no scandal, you’ll be able to hear the collective cry of hack writers and Twitter journalists everywhere as they have to think of something original to say.
It’s as if a thousand thinkpieces cried out and were suddenly silenced. (Credit: YouTube)
The Internet thrives on having something to talk about where they don’t really have to actually say anything. Podcasts, YouTube commentary videos and blogs ensure that nothing happens that isn’t analysed to within an inch of its life, and Twitter ensures that anyone against whom the zeitgeist turns is fucked. We’ve seen it recently with Leslie Jones, who was chased off of Twitter by a horde of shit-nuggets for being in a movie that no one was obligated to see. We saw it in 2009, when Kanye was harangued by the media to the point where he had to drop out of contact for months (Runaway, if you will).
But, if you are interested in the nominations for this year, there aren’t really any massive shocks. ‘Ye got his video for Famous nominated for Best Video, along with Adele’s Hello, Beyoncé’s Formation, Hotline Bling by Drake and Sorry by Justin Bieber. There has also been an inclusion of a new category: Breakthrough Long Form Video, for which Beyoncé’s Lemonade is a shoe-in to win (honestly, despite all my posturing about the VMA’s not being a legitimate awards show, this is a really great category).
You can check out the full nominations over at MTV’s site here. The evening promises to be full of entertainment you can poke a stick at, with drinking games always a must (a shot for every time they cut to Taylor Swift dancing as devoid of rhythm as possible will have your liver turning black), but the real appeal of the VMAs is trying to guess what the scandal will be this year.
Will it be yet again Kanye-related? A continuation of the beef between Miley and Nicki Minaj? Or perhaps some of our Australian attendees Tame Impala and Sia (nominated for Best Direction and Best Female Video respectively) can turn up to the big dance and cause a stir to make us proud. Whatever happens, you will absolutely be hearing about it until your ears bleed.
Image: Hip Hop Celebrity Gossip