Who Needs Music Television When You Have Jersey Shore?

Thank you MTV for doing something that should have been done ages ago. Finally, the phrase "music television" is being dropped from your logo. It is like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders, officially.

No longer can we cry foul when you show marathons filled with the incessant jibber jabber of people in their early to mid 20's starving for attention and television time. No longer will I have to flip through channels and see Snooki and think, "man, Carson Daly really let himself go." Now, in knowing that you are no longer music television, I can not help but reflect on all the good times we had like countless hours of Parental Control and Next filtered into my brain late at night or the souless shrieks of teenage girls shouting for 50 Cent and Justin Timberlake.

Oh wait, that has only been the last 10 years. So some time before that they showed music videos. All jokes aside, it is truly sad that MTV has dropped music television from the logo. Technically, this means they should get a new logo as the "tv" part no longer applies and even that, in itself, is sad.

I say this is sad for two reasons. MTV helped shape a lot of the modern world and how music is seen and perceive. Good or bad, it is the truth. MTV brought cultures together, provided a slightly more intimate experience with the artists you love and, at one point, embraced artists and their offerings to the music video format. Along the way (cough "90's" cough), the purpose eventually was corrupted, music genres and creativity was lost and all that was left were faces, these empty shells used to mass market and sell a scripted and artificial culture to the youth to assist in the dumbing down of society. Now, the people and the music are artifical and the videos lack definition.

Now, the same can be said about the logo. The once famous logo used to mean something now it is a warning sign to abandon all hope for anyone wishing to view the channel for longer than two minutes. This is not always the case but, more often than not, it is. In a way, the logo should have been retired when the channel turned 20. It would have never gone on to be a meaningless image of what was and still should be. It would have never represented Jersey Shore or The Hills. It would have retired on a sad note (the emergence of Backstreet, Britney, etc and, of course, Rap-Metal. Yeah, I listened to it then) but at least, it would have still represented music, its possibilities and future and, more importantly, it would been retired with dignity.

While, it is great to see the logo put out of some of its misery, one can not help but feel slightly sad that an era is officially over. Granted, the era has been over for some time. MTV just needed to acknowledge it. It is too bad that it took so long.