The VMAs Are The Worst

I'm a fairly optimistic person by nature. Sometime's not by choice, but just a lack of pragmatism on my part. With this being said, I immediately associate myself with the hype of the 2014 Video Music Awards, counting down the days with excitement/enthusiasm. I don't even know what I was expecting. Maybe a sense of inspiration from any particular artist as if it were Palladia or something. But after sitting through it, I felt as if someone had gave me decaffeinated coffee. OUTRAGED

My first mistake was trusting MTV to deliver. For quite some time now, people have accused the network of being ironic for showing more television shows than actual music. I know that their main channel and MTV2 prove this to be true, but they somewhat made up for it with the MTV Hits and MTV Jams channels (Not to mention their probable association with Palladia). Not to mention on certain shows (i.e. AWKWARD.), they tend to play tracks and provide the information for the artists in a ticker below the screen. Nevertheless, it's still up for debate.

What really intrigued me about this year's awards were a few songs/artists that I appreciated being nominated: Childish Gambino - 3005 for hip hop video, and The Black Keys - Fever for rock video.

It seems like I just gave up altogether as soon as 9 a'clock hit. I'm not even in to pop music to begin with. The opening performance was extremely provocative, and I just didn't care. The dialogue provided through the teleprompter was mediocre (may be a strong word, but I just feel it could have been better), and it was more like amateur hour due to all of the new artists taking the spotlight away from those that were there prior. I don't even know why these demographics even need constant satisfaction... but that's none of my business.

Not to mention Jay Pharaoh (being the comic genius he is) delivering the only part to the awards that was entertaining, yet no one seemed to find humor in. SMH

As for the moments I actually anticipated, I completely missed the hip hop nominees (left the room for 1 second, *sigh*). I don't know why, but the most R&B song Drake has ever made wins the award.

What really upset me was when the rock nominees were presented, they didn't even show clips of the songs (I don't think they ever do). And on top of that, Trey Songz called them The Black Eyes. (._.) Lorde won the rock award for her song "Royals", which many people wouldn't consider to be rock.

The best moment from that night was Miley Cyrus winning her award. She made a lasting impression by allowing a young man to accept the award for her on behalf of the homeless children of the USA. this moment shined the spotlight on more of a cause than her success, and perhaps that moment was the inspiration I was looking for. I do hope that in y success, I can be able to inspire a majority of people to do great things for the world.

Best Moment of the VMAs

However to add further irony to inspiration, a series of adds played over the breaks expressing the need to stop the promotion of smoking... technically providing more inspiration to smoke. Maybe that was an accident, and I do believe they had good intentions, but it's like saying "don't look down, even though there's awesome celebrities down there who want to meet you" or something of a backfire like that.

The icing on the cake was Beyonce. She comes out in the end promoting feminism and raising a family and such, but rides stripper poles and does provocative dances to follow it up. On top of all that, she performs this confusing act right in front of her 2 year-old daughter. At that point I officially gave up.

It's funny, because I somewhat remember being this upset at the last VMAs I've seen, but I feel this was the worst. All I keep thinking is that next year will deliver based off of how bad this years' was. However that may be the optimism again. Thanks pop music for reminding me why I listen to indie music. :-)