Words by: Ernest Baker
I've written about nostalgic topics before, and I've been wanting to write about MTV for a while, but I didn't know what to say.
Now, I'm sitting here at 5 a.m., after sleeping for maybe an hour. I feel like I'm a piece of shit as a person because of an argument that just happened. I haven't gone to work for two days because I've been sick. I haven't made the fucking playlist for the party that I'm throwing tonight. I have to be on camera today even though I ate like a fat ass yesterday and haven't worked out in a month. And yet, the show goes on.
I can either wallow in self-pity or I can get the fuck up at 5 a.m. and do what I have to do and be an adult about it. I choose the latter because no amount of stress or disillusionment changes the fact that I still have a lot of obligations and deadlines.
Finally, it all makes sense. That's why I miss MTV.
It reminds of a simpler time. A time when I didn't have to think about any of this serious life shit. I didn't have bills to pay. I didn't have a job to work. I didn't have to do anything for anybody. I know the tortured, nostalgic, lost in life twentysomething, trying to figure it all out archetype is tired, and it's corny if the base purpose of it is to whine about how things aren't easy anymore, but that's not what I'm doing here. I'm just remembering.
From about 1998 to 2006, basically the only thing I had to do in the world was watch TRL and Say What? and Direct Effect after school. If, by chance, I ever had anything else to do, it was to watch The Real World, Road Rules, Diary, Making The Video, Made, Next, Room Raiders, Punk'd, FANatic, Making The Band, Pimp My Ride, Tom Green, Parental Control, Undressed, The Cut, Wildin' Out, Yo Momma, Jackass, and The Lyricist Lounge at night. It was so fucking effortless. It might have been the peak moment of personal satisfaction of my existence. And there's a generation of people my age who feel exactly the same way.
Perhaps I'm embellishing a bit. I could list off a million reasons why here and now in 2014 is actually the greatest and how everything only gets better every single day. But there's no future in being content. There's no glory in thinking that you have it made. It's like when Rick Ross said, "You wanna be the hottest but that shit get complicated."
This shit doesn't stop. You can't rest for a second. You want to write off all the pressure and drama and competition as irrelevant but you can't. This is how it's going to be forever. I'm never going to get any peace again, and I don't even want it because there's a lot of crazy shit that I want to do in this lifetime, and I know that mental distortion comes with the territory.
But every once in a while, when things gets too hectic, I think back to when I had that peace of mind. That brief moment when I had it. Spankin' New and Buzzworthy tags floating across the screen. Watching MTV. Getting ready for life.
