How MTV Completely Lost Its Relevance

[@dfxstudios]

Let us know your thoughts!

[@ryanhoarty1464]

Fix the typo in your title.

[@KevinFarrell-hc3wn]

​@@ryanhoarty1464Where is the typo?

[@jasonwebb5964]

Those who didn't live it will never understand how big MTV was! An entire generation was obsessed with it! What an amazing time the 80s and 90s were!!

[@dfxstudios]

Literally OBSESSED lol the nostalgia is wild

[@VaginaBerzurker666]

I remember when I first launched.. yes amazing times

[@blixx8931]

Hell yeah! I remember around 1992 I was a sophomore and I think real world started and that was the of MTV

[@KevinSmith-vd8rz]

The 90's were awesome 👌

[@rumrunner8019]

MTV and The Simpsons are both zombies, as in walking corpses that are just mockeries of what they were when they were alive and young. That late 80s early 90s era was something else. Let's just hope they don't try to make some watered-down remake of "In Living Color"

[@jmcbeats3789]

MTV hasn't been relevant since the early 2000s.. it had a nice run but now it's the ridiculousness channel lol

[@dfxstudios]

Rob runs it at this point 😂

[@valmarsiglia]

I'm a graphic designer and back in the early 2000s I did some freelance gigs at both MTV and VH1. Not in the studio or anything exciting like that, I was working in their marketing department so it was a pretty normal corporate setting. Anyway, I asked one of the higher-ups why they didn't play videos anymore and he said it was simply a matter of ratings. After the initial novelty of music videos wore off, and especially with the advent of the web and easily-accessible vids, people simply lost interest, which is why they pivoted to gameshows, comedies, and reality shows.

[@dfxstudios]

Makes sense as the format became outdated pretty fast, too bad they couldn’t adapt content wise because in terms of cultural cache they were at the very top during their heyday

[@chrisolivo6591]

Yes, the internet and KZbin were a big part of MTV’s decline. But as someone who started watching MTV way back in 1981, I believe its decline was more about how music changed/splintered in the 90’s. 80’s pop music was ruled by Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Bruce, Whitney Houston, etc. They all appealed to the masses and that’s what everyone did. David Bowie and Aerosmith changed their style to be more pop in the 80’s for MTV. Even metal bands like Motley Crue and Whitesnake wrote lighter ballads to appeal to the MTV crowd. MTV could play any music in the 80’s and hold a mass audience. Once the 90’s came with Grunge, Hip Hop and Teenage Pop music, something had to give? A teenage girl who likes Britney Spears may turn the channel when Nirvana comes on. A person who likes Notorious Big may turn the channel when N’Sync comes on. MTV had to pick a specific avenue to appeal to one group but would alienate another group. Once they focused on Britney, N’Sync and Backstreet Boys in the late 90’s, the writing was on the wall.

[@dfxstudios]

Couldn’t have said it better myself! Totally agree.

[@donaldstuckiii]

Bro as an old head who grew up with MTV. This gives me flash backs to just how big and awesome they really were. Very informative great job

[@dfxstudios]

Hey thanks man 🙏🏽 really glad you enjoyed it

[@tuckerreda1759]

The Dead Kennedy's told (sang) "MTV Get Off the Air!" back in 1985... better late than never 😂 🍻

[@dfxstudios]

😂

[@BrettShadow]

Pretty hard to maintain a channel format that asks viewers to sit through long video blocks of songs they don't like just to hear the one they have been waiting on when they can look at any one of the dozens of devices located everywhere from in their pocket to the wall of their house and see anything they want instantly. MTV was a horse salesman watching Ford Model T's drive by. I can imagine reinventing your entire existence on the fly is difficult when the world just took away your only reason for relevance and existence

[@dfxstudios]

Yeah the concept was brilliant for its time in the 80s and 90s but as soon as KZbin came around 05 it was a wrap

[@BrettShadow]

@@dfxstudios Another interesting concept along the same lines would be print magazines. I mean they went from what I would assume to be their peak glory years with heavy hitters like Playboy, Stuff, Maxim, FHM, etc. to complete irrelevance in the matter of like 24 months. It would probably be hard to research but I haven't seen it covered by any content creators and may be interesting.

[@dfxstudios]

Agreed I actually did do a video on Vice which started out as a magazine but was one of the few who leveraged the internet early on.

[@BrettShadow]

@@dfxstudios Your cordial interaction and engagement along with your willingness to engage with the commentors has potential to take your channel far. If you can take from criticism and apply it to your content without seeing it as some kind of personal attack as you... you will no doubt grow. You have a good formula. And while constructive and respectful feedback and criticism is often easier to hear, ALL criticism have value and even the biggest DBag troll can point out things you can improve on. Def got a new subscriber here and I look forward to checking out your back catalog and upcoming vids!

[@dfxstudios]

I appreciate it man and of course always open to feedback good or bad 👌🏽. You can learn something from anyone. 🙌🏽

[@Hungry800]

Stumbled this randomly on my fyp and decided to give it a watch ! What a decent video essay especially surrounding the confusing content change of MTV...hopefully you get more views and likes in the future bcos this is very enjoyable

[@dfxstudios]

Thank you! Appreciate the kind words!

[@jstall20]

Two words: reality tv

[@dfxstudios]

Two words: Rob Dyrdek 😂

[@ultimadum7785]

This channel has criminally low views. I legitamately thought I was watching a modestly sized video eassay channel based on the quality of the vid. Keep it up! Subbed.

[@dfxstudios]

Thanks so much! 🙏🏽

[@chrisbuckley1785]

Looks like it could air on MTV..😂😂

[@dfxstudios]

😂😂

[@nolarobert]

Ah yes, I am old enough to remember when airing music videos was the main attraction to watching MTV. On December 2nd, 1983, a bunch of us high school kids went to watch the premiere of Michael Jackson's Thriller video at a friend's house. We had a nice party waiting for that much-hyped video. It was a great communal event that we talked about for weeks afterward. MTV was huge for us when I was a teenager, but I didn't watch it as much when I went to college. It is hard to describe the impact MTV had on us when it came to musical and cultural trends. I don't think the youth of today have anything like it. KZbin and TikTok offer music videos but not the sense of intimacy we had watching MTV with our friends. I didn't realize that MTV was still broadcasting as it lost its relevance long ago.

[@dfxstudios]

Very interesting hearing it from someone who grew up in that era. Thanks for sharing!

[@DrizzyDrew457]

Gotta admit they do make good reality shows

[@bellamango6708]

How it lost its relevance? It lost the M in MTV

[@dfxstudios]

Yup!

[@DerekMcDouglas]

I'm suprised you never mentioned Club MTV and The Grind in this video.

[@dfxstudios]

I know there’s a bunch I didn’t mention they have a sh*t ton of shows

[@AlexisOnF1re]

You are forgetting Liquid Television, a seminal show for animators and animation lovers

[@dfxstudios]

You’re right i should’ve included this in the vid. Wasn’t as familiar with Liquid Television but going to check that out thanks for mentioning

[@AlexisOnF1re]

Of Course, good video still!@@dfxstudios

[@HorribleHomeVideo]

I watched MTV since it came out, i was a kid. I can tell you whay happened. The non-music shows did too well and took over.. by the time i was out of high school mtv was long dead as fsr as music videos went. Don't need a video to know what occured.

[@donaldpeterson590]

MTV died when they started with TV shows. The avant-garde stuff worked. Liquid Television spawned Aeon Flux, Daria was genius, but when they didn't start a separate network just for that programming, it took priority over music. And MTV died. What's worse, it started reality television. The Real World was amazing, but lightning doesn't strike twice. So Hollywood just fakes the lightning. Reality TV shows became scripted and coerced TV shows. The trashing, the better. Jerry Springer got popular, and everyone got suckered into celebrating human garbage. That's how we ended up with a society that thinks people like Trump, Boebert, Empty G, etc. are acceptable. Basically, MTV destroyed America by nit prioritizing music.

[@dfxstudios]

True maybe if they had segmented their programming into different niche categories similar how to how Vice did things would be a bit different but it’s tough to blame their decision making. It’s all about ratings and in that regard Real World and Jackass were getting more coverage and engagement

[@stevenmillan9220]

Let's face it: Reality TV killed the video star(once it started kicking it up in the 90s and then dominated the 2000s and onward [therefore killing MTV and its unique appeal altogether]).

[@walterbison]

LOL @ putting Jay-Z's "unplugged" in the same sentence as Nirvana's.

[@dfxstudios]

lol yeah nirvanas performance was definitely better

[@leew159]

They uaed to have cool music videos, now they don't. They just have junk

[@Fiendstein]

The moment they started playing those stupid reality shows (the real world) was total garbage and Nothing to do with music.

[@dfxstudios]

Yeah they were just running with whatever brought in ratings and that became their bread and butter. Jersey Shore and The Real World have huge fan bases. Not my cup of tea but to each their own

[@zibberebbiz]

its not it's

[@dfxstudios]

You’re right lol I’ll change that

[@JohnBrown-vn2qw]

lol they quit playing music. then started playing that dum show the real world

[@Undeadmetalhead87]

The channel should be called moron television, not music television.

[@jasonsenator6144]

Pop up music was better

[@Undeadmetalhead87]

MTV sucks now and has been sucking since the early 2000s.