Dear VMAs,

I’m going to be honest, I haven’t watched you in several years. I know you made yourself plenty accessible to me, and I really don’t have a good reason for missing you: I was just kind of busy I guess. But this year I made the effort. I sat myself down in front of the tv and watched you (LIVE, not one of the 300 times you were re-aired). I genuinely tried to make it work, but I had to shut you off after Weezy (whose performance was awesome even though T Pain looked like a homo ringleader). My eyeballs were confused. What’s his face host was about as funny as orphaned nine year old Russian girls with no legs clutching dead puppies. I still don’t know who the Jonas Brothers or Taylor Swift are and I don’t care. Nobody did anything interesting on the red carpet (that weirdo German band Tokio Hotel showing up in really small cars is not interesting). And Katy Perry needs to go home. Maybe I’m old and out of touch, or maybe pop culture has turned into some kingdom of the banal where pro-life Christian Disney artists and “edgy” bands like Paramour and Panic at the Disco rule the land. (I’m leaning towards the latter).

Either way, I long for the days when you were fresh and exciting (and funny). Remember the good times in ‘96, when Dennis Miller hosted and Smashing Pumpkins won a bunch (remember the video “Tonight, Tonight”? Amazing), Nas and the Fugees performed, and the Gallagher brothers tried to kill each other on stage? Or ‘97, when Chris Rock was hilarious and Diddy and Sting serenaded Biggie? Or my all time favorite, 1995, when Michael Jackson wasn’t a freak job yet and opened the show, Weezer and TLC cleaned house, and Courtney Love (who was a freakjob) threw shit at Kurt Loder and harassed Madonna in a sweetly incomprehensible way?

Who am I kidding you’ll probably never be good again, since you haven’t played a video in its entirety in ten years. So this, I’m afraid is goodbye. Kiss Brian Mcfadden for me.

Xo,
Yasi

PS I miss Kennedy.

AND