So I have a confession to make... Last Sunday I watched the Justin Timberlake concert performance on MTV. Well actually, April watched it, but I happened to be sitting next to her.
What I didn't want to admit was... It was pretty decent. Ok, it was good. Not in a sense that I could bring myself to buy any of his songs on iTunes (although the end of "Love Stoned" when he was on the keyboard was really cool), but in a sense that I now rescind any negative comments I made about Justin Timberlake in games like Snipe Justin Timberlake six years ago, and "Beat Up Nsync" almost TEN years ago... we never moved my old Assassin pages when the redesign lanuched, so it's one of more than ten games of mine that have mysteriously vanished.
Looking back, I don't know what I hated more: the corporate machine that spit out generic pop acts, or successful people in general. At least, I hated successful people who I deemed to not have EARNED it. So I will now acknowledge, Justin earned it. And tonight was a reminder why... I just watched the MTV VMAs (well, April did and I was sitting next to her) and what can I say... Britney Spears just doesn't give a shit anymore. It's not like life threw her a curveball; everything went pretty damn well and she made her own stupid choices to fuck it up. Meanwhile, Justin kept his hustle going and now he has a flashy live performance with Timbaland that even I can enjoy.
In fact, Justin has become a bit of an inspiration for me. Watching him on stage makes me want to step up my own game. Not that learning dance moves will do any good for Newgrounds, but I need to find my own ways to enhance the showmanship here at NG... Make it all feel like more of an EVENT to be here. I brought up some of this stuff to the guys at lunch last week, but I think it made them want to leave the table.
So once again, I apologize to Justin for any mean games I made about him in the past, but I don't regret games like this, which are still lots of fun.
More general thoughts on the VMAs... It felt like most the performances were sideshow segues to the advertising for more "important" reality programming, which was a constant reminder that MTV followed the ratings instead of the goals the network was founded on. I can't be too sanctimonious about that sort of stuff, but man... How do you go from Music Video Television to The Hills... To people who have earned it EVEN LESS than the manufactured boy bands and pop divas. It's like the world thrives on watching people they HATE, but maybe I'm just part of a small minority of misanthropes... Hey, we're the sort of people who laid the foundation for NG.
The performers were further marginalized by a frequent lack of introductions, credits or complete performances. I'm sure MTV was gunning for the ADHD web 2.0 generation, but it feels like someone forgot the point along the way; these bands show up for the TV audience, not to play through the commercials. Then again, I'm sure you can find the full performances on-line... Not to mention the fact that I don't want to see most of those bands perform in the first place, so maybe MTV got it right with that.
The one performance that I did like was Chris Brown... You can tell he's young and hungry and got a good night's sleep before he hit that stage. If he keeps that up, he'll have earned it too.
