what’s a video?

The jokes and snide comments have been done to death.

“Why do they even bother giving out the VMAs anymore? It’s like ESPN giving out Australian Rules Football awards.”

But it’s gone beyond that now for the MTV Video Music Awards. Sure, videos disappeared from MTV seemingly eons ago, prompting funny jibes about the seemingly useless, yearly extravaganza known as the VMAs. Now, it’s not funny anymore. Now, it’s downright embarrassing.

Forgive me for being critical, but the VMAs hold a special place in my heart. I’ve been there from the beginning, seen every VMA since its inception in 1984 when I was 9. Although admittedly, my babysitting aunt turned off the 1985 edition on me when Eddie Murphy’s opening monologue included approximately 5,743,924 F-bombs (the first time I ever heard anyone talk like that, btw). Still haven’t forgiven her.

It’s required viewing for anyone even remotely interested in music and pop culture. That hasn’t changed, and it probably never will. It passed the Grammys as the more important and relevant music awards show almost instantly, and is directly responsible for the glut of awards shows on every channel. No doubt the first annual “Dog Walking Awards Show” is around the corner, and it’s all because 23 years ago, a couple people at MTV got #### at the Grammys and said, “You know what? We can do it better than this.”

And for about nine years, they did. Nothing else mattered in the lives of teens that night. There was a slight creative rut in the early 90s (Christian Slater as host? In 1993?), but it got its groove back somewhat with Dennis Miller back-to-back in 94-95 and then kicked back into high gear with what we’ll call “The Chris Rock Years” from 1997-2003. Sure, other people hosted in that time, but Rock’s spots were easily the best and most inspired.

Any downturns were never reflected in the performances. Well, maybe sometimes. The Guns-N-Roses finale in 2002 was an abomination and the recent ones are pretty lame (except for My Chemical Romance’s “Helena” in 2005, one of my favorites ever). But for the most part, MTV continually lines up the best all-around lineup of the year in any awards show and always has the best music performances. Can you tell me one memorable Grammy performance? Probably not. But I bet you can easily spout off five great performances from the VMAs.

But there is a problem with success — it goes to your head. The MTV people got waaaaayyyyyyy too full of themselves when they started running different incarnations of ”Best VMA Moments” almost constantly in the 90s. They fell victim to the “We have to top ourselves” syndrome and over-produced every segment of the show, somehow forgetting the night is about videos and performances, not celebrity sightings and which performance can make the loudest fireworks.

All of that still would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that MTV hasn’t played a video in FIVE FREAKIN’ YEARS. Videos on TRL run about half-way through before being interrupted, if they ever get played at all. “Dial MTV” always played the whole thing, man!

Even if there were a couple videos a day, it would be better. But there is nothing! In high school and college, I would be able to pick out at least four of the five Best Video nominees before they were announced. And I always picked the winner right. I take it pretty seriously. This year? It’s the first I haven’t seen one of the Best Video nominees. Even MTV2, started to show videos when MTV pretty much abandoned them, is barely showing them. MTV Jams and MTV Hits still show videos 24-7, but about 20% of the country actually get those channels. And since I can barely stand the music on there, it’s pretty much worthless to someone like me.

So is it hypocrisy for MTV to even hold the awards? Yeah. And sooner or later, artists will start boycotting, mark my words. Why would they come out to get an award for a video that never played on the channel? Wouldn’t they be better served kissing the butt of Fuse or any other channel actually playing their videos?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to clear my calendar for Sept. 9.