VH1: The Song Remains as Lame

I remember the days of youth: cable TV had been around for a few years, and had given birth to MTV. Music had become a visually theatrical event as the station played a broad spectrum of actual music videos. The shows were all music oriented, from Yo MTV Raps, to Headbangers' Ball, to interviews of Robert Smith on 120 Minutes, and some Phill Collins vids in between to placate the elder race of Baby Boomers.

VH1 popped on in the midst of this musical evolution. They took what one would think would be the next logical step, and target a niche musical interest in a way that radio had done before.

Their only problem: the niche was old people.

Eventually, time marched on and MTV showed less actual music, and more bs TV shows. We all know the rant: you hear people bitch about this about as often as you hear about how unsightly it is to go about with your pants slung low. Anyway, I stopped watching TV at all, let alone MTV. And VH1? Who knew what was going on with that channel. It was like a Kenny Loggins album: nobody ever bothered.

Still, years later, time advances still, but VH1's demographic stays rigidly fixed with crosshairs on the aging. I notice them trying to resurrect the corpses of teenage television persona from my youth. I catch a show now and again about, "Where are they now?" for the same reasons I ever watched VH1: a brief visualization of the worst programming ever.

Now I've stumbled across their new show, "I Hate My 30's". I figure, "Okay, I'm in my 30's, this must be a show I can relate to, which depicts the absurd irony of the life of those in my position." With this thought in mind, using my 1337 h4x02 5x!l5 of the interwebs, I watch a show online.

I have to buy a braille keyboard now; I've dug my eyes out with my fingers.

This show was obviously not written by any thirty year olds. It targets people in their 20s and 40s and makes fun of their ignorance of what it is to be 30. We do not: Lament about our lost youth yet. We do not stress over having babies: we either already have our share, or are never going to.

Being in your 30's is like being a more powerful person in your 20's. You're bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, wittier. You have your choice of women from all age groups, either because they have a daddy fetish, or want some young stud. You can drink way more and hold your liquor better than any 20 year old. You still have all your not-gray hair. You have more money than when you were 20, a better car, cooler toys.

VH1 is trying hard to label us as in a limbo of not quite old and not quite young. It's a ploy, a primer: They are saying, "Soon, you will be old enough to watch hours of VH1 like your dying parents were. Give up on your youth and embrace the walker."

I say: VH1, your shit programming is still stupid.