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Comment by NKosmatos | Hacker News Reader

Younger HN readers won’t be able to understand this, but these were some good times, when we had MTV playing music videos all the time without all the silly reality shows and when the majority of the music video clips had a meaning, were relevant to the song and were well directed.

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I remember when The Real World first dropped, and after a few weeks VJs spent more time talking about what happened rather than new music. I knew that was the beginning of the end.

I remember when Honey boo boo started playing on the learning channel.

I think that marks the beginning of the end of the human race.

Ah yes, I remember when "TLC" stood for The Learning Channel and "A&E" was Arts and Entertainment. Saw an ad for the Smithsonian Channel today and remarked "How long till the dumb down the content and rebrand as The S Network?"

Playing reruns of that 90's show Dinosaurs.

I don't know if you remember this but MTV had very little variety with music videos, at least in those early years. I cannot tell you the number of times I saw "Little Red Corvette"[1] and "Jeopardy"[2] at a friend's house while he insisted on having MTV on for hours. Those songs are etched in my brain for life now.

IMO MTV did a really good job of expanding beyond music videos, though I didn't personally watch it past Liquid Television.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0KpfrJE4zw [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAJNwPWVmNc

I remember as a kid MTV being entirely music videos and I could watch until they looped to the one song I liked again. Then I remember as a teenager still being mostly music videos, or shows about music, but there were a few others like road rules and real world. And then by the time I was in college it was a channel almost completely devoid of music and that mostly played weird fake dating shows.

This limited catalogue did lead to an interesting opportunity though - if you were competent enough and could produce an interesting video you could get a bit more exposure than you could otherwise expect. So things like "Mexican Radio"[0] by Wall of Voodoo emerged, not to mention "Dog Police"[1] by Dog Police.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyCEexG9xjw

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Y-1plYJuQ

Younger and international HN readers*. Sorry just doing my part to make the English web less US-centric.

We had a similar phenomenon on MTV, which made up the bulk of the programming on channel 4, in New Zealand. Is it really that US centric? The UK has their own MTV programming too, don't they?

MTV was definitely not a US-only affair. It was popular in the Netherlands too.

Look at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48bfKs5p4Ik

Not that bad, but then you realize that there isn't a single cut in the video.

Yeah, those were great days.

MTV was always on the tv at the bowling center, kids would hang around for hours. If somebody had a house party, MTV was sure to be on.

It was a big part of growing up at the time.

9:00 into their first broadcast:

"The music will continue nonstop"

The reality shows, and internet clip shows are brilliant on a business level though.

All that mindless footage is basically free. You pay a handful of very replaceable hosts, and rake in the viewers.

(I watch that show with Rob Dierdrik. (He is not talented enough for a spell check--sorry.) Yes--I find the videos amusing. The commentary is tiring, but I still like looking at Chanel West Coast. I don't think that woman has ever wore the same outfit? Her wardrobe closet must be huge, or they are donated clothes? Yes---I need a life.)

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