By
Lauren Boisvert
In May 1992, MTV made a drastic shift in their programming that changed the face of the channel forever. With the premier of The Real World, MTV began moving away from strictly music videos and into the realm of reality TV.
The Real World was a pioneer of the reality genre of the 90s. Inspired by the 1973 documentary series An American Family, the show chose several young people to cohabitate in a new city together. They were filmed non-stop, and the show garnered a reputation for showcasing youthful irresponsibility and and immaturity.
However, the show was also lauded for it’s real depictions of youth culture. Episodes frequently focused on sex, prejudice, religion, peer pressure, sexuality, and politics. Even AIDS, illness, abortion, and death were common topics on the show.
For MTV, The Real World was revolutionary. Additionally, it was the longest-running series on the channel, with a whopping 614 episodes in 33 seasons. It was only surpassed by its spin-off, The Challenge, which ran for 40 seasons.
The show premiered in 1992 and ran until 2017. The first season took place in New York City, and in 2021 a reboot was aired on Paramount+. The Real World Homecoming: New York brought back the original cast of the first season to live in their original SoHo loft.
As expected, MTV’s choice to start moving away from music videos sparked controversy with viewers. The old complaint that “MTV doesn’t play music anymore” slipped into the public’s lexicon and hasn’t really left.
As the years pass, MTV continues to focus on reality television shows like Catfish, True Life, and the oft broadcast Ridiculousness. Music videos were relegated to VH1 or MTV2, lesser-known channels that didn’t have the same pull as the original MTV. They, too, started implementing more reality television eventually.
With the rise of TikTok and streaming for music discovery, the humble music video has lost a lot of its impact. Essentially, television isn’t for music anymore. There’s no communal place to go for distant generations to experience the same delight—or disdain—of discovering something new.
Music discovery has become quarantined to our phones, to 15 and 30-second clips we can scroll through and forget about in half that time. MTV’s shift to reality TV killed organic discovery and isolated us within an app. Sure, I want my MTV, but at what cost, now?
Featured Image by Steve Finn/Getty Images
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