This is a brief response to a well-ranted Facebook comment (found here: http://www.facebook.com/JessieBoulanger/posts/2152140888158?ref=notif¬if_t=feed_comment_reply).
This post notably makes reference to 'real music', '[art]', & '[culture]' as opposed to 'processed crap' which I'll interpret as unreal, or manufactured, for the sake of this response. This is the argument of real v manufactured (i.e. unreal). My point will reduce to the idea that music videos (read 'Old MTV') are more real than reality shows (read 'Current MTV').
The first thing to note is how Reality Shows, in truth, are not "reality." They are, at best, a type of manufactured reality (which is no reality at all?). This is indicated by several things. Firstly, the characters are "acting" or playing for the camera and the result is a reality that is only real to the camera. It is not real to real life however, which is the reality they are purporting to show. Other indicators are that scenes are re-shot and the strange absence of cameras in the final product.
Music videos, which (generally) do not in any way pretend to be real are, conversely, much more real. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but suffice it to say that they an exaggeration of a feeling or an idea and it is clear to the viewer that an exaggeration is happening.
As as example I will compare Fox News (as 'Reality Shows', sorry conservatives) to 'The Daily Show' (as music video). Between the two, Fox News is the only one that presents itself as real news. 'The Daily Show' is very clearly (or should clearly be seen as) a satire. With Fox News, viewers assume they are getting the truth, what is real. With 'The Daily Show' the veneer is so thin, that no one mistakes as real news. Ironically, because the satirical veneer is so thin, the viewer actually gets a better idea of what is 'real'.
At the level beneath this one we could consider that nothing is real, but for that read 'Simulacra and Simulation' by Jean Baudrillard (to which this blog is heavily indebted) ...
