Death of the MTV Generation [MTV Shutting Down]

Chronicles ^ | December 8, 2025 | Noel Yaxley

[Angelino97]

The trouble with nostalgia is that it appears to rewire our minds, bringing only pleasant memories to the forefront of our consciousness. It is incredibly effective at erasing the things we don’t want to think about. We remember bubblegum and video games more than malaria or third-world starvation. Our salad days are filtered through rose-tinted glasses; we assume everything was better in the past.

I was thinking about this recently after reading that MTV would be shutting down at the end of this year. As someone born in the final minutes of the 1970s, I am a member of Generation X, the so-called “MTV Generation.”

In many ways, the demise of MTV can be interpreted as part of the fading relevance of Gen X. Stuck between idealistic boomers and optimistic millennials, we’re the self-aware, Chuck Palahniuk-reading pessimists (think Fight Club) who watched every countercultural icon become just another image on t-shirts. It wasn’t that the revolution wasn’t televised; there was no revolution—just the background noise of an overpriced shopping mall and the relentless march toward middle age.

For the first half of its existence, MTV felt genuinely refreshing: It was the first channel dedicated to pumping out music videos 24 hours a day. As a hormonal teenager, I was seduced by the flashy graphics, schizo-editing, and telegenic hosts, all imbued with a youthful rebelliousness. The cable network had an anarchic energy, operating in sharp contrast to the dull, sterile world of traditional mainstream television. It felt dangerous and subversive. At least that’s what you think when you’re 13, high on testosterone and self-righteous fury. Ah, the naïveté of youth!

Upon its launch in 1981, it was a commercial disaster, accruing merely a few hundred thousand dollars in advertising revenue during its inaugural year and incurring losses exceeding $50 million. On the verge of bankruptcy, the network hired famous musicians, such as Mick Jagger, Cyndi Lauper, and David Bowie, to feature in a series of advertisements aimed at encouraging fans to contact their local cable companies with the demand, “I WANT MY MTV!”

By 1992, 60 percent of American households had access to MTV. This rapid growth led to a de facto monopoly over pop culture. The brand dictated fashion, attitudes, and musical tastes. The network employed an old radio strategy called narrowcasting to target a specific demographic within its audience to advertisers.

Mike Judge’s satirical slacker animation, Beavis and Butthead, captured the grunge-oriented aesthetic that characterized Gen X. It wasn’t so much that it had its finger on the pulse as it did on the wallets of every teenager in the Western world. Its programming was built around planned obsolescence. Every few years, a new sound or style revolution sent kids running to thrift stores in search of the latest in-group signifiers and accessories.

Success brought criticism. This was the age of moral panic. MTV, like video games, was yet another “home invader” corrupting the minds and morals of the youth. Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” video enraged cultural conservatives who saw the risqué clothing and lyrics as a symptom of Western civilization’s demise, and the left denounced the network’s unfettered commercialism, which it considered a kind of Faustian bargain, in which integrity was traded for fame. Getting on MTV was part of selling out, basically. The Dead Kennedys yelled “MTV Get Off the Air!” while Beck wrote a song called “MTV makes me wanna smoke crack.”

A remarkable aspect of capitalism is its adaptability—it has evolved to profit from dissent, rather than merely contain it. MTV demonstrated this by co-opting and transforming angst into a marketable product. In a way, it was an embryonic form of woke capitalism—painting a rainbow flag on a cruise missile no more implies that Raytheon favors the lives of transgender people than it does innocent civilians in the Middle East. A new iron law emerged: the counterculture is always commodified, and rebellion is the ultimate spectacle.

The death of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain in 1994 signaled the beginning of the end of MTV’s golden age. As ratings dropped and youngsters tuned out, it did what any struggling company does. To maintain its cultural hegemony, the network reinvented itself. It sidelined the broadcast of nonstop music videos, basically its USP (unique selling position), and in their place, reality shows about trivial teen drama, such as The Real World and Jersey Shore, began to dominate its schedule. If the network had any claims to be revolutionary, it died with the introduction of reality TV.

MTV’s tragic history reads like a laundry list of constant reinventions as it struggled to stay relevant. With its roots in the Walkman era and its growth in the digital age of CDs, MTV couldn’t compete with the internet’s technological innovations. Other media learned to adapt; MTV stuck to its guns. Its current lineup includes Catfish, Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, and Dating Naked. Mark Fisher, the cultural theorist, was right: neoliberalism leads to the “desacralization of culture.”

This is both a criticism and a lamentation. Regardless of its flaws, it drew us together. For a few brief moments, it defined the zeitgeist—every American over the age of 50 can recall where they were when Thriller was released, and Headbangers Ball encouraged a generation to form awful thrash metal bands in our parents’ garages. While it might have felt more like a connection to shopping at Hot Topic, it still brought us together. This connection has been severed, lost to an age of AI slop and doomscrolling as podcasters yell into the ether.

Whatever, never mind…

[dfwgator]

And yet, A-ha’s “Take On Me”, has over 2 Billion views on YouTube.

YouTube rendered MTV obsolete.

[God luvs America]

MTV rendered MTV obsolete...they went from playing music videos, primarily rock videos, to producing idiot shows then went totally woke the past half dozen years...

[dfwgator]

True, but YouTube was the final blow.

[lee martell]

What you just described is exactly what happened to Christopher Cross and his music career.
Christopher wrote and sang some wonderful, uplifting and musically precise popular music. Some liked to call it Yacht Music as a mild put down, but it still sold. “Ride Like The Wind”, “Never Be The Same”, “Sailing”, all monster hits.
He won five Grammy Awards in 1980. John Lennon once said “Sailing” is a song he wishes he had thought of to write and perform.

Then, MTV happened, and Chris just didn’t fit the visual image of a Countertenor; A male singer with a high falsetto or alto voice, singing that type of music. He looked more like a truck driver than a soloist for whimsical love songs.
After that armful of Grammy’s Christopher’s career, sank like a rock. He’s still around, but at a fraction of his former fame.

[dfwgator]

More people now associate “Ride Like The Wind” with the SCTV skit with Michael McDonald.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

There was (or is?) an “MTV Generation”? Who knew?

[doorgunner69]

I gather (not being a TV watcher back then) that MTV was not bad with Rock stuff it covered. Apparently had a really cute chick named Martha Quinn or something that made it worth watching?

I heard it morphed to ghetto jungle chanting and went to hell.

[ealgeone]

The death of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain in 1994 signaled the beginning of the end of MTV’s golden age.

It began dying before that. I'd say around the time they introduced Yo, MTV Raps and then moved into reality tv.

[ConservativeMind]

Great music video!

[Gil4]

The thing probably peaked around 1985...

1985 ... sounds about right

[Secret Agent Man]

Martha Chin.

[Secret Agent Man]

Yup

We are the sigmas of the generations

[T.B. Yoits]

After MTV it became processed music presented by model like performers.

Motörhead 1977
Bomber 1979
On Parole 1979
Overkill 1979
Ace of Spades 1980
No Sleep 'til Hammersmith 1981
Iron Fist 1982
Another Perfect Day 1983
What's Words Worth? 1983
Orgasmatron 1986
Rock 'n' Roll 1987
Nö Sleep at All 1988
Blitzkrieg on Birmingham '77 1989
Lock Up Your Daughters 1990
1916 1991
March ör Die 1992
Bastards 1993
Live at Brixton '87 1994
Sacrifice 1995
Overnight Sensation 1996
Snake Bite Love 1998
Everything Louder than Everyone Else 1999
We Are Motörhead 2000
Hammered 2002
25 & Alive: Live at Brixton Academy 2003
Inferno 2004
BBC Live & In-Session 2005
Kiss of Death 2006
Better Motörhead than Dead: Live at Hammersmith 2007
Motörizer 2008
The Wörld Is Yours 2010
The Wörld Is Ours - Vol. 1: Everywhere Further Than Everyplace Else 2011
The Wörld Is Ours – Vol. 2: Anyplace Crazy as Anywhere Else 2012
Aftershock 2013
Bad Magic 2015
Clean Your Clock 2016

[Dilbert San Diego]

Perhaps what they should have said is that the television channel MTV on cable TV abandoned music videos long ago.

There is still a channel called MTV, but it no longer has programming that it had originally.

[dfwgator]

Oh, no one ever left alive in nineteen hundred and eighty five
Will ever do

[T.B. Yoits]

Martha Quinn. Married her childhood heartthrob Bobby Brady.

Just to be clear, that was a role she played in 'The Bradys', the short-lived sequel to "The Brady Bunch".

In real life, she married Jordan Tarlow from the Fuzztones.

[Larry Lucido]

Detroit was slow getting cable so I had no idea what HBO or MTV were (except from the song Money for Nothing) until I spent four months in Anniston, Alabama, in 1983 courtesy of the U.S. Army. The motel on Quintard Ave had a pool, working AC, and cable. Spent days at Fort McClellan and nights catching up on movies and these new-fangled “music videos.” After I finally got my own cable, both music channels had started to go downhill.

[gundog]

[RightWingNut]

I only got to watch MTV at someone else’s house. Parents were too cheap for cable. I survived !! LOL

Come to think of it, I’m so old I remember all those Rod Stewart videos on early MTV.

I also remember when Saturday Night Live was funny.

I’M OLD !!!

[Angelino97]

MTV rendered MTV obsolete...they went from playing music videos, primarily rock videos, to producing idiot shows then went totally woke the past half dozen years...

MTV was "woke" from the start.

I recall reading an article on MTV in the 1990s. It quoted an insider as saying that MTV saw itself as having a mission to transform America, to make it more progressive.

MTV used to have "Rock the Vote" specials and Presidential Inaugural Balls to encourage young people to vote. MTV claimed these events were non-partisan.

Yet when Bush won win 2000, MTV canceled its Inaugural Ball Special. They claimed it was because of the "controversy" over the 2000 election. But I think MTV would have celebrated a Gore win, controversy or no.