Justin Vernon of Bon Iver sat back and watched the stupidity unfold at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards and proceeded to let loose on his website:
“This is awesome as shit, culturally speaking. but can i just ask, the reader, us, we … as non-rhetorically as possible: don’t we seem dumb? didn’t MTV lose the fight against themselves? Didn’t Rock’n’Roll STOP?…
Why do we NEED this shit so bad? Why don’t we just have MUSIC? DO music? soul? I don’t know. I don’t mean to criticize. Anyone. Actually. Except for MTV. You might have had a very large opportunity to be stabilize your self as a global presence of culture and art about 15 years ago and you fucked the dog.”
Vernon’s main criticism of MTV is that they’re more about money than art. Well, no shit. Valid points aside, MTV has been about money since day one — they’re a money-making machine, and they’re good at it. And yes, they have long been a bastion of stupidity. That they’re raising the bar of stupidity to such staggering heights is perhaps the real concern.
Vernon ends his rant with a somewhat bizarre question:
“It doesn’t matter what i say. it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. But this one last thought: What would Bill Hicks say?”
Justin, I do believe he indirectly addressed this one a long time ago: