Fucking No, MTV

Last week MTV premiered a new "show" called FNMTV. It has bold block letters in yellow and pink, and it's supposed to combine music with the web, like everything these days. At first glance it can seem like a good thing, since MTV is bringing back music videos. Yay! But not really. They do play music videos, true. They're identified in big bold block letters over the entire video when it starts. But they don't do that at the end. This is stupid, because if you come across a video midway through and you don't know any details, you won't find out. MTV is assuming that everyone will have a laptop right in front of them so they can just pull up the website, instead of doing the easy and proper thing by labeling the video.

In their convergence of web and music, FNMTV is giving behind-the-scenes tidbits of the video by artists, in little boxes featured in different corners of the screen. Cool...except it's a distraction from the song and the video. VH1 has been doing this for years (during segments on their Top 20 Countdown and any end-of-the-year wrapups) and I'm pretty sure MTV has jumped on this bandwagon earlier, but they rarely show music videos anymore so it's hard to remember. But what really irks me is the karaoke features. Random kids are shown in their bedrooms or living rooms, with their friends, singing along and making shoutouts. It's TRL, without the interviews and pleas to vote. They cut out the middleman! FNMTV, like TRL, encourages viewers to become a part of the process and make their own videos and answer questions. I don't see why all that work is necessary, but whatever.

Apparently FN means Friday Night, which is when the show is on. Coulda fooled me; all I've seen is it on in the morning. I like to watch my videos in their entirety (stop cutting them off) without annoying interruptions by some overenthusiastic teens, and know who I'm watching. At least with TRL I got a countdown out of it.