Matt Drudge has never had a very good sense of when he just doesn't
know shit about what he's talking about.
Which is a shame here, because there are so many good reasons
to talk shit about that VMA.
But as a rule, that favorite reactionary tactic of just quoting the
worst-sounding parts of something completely out of context ... it's
just stupid and self-serving and intellectually dishonest and gives
people absolutely no critical frame in which to decide what it is
that they're being told to be upset about or why.
And can I also say that I am sick to fucking death of this
well-meaning (usually conservative) concern about black comedians
being somehow exploited or minstrelized whenever they're doing
something unflattering. If more white people were able to see a
black person doing something without immediately extrapolating that
that action is somehow representative of all black people
everywhere, then Jamie Foxx would be able to fuck sheep all day
long without exploiting anyone but himself. And people would realize
that when Eddie Murphy acts like a jackass and black people love it,
it's not because he's mocking black people as a whole but mocking
specific types of black people that other black people know --
like that one crazy cousin or that fool that lives down the street --
the same way white people can act like buffoons on TV and it's
obviously meant to represent specific white people who are
buffoons and not white people in general.
Jesus! As you can tell I am pissed-off and off-topic tonight.
― Nitsuh, Saturday, 8 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Don't knock yourself, Nitsuh, that's one of the best descriptions of
that particular problem I've seen. Maybe everyone just needs to die
and we can start fresh.
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 8 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I guess the question is: why did Drudge even
watch the VMAs?
If indeed he did, as opposed to just gathering quotes from elsewhere?
I.e., what makes him decide that the VMAs are somehow representative
of the entire state of music and youth culture? It's like reading a
bad book and saying, "This author has killed literature."
― Nitsuh, Saturday, 8 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
...what makes him decide that the VMAs are somehow representative
of the entire state of music and youth culture? It's like reading a
bad book and saying, "This author has killed literature."
Uh, probably the fact that he either woke up one day and decided, or
had over the course of several days slowly, naggingly come to the
conclusion that...gasp!..."literature/music/youth culture is dead, at
least the way I remember it," and then went looking for a
convenient whipping boy.
― M. Matos, Saturday, 8 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
What he's doing is pretending to care one way or another about the
value of music, as an excuse for quoting a lot of crass things said
on stage.
'Cause you know, I grew up watching MTV and now I haven't got a mind
of my own, not since I tried all those Jackass stunts.
― daria gray, Saturday, 8 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link