For me, last Sunday night marked the true beginning of autumn. Without having seen a fallen leaf or felt the crisp bite of fall air, I knew it was time to buy Shatterfaced.com a whole new Hollister wardrobe (mostly because I wanted to check out the cellulite on the back of the store’s female greeters' legs) and send our little baby to Internet middle school.  

Shatterfaced is now about 10 months old, and in Internet years, I believe this milestone more or less marks our entrance into adolescence. We greet this next awkward stage of our lives with greater knowledge, higher readership, and an acknowledgment of one bitter irony: Michael Jackson’s dead right as we start growing fucking pubes. For so many years, prepubescent boys had to vigilantly avoid being invited to one of Jackson’s seemingly well-intentioned playdates, and from here on out, surviving childhood without being fondled by the most famous singer on the planet will be about as difficult as making sure Terri Schiavo gets to bed on time[1].

So sitting with our hands down the itchy boxer shorts of American culture last Sunday, Shatterfaced tuned into the same program watched by 99% of fellow slightly pubescent back-to-schoolers (excluding retards, the home-schooled, and kids that don’t have TV’s): The MTV Video Music Awards.

First off, I’d like to say that the VMA’s are absolutely genius. The spectacle, the controversy, the overt sexuality; all of these keep middle-schoolers talking to members of the opposite sex for at least the first week of the year, more than enough time to develop intrepid new crushes. These are of course, the same young romances which lead to treacherous brace-faced makeout sessions, vitriolic gossip (I heard she got her period all over his iPod Touch), and later high-school prom pictures, unplanned pregnancies, and pretty much everything else discussed in The River (Springsteen et al.,1981). And in doing so, the VMA’s ensure their own survival, spawning future generations of teens, tweens, and sorority girls possessing the critical thinking abilities of a shower floor.

Speaking of idiots, the show began with a nearly fifteen minutes of Madonna eulogizing the King of Pop while such talents as Jimmy Fallon, Pete Wentz, and Billie Joe Armstrong looked on solemnly. That’s who you guys chose to feature? If Heidi Montag, the remaining member of Milli Vanilli, and George Lopez are the closest to achieving a consensus on their talentlessness, the celebrities MTV chose to spotlight during Madonna’s little speech are the second rung of sucking cock. And all this as Madonna is characterizes the media’s treatment of Jackson in the mid 90’s as a “witch-hunt,” and accuses herself and the overall community of abandoning him. No, bitch, that’s called a pedophile hunt. You don’t give a kid $22 million dollars to keep his mouth shut about a completely appropriate relationship in your booby-trapped carnival funhouse. That person your parents always told you to stay away from? That’s him! It’s not abandonment, it’s good decision making, probably instilled in you by the mother you unembarassedly talk about losing at age 12. Michael Jackson had inappropriate relations with boys, and I’m not buying yours or any of these dickheads’ CD’s.

But ok, whatever. We’ve addressed MJ’s controversial life and death, now the uncomfortable part is over and we can just get on with our fun award show totally devoid of awkward moments, right?

Haha.

First, there’s Russell Brand, who for all his sexual attractiveness, I can’t find myself even slightly admiring. He interviews poorly and his stand up blows. Between his bizarre purple dress and arrhythmic narrating, I couldn’t help but think he’d be better suited to MC a Rob Zombie rape fantasy than one of Radio City’s biggest events of the year. In his defense however, there’s a rumor he banged one of the hottest girls I’ve ever met, so there’s that.

Ok, well as long as he doesn’t talk too much, I’m sure the rest of the night will go off without  a hitch. Time for the first award. Oh, Taylor Swift. Good for her, she really seems to deserve it. This looks like it’s going to be a pretty normal acceptance speech… wait what’s he doing, did he just—

Kanye, Kanye, Kanye. I really didn’t think I could hate you any more. For someone who has made consistently worse music for the past 4 years, you seem to really be making up for it in Hennessy consumption. Initially, I was pretty perturbed by his behavior. In the past week however, as I’ve had more and more conversations about his interruption of Taylor’s acceptance speech, I’ve actually come to see his actions as extremely edifying. Finally, people are admitting that I’ve been right about his cocksucking-ness for 2 years now. I wish I could buy stock in shit like this.

It doesn’t end there. Later in the week, a recording leaked of Barack Obama calling Kanye West a "jackass."

Not only that, but if you’re going to embarrass one musician, don’t do it to country’s innocent little sweetheart, Taylor Swift. I hope to God that there are rednecks sitting at home on TMZ listening to Obama’s quote like, “wow, and here I was thinking that me and him had nothing in common.” Dollars to donuts that guy writes to his congressman in favor of healthcare reform and saves his tactical rifle for Kanye’s next tour instead of Obama’s next speaking engagement. (Fingers crossed that guy also reads Shatterfaced).

So after that little debacle, Taylor had to give a really, really gay performance on what looked like a disco-lit model of NYC’s “F” train, singing her latest single as she passed through what looked like 300 feet ("F"trains are a shade over 60' long) of those irrepressively upbeat kids from the Reading Rainbow. Reminiscent of something MTV would have pulled around in the early 90’s, I guess it made the continued beating-to-death of the Madonna and Green Day horses a little more acceptable.

I don’t want to sound bitter or jaded; I will say  there's some serious talent out there now. Lady Gaga’s and Jay-Z’s performances were both entertaining and exciting, as are their albums. Beyonce, between her Amazonian hip-gyrating performance and gracious invitation to let Taylor Swift finish her speech, showed why she will be remembered as one of the great leading ladies of R&B.

And then there was Pink, performing some sort of metaphor-soaked tandem trapeze act while singing her hit of the year, “Sober,” in which she really had no actual chance of self-injury despite being so high above the ground. I’ll let freshmen English majors at BC dissect the symbolism of this performance; suffice it to say, I found it a little pandering. But good for Pink, I really don’t know how she’s lasted this long on the pop culture landscape without ever really being popular.

But I guess that’s what the VMA’s are all about- familiarity. Eminem and Britney Spears both took home Moonmen, same as when I was in middle school. So as our little site enters its likely-uncomfortable adolescence, it’s nice to know we will still have the awkward moments, trainwrecks, PR nightmares—and maybe even some glimpses of pure awesomeness—that pop culture has given us so consistently.  

We have ambitious plan for the upcoming year, including the worldwide release of a friend of the site’s mix-tape, the integration of video, and a cosmetic tune-up. School’s in session, and it’s good to be back.