Does Anyone Still Really Want Their MTV? (Miley Cyrus, VMAs Edition)

I've got a piece up at Time about the "blandification of pop culture." Here's how it begins:

It's safe to say that the only thing anyone will long remember about this year's MTV Video Music Awards is Miley Cyrus presenting herself rearwards like an animal in heat. But lost amidst the please-God-make-it-stop spectacle of the Disney Channel artist formerly known as Hannah Montana grinding away like a coked-up stripper is a far-less provocative realization: The awards show had all the edge of an old Andy Williams' Christmas special.

It's not just MTV and the VMAs, either, folks. Mainstream pop culture, once a font of fear and trembling among everyday Americans, is as safe and good-for-you as skim milk. Elvis' hips, the Sex Pistols' sneers, Amy Winehouse's in-your-face irony, and virtually all other symbols of Dionysian excess and unpremeditated antics have officially left the building.

The VMAs are a case in point. From the opening number by Lady Gaga, whose pleas for social tolerance and acceptance are as heartfelt as they are predictable, to the closing anthem by Katy Perry, the whole affair could have been mistaken for an Up with People rally. I'd argue that even includes Cyrus' supremely asexual "twerking" with the son of TV sitcom dad Alan Thicke. Does anyone seriously doubt that Cyrus' masturbatory gestures with an over-sized foam finger set back the average age of sexual initiation by a couple of decades?

Read the whole thing.

Comments

[sarcasmic]

I don't understand how anyone could find that creature to be attractive. Ugh.

[Goldwin Smith]

Too fat for you?

[jesse.in.mb]

That tongue should be popular with the lesbian set.

[Mint Berry Crunch]

I barely even know who Miley Cyrus is, but in that pic she looks like a far trashier Megan Fox.

[sarcasmic]

There's trashy, and then there's disgusting.

[bmp1701]

Amy Winehouse was disgusting. In her full druggie mode, she was unspeakable. Miley just looks like someone who has crabs.

[BakedPenguin]

Winehouse actually had talent, however trashy she was.

[bmp1701]

I know. Got her albums, plus some demos from the net.

[Ted S.]

There's trashy,

Epi.

and then there's disgusting.

Warty.

[Greg]

All I can tell from that picture is that the song that she was singing must have had the lyric "Beetlejuice" in it three times

[WTF]

I don't understand how anyone could find that creature to be attractive.

Yeah, to me she looks alot like a tranny at this point.

[Zeb]

Probably if she were a normal person wearing normal clothes she would be decent looking. But I agree that she is nothing special and the way she presents herself is very unappealing (as far as I can tell with my very limited exposure to such things). And what the fuck was she wearing at the MTV thing?

[Episiarch]

She's a good-looking girl when she isn't...being retarded with a horrific buzzcut and acting like an idiot and wearing some kind of chicken suit or whatever the hell she was wearing.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Don't deny her the privilege of expressing her genetic heritage thru song, dance, and clothing.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah. Except for that thing on her head. What do you call it? Face?

[Episiarch]

I stopped watching the VMAs in 1994 when the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" failed to win video of the year. That was a travesty.

Also, pop culture has always been bland. It's the outliers that make it interesting and become legends. Elvis is The King because he was fucking Elvis, man. Not because pop is interesting.

[Goldwin Smith]

What were the best selling songs of each year of the 1970s? How many of them are today's untouchable classics?

[Brett L]

Eh. Pink Floyd's The Wall was the #1 album when I was born in 1979. It stinks. Preachy Roger Waters drek.

[robc]

Billboard #1 song when I was born

[Sudden]

Eye of the Tiger for me.

[robc]

Both better and worse than mine.

[KDN]

I've got Maniac. Which describes me perfectly since I always dance like I've never danced before.

[R C Dean]

Roses are Red by Bobby Vinton for me.

Just missed The Stripper by a week or two. Dammit.

[Brett L]

Reunited by Peaches & Herb for the motherfucking loss. But seriously, the whole of 1979 is only redeemed by My Sharona. The rest of it is pretty forgettable Disco and Ballad crap.

[Zakalwe]

You don't like getting caught in the rain?

[Brett L]

Fuck cheaters.

[Ted S.]

That's Escape (The Pi?a Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes.

The #1 song on my date of birth is The Candy Man by Sammy Davis, Jr., so I'm pretty far down the list of bad #1s.

For my money, the worst (unfortunately I'm up against the links limit) would be the "Baby I Love Your Way/Free Bird" medley by Will to Power.

[WTF]

No, To Know Him is To Love Him by the Teddy Bears for the serious motherfucking loss.

[BakedPenguin]

The TeddyBears?

[Joe M]

That better be a link to "Tek It Down".

[Francisco d Anconia]

Eight Days a Week

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

'Everything I Do I Do It For You', presumably because of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood.

[Brett L]

Oh Jesus. There's a little trip to the "Golden Age of MTV" and that turd playing 4 times an hour.

[Fluffy]

I Heard It through the Grapevine (Marvin Gaye version)

An endlessly recycled, bland, played to death song that eventually decayed into a commercial jingle for fruit?

Great.

[hotsy totsy]

Superfly by Curtis Mayfield.

[KDN]

The Wall and the white album are the two classic albums I own most in need of a producer coming through and axing 1/3 of the songs. There's a lot of great music on each, but there's so much crap and stupid interludes sprinkled throughout that it's damn near impossible to listen to the whole thing. As someone that exclusively listens to albums, I find them incredibly frustrating.

[RBS]

Eh, Animals is the only Pink Floyd album anyone needs.

[robc]

Wish You Were Here proves you wrong.

[Marc F Cheney]

The Division Bell is a good album. YEAH I WENT THERE.

[BBB]

I never understood the venom directed at The Division Bell. I liked it then, and I like it now.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

This

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

This meaning robc is right

[Francisco d Anconia]

I've never been a big PF fan. Couple of good sons and the rest suck. Same with the Stones.

[Francisco d Anconia]

er songs...no idea about their sons

[jasno]

Disagree about the Stones... they've got a knack for making simple music sound amazing. Their timing is just perfect. I had to get old and burn-out to appreciate them - like Bob Seger.

PF is just boring nowadays. Once I realized they were a bunch of limp-wristed Brits with daddy and mommy issues I couldn't stand it anymore. It's the music you're supposed to like when you take drugs, but after doing that a few times you realize there's much better music for that and they're more of a cheap gimmick.

[JW]

You need to watch Pulse to see DSotM performed live, all the way through. Epic shit.

[robc]

The whole Rock Opera thing screws up The Wall.

That at least gives Pink Floyd an excuse. The Beatles dont have one.

[Brett L]

"So George says its his turn to write a couple..."

[Zeb]

Oh, I love the wall (and most Floyd). Works better as a movie than as an album, though. Might have something to do with repeatedly burning it into my brain with acid as a teenager.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Bridge Over Troubled Water

[Anomalous]

That'll Be The Day by Buddy Holly. Get off my lawn!

[robc]

Best selling albums of the 70s by year (yeah, yeah, not the same thing):

Bridge Over Troubled Water, Jesus Christ Superstar, Harvest, The World is a Ghetto, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John's Greatest Hits, Frampton Comes Alive, Rumours, Saturday Night Fever, 52nd Street.

Not as bad as I expected.

[Fluffy]

52nd Street?

So it appears I am not the only one who must live with the shame of having owned Billy Joel albums.

[RBS]

Sure, but do you own the boxed set?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Sure, but do you own the boxed set?

I..... do (lowers head in shame and runs from room sobbing)

In my defense, I bought The Best Of BJ before I was introduced to The Talking Heads

[Ted S.]

In my defense, I bought The Best Of BJ

There's no such thing as bad BJ.

[Marshall Gill]

I am just going to leave this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZItsbLzc73s

[robc]

You will be hearing about that again. And again.

I do own two Edie Brickell albums so I should be careful though.

[Episiarch]

J'ACCUSE

[Rhywun]

I do own two Edie Brickell albums so I should be careful though.

Oh god damn you for putting that song of hers into my head.

[robc]

Want to know the secret to fixing that?

Sing All Good People by Yes. Its line lengths are longer than brain buffer size so it pushes the other song out while not getting stuck itself.

And if it does get stuck? Still good, as no right thinking person has ever complained about getting All Good People stuck in their head.

[Rhywun]

I happen to really like early Yes, so that is a good solution. You are forgiven.

[General Butt Naked]

What were the best selling songs of each year of the 1970s? How many of them are today's untouchable classics?

I was doing some construction work on my house recently and listened to the "oldies" station whilst doing so. Every few hours they would play the top songs from that day in history for a different year. The top tracks would always be mindless drivel, usually slow, dumb love songs. Completely forgettable crap that I'd never heard of was the vast majority of what I heard.

[MattJ]

If you're listening to an oldies station, and something comes on that you've never heard before, you can pretty much bet that the reason you've never heard it is because it sucked.

[Brandon]

1969, the year that some of the most iconic songs in history, Proud Mary, Thank You, The Thrill Is Gone,Whole Lotta Love, Bad Moon Rising, and Lay Lady Lay came out, the most popular single of the year was...Sugar, Sugar, by the Archies. Popularity has nothing to do with quality, and never has.

[CE]

Yeah, but it's catchy.

[hotsy totsy]

Agree with Brandon.

[Finrod]

This has been a sore point for me for a long time. Consider if you will, the year 1977. The following artists arguably put out their best album that year: Styx (Grand Illusion), Meat Loaf (Bat Out Of Hell), Fleetwood Mac (Rumors), Kansas (Point of Know Return), Billy Joel (The Stranger), Jimmy Buffet (Changes In Attitudes, Changes In Latitudes), Ted Nugent (Cat Scratch Fever), The Alan Parsons Project (I Robot), Electric Light Orchestra (Out Of The Blue). Jackson Browne (Running On Empty). For movie soundtracks there was Star Wars, and Saturday Night Fever (which regrettably won album of the year). Also still charting from 1976 were Boston (Boston), which for a couple decades was the greatest-selling debut album of all time, and The Eagles (Hotel California), the title track from which is usually listed in the top 5 rock songs of all time.

What was the biggest song of 1977 (and as it turns out, the entire 1970s)?

Debbie Boone, You Light Up My Life.

[Juice]

I stopped watching the VMAs in 1994 when the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" failed to win video of the year.

Shoulda got Kanye West to stick up for them.

[Goldwin Smith]

Complaining about how good MTV used to be? How reactionary.

[Warty]

Time, Nick? Time? And I used to think you were cool.

Also, this.

[RBS]

That is... something...

[playa manhattan]

I'm hungry now.

[WTF]

Also, fried chicken.

[Goldwin Smith]

I don't know Nick but complaining about something sucks because it isn't as good as it was in your day is the old fogeyness the you complain about all the time?

[RBS]

Get of my lawn!!!

[bmp1701]

It's inverted whippersnapperism. The usual stuff is about how decadent and immoral the youth of today are.

[Voros McCracken]

Doug Stanhope on the dynamic

[Doctor Whom]

Pop culture is vitally important. My liberal Facebook friends post about it incessantly. No, that can't be to distract attention from the fact that not even they can find anything good anymore to say about The One; there must be some entirely different reason.

[Brett L]

Also, a zebra suit? I mean, I expect him to be an idiot because he's Alan Thicke's son, but still...

[Warty]

He is obviously not an idiot, because he managed to make millions off Emily Ratjakowski's naked boobs.

Thought experiment: if little Miley looked more like Emily, would anyone be complaining about her dancing? Answer: NO.

[Fluffy]

http://www.touchpuppet.com/wp-.....201304.jpg

I cannot imagine complaining about her dancing, no.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I'd buy that for a dollar!

[Brett L]

Okay, that is a fair point. Idiot is the wrong word. Bumbler of questionable fashion sense?

[Calidissident]

The dude fucks Paula Patton every night and gets to make music videos on the side with hot naked models, making millions while he's at it. Say what you want, he's not an idiot

[Juice]

Emily Ratjakowski

What's wrong with her lips? Surgery mistake?

[JW]

You're dead to me.

[Warty]

Are you gay or a woman?

[playa manhattan]

That ref should have called a foul.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I don't mean to be a smart alec or anything, not am I all that smartzzz but I've noticed a few people here at Reason have Facebook pages. Given the whole collecting privacy thing it's surprising.

Isn't Facebook one giant Eye in the Sky?

[playa manhattan]

Was this a facebook meme? I deserve credit.

Facebook only has the info you offer up willingly. It's my Visa statement, gmail acct, photo stream, and 1040 long that I would be more concerned about...

I'm facebook friends with a few people here. I think it goes unsaid that none of us would reveal personal information in this forum without explicit permission. (Except for Sloopy, who has probably posted his SSN, birth certificate, and drivers license photo here at some point...)

[Sudden]

For Tinder purposes only...

[Anomalous]

The Onion did a piece on Facebook as a government spy program.

[Fluffy]

The problem is that youth desperately wants to morally shock and horrify age, but the current crop representing age (which is Generation X now, and not even the boomers any more - teenagers today have parents in their 40's, and that makes them X Like Me) is impossible to morally shock.

I don't really care if you smoke pot and get fucked doggy style, Miley. In fact, I heartily support you in both of these endeavors.

Youth can no longer shock, it can only annoy. And that represents the death of youth as a cultural force, unfortunately.

You want to shock your parents? Become a Mennonite. That will shock and horrify many, many more Generation X parents than twerking will.

The people Sugarfree links to - the people who believe they're secretly reincarnated fictional characters and shit - they are really the only ones who horrify me. The cool kids, drinking and smoking and fucking? Nope. But that puts pop music in a bind, because pop music - all pop culture - wants and needs to be cool. Pop culture can't adapt itself and start using being a furry as the way to shock your parents, because that's too horribly lame for anyone to make it cool. So youth is stuck. Be lame, or be tame (tame enough for me to yawn).

[Goldwin Smith]

Being a racist homophobic, christfag, neonazi who takes no drugs or alchohol or engages in no sex outside of marriage (to a one woman) would be actually shocking to modern sensibilities. However that ain't cool so we have to keep doing that same thing.

[HazelMeade]

I actually think that's a major reason why some people become racist homophobic christfag neonazis.

[Brandon]

I'm absolutely sure that's why Goldwin Smith did it.

[Goldwin Smith]

Wow nice smear.

[Episiarch]

Good points, Fluffy. There really is nothing Miley Cyrus can do to shock me. And when she tries, she just becomes sad and pathetic.

But the youth can still "shock" a lot of people by going against the mainstream. The problem, however, is that the mainstream is a bland, vaguely TEAM BLUE set of "principles" like "tolerance" and the usual shit. But it's also been made pretty anathema to stray from those. And if you stay on the reservation, you get praised anyway. So there is almost zero incentive, even for young people, to stray and be "shocking". All they gain is being shunned by everyone they knew, because there is no welcoming core of anti-mainstream artists to any degree any more.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Well, they can up the ante and go on nihilistic 'joy killing' sprees in support of global warming legislation or something. It's for the children after all.

[hotsy totsy]

They can smoke filterless cigarettes and eat GMO foods, plus drink Stoli. Have sex with no condoms. That will shock everyone.

[JW]

I have to say I was shocked by the Miley train wreck. Not because of what she did, but that she actually thought it was a good idea.

She forever and ever branded herself as little more than a rather stupid and low-class skank after that little number. And that's all her performance did, was to be just a freak show of white trash shenanigans pretending to be something that it wasn't.

Of course, there's always the chance that it was designed purely for shock value as a massive prank, but I'm really not giving her the benefit of that doubt.

[jasno]

Was it *designed* that way or did someone slip some coke in her molly? It wouldn't surprise me if someone decided to clown her out for ratings.

[Goldwin Smith]

Not to mention doing the same things your parents did they were the same age as you is about as unshocking and uncool as you can get.

[Killazontherun]

So dull and boring no one is talking about it at all. Pathetic was her attempt at 'Feels Like Teen Spirit' at concerts last year. This though I actually liked. I don't like pop music in the least as far as my ears are concerned, but the antics of that act brought me back to the Beastie Boys License 2 Ill tour with its raucous humor and stage prop vulgarity. I recall punksters then bitching about that too, 'in an age of Reagan we don't have time for this delinquency. Bands don't mean anything anymore . . . blah blah' blah.

[Not an Economist]

The whole idea of her going on the VMAs was to promote her new single and new album that is coming out. Does anybody, based off the VMA, know what song she sang?

That is my whole problem with her performance (and a lot of performers nowadays). They are not talking about her music, but are instead are talking about what she is doing and what she is wearing (or not wearing as the case may be).

[Killazontherun]

If you want music, listen to the radio. MTV has always been about music with visual stimulus.

[robc]

Its why Budweiser crashed and burned and Bud Light is currently declining.

No one wants to drink their father's beer.

It even happens in Germany as certain styles wax and wane. Its getting hard to find a dunkel and berliner weisse is just beginning to come back from being absolutely dead.

[Brandon]

So people have no problem drinking their grandfather's beer? This explains a lot about hipsters.

[Brandon]

So people have no problem drinking their grandfather's beer? This explains a lot about hipsters.

[Juice]

Its getting hard to find a dunkel

Say what? Everywhere I went had 3-4 kinds of beer. They at least had a pilsner, a hefeweizen, and a dunkel. This was in Bavaria so maybe it's a north south thing?

[bmp1701]

I think full-blown Nazi uniforms might still be shocking. Plus, they have a sleek, leather look that could be sexy. I guess artists already play around with the look, but nobody has gone full SS at the VMAs just yet.

Beyond that, there ain't much. KKK uniforms are shocking, but you can't be sexy while dressed like a teepee. Maybe Antebellum South dress? Perhaps next time, Miley can dress in transparent petticoats while she leads Kanye West around on a leash and drinks mint juleps.

[HazelMeade]

Right, get into Nazi sexploitation. That might still have some currency.

Have you seen Iron Sky?

[Marc F Cheney]

I think full-blown Nazi uniforms might still be shocking.

The most likely reaction would not be shock, but rather "you're trying too hard".

[bmp1701]

The most likely reaction would not be shock, but rather "you're trying too hard".

Or that you're copping your style from Nikki Sixx.

But judging from the hysteria over the Harriet Tubman mock-porn, I think the Antebellum South idea has legs.

[Goldwin Smith]

Use lots of racial slurs and lynching imagery.

[hotsy totsy]

Madonna "Like a Prayer". And I actually like that song.

[Marc F Cheney]

You're onto something.

Feast on this thought: Paula Deen is more shocking than Miley Cyrus.

[Juice]

Trying too hard to be like British royalty.

[Coeus]

I think full-blown Nazi uniforms might still be shocking.

Like this?

[Goldwin Smith]

Oh how about that Rodeo Clown? What he did was quite shocking and he got banned to the cheers of the "shock the bourgeois" liberals.

[Goldwin Smith]

Or Mohammed Cartoons. Can't get anymore shocking than receiving deaths and causing riots!

[Goldwin Smith]

*receiving death threats*

[JW]

I have to say that the Marilyn Manson VMA act still makes me laugh. It's so comically overwrought for the maximum cultural shock, and to see the jaws dropped in the crowds was too much. Fucking awesome.

[Rhywun]

Youth can no longer shock, it can only annoy

I am Gen X, and "pop culture" seems frozen to me. I seem to remember styles, fashions, fads, and such changing much more frequently than they do now. For example, the youth of NYC look exactly the same to me in 2013 as when I moved here in 1997. I dare say the same could not be said when comparing, say, the youth of 1970 with 1986.

[General Butt Naked]

I think it may be that black culture (where young pop culture has generally taken its cues) has been stuck in the rap rut for 25 years now.

When I was younger rap was just starting to be a huge cultural force and the novelty of it, not to mention the pants pissing boomers, made the style immensely popular. Every kid wanted a gold chain and drooped their pants. Now only the whiggers dress like that, and nobody likes whiggers. Hell, the black kids in my neighborhood wouldn't of looked out of place in my high school. Same fashion, same music, same dumb walk. It's all very stale.

[B.P.]

I was thinking the same thing. How long has the pants-around-ass thing been around? 20 years?

[Juice]

I remember it from middle school in 1987.

[Juice]

I am Gen X, and "pop culture" seems frozen to me.

blame the internets

[NoVAHockey]

You want to shock your parents? Become a Mennonite. That will shock and horrify many, many more Generation X parents than twerking will.

I said the exact same thing over dinner last night to my wife. She said the whole think smacked of effort.

[R C Dean]

As the immortal IowaHawk pointed out, if Miley Cyrus really wanted to be transgressive and shocking, she'd be a rodeo clown and wear an Obama mask.

[Finrod]

Allan Sherman was way ahead of his time on that subject. Check out his song The Rebel, where the payoff is: "Being hip is getting middle class, let's you and I be square!"

[califernian]

Does anyone seriously doubt that Cyrus' masturbatory gestures with an over-sized foam finger set back the average age of sexual initiation by a couple of decades?

This sentence is make no sense.

[PapayaSF]

He means that it was very unsexy.

The article does seem forced and somewhat incoherent to me. Neither all the money involved nor "blandification" accounts for this ill-conceived performance. Who in their right mind, concerned with money, would have advised her to do this? And it wasn't "bland."

Even setting aside the tasteless and unarousing sexual antics, who OKed that stupid hairstyle? That ill-fitting costume in an unflattering color? The only explanation that makes sense is that she's an adolescent diva with no taste whatsoever. I suspect her advisors were afraid to say it was all a bad idea.

(Unless it was some strange meta statement or outright hoax: "I know, I'll critique stupid and tasteless pop divas by dressing stupidly and tastelessly and acting that way, too!")

[Juice]

How the fuck was it a bad idea? Here YOU are commenting about it on some lonely corner of the www. Mission accomplished.

[PapayaSF]

Alienating fans with bad taste gets you publicity, but all publicity is not good publicity.

[Killazontherun]

The act including Miley was only meant to be funny, not an incarnate of that idol aging punksters worship they refer to as edgy, and they pulled that off in spades. I'm glad I live in a world where mulatto trannies wearing augmented oversized butts can dance with furries on their backs and all the children of Joe Stummer can do is sit back and feign a yawn. Thank you MC for being one crazy ass cunt. I think I'm going to enjoy the next decade of your artistic redneck rampage.

[DesigNate]

I read that as autistic redneck rampage.

[Killazontherun]

That works too.

[Killazontherun]

Haven't you figured it out, Mr. Garrison?

Miley is retarded.

Don't call people names, Stanley.

[cue music]

Miley! Miley! Miley! and the Lords of the Underworld!

Miley!! No tears.

You guys are terrible, how can you laugh at that poor kid?

You don't get it. What makes Miley awesome is she is not hidden away ashamed of being mentally handicapped. She is out there expressing who she is and she is twerking in your face . . .

[DesigNate]

Nicely done.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Who cares. She is making herself uber rich giving her audience EXACTLY what they want...outrage.

Been done before. See Madonna. Yawn.

[HazelMeade]

Thing is it's close to impossible to be outrageous with just sexuality these days.

You have to combine it with drug use or some other kind of deviance. Maybe she could snort a line of coke off the stage, while wearing a crotchless cartoon animal outfit. That would be interesting.

[Rhywun]

Or she could smoke a cigarette.

[jesse.in.mb]

The early 1900s were really libertine and then things went to hell and everyone got conservative and now they're getting libertine again. Twerking is the new flapping and soon Hitler will be rolling through and destroying the Institut f?r Sexualwissenschaft.

The sun rises, and the sun sets, and hastens to his place where he arose.

[Marc F Cheney]

There's outrage about this?

[Francisco d Anconia]

Have you been to a MSM site?

Little Hannah Montana's a slut...save teh chilrenz.

Personally, if she wants to shock me, she could tell me she's a libertarian.

[Marc F Cheney]

No.

Oh, that's my problem.

[Snark Plissken (erstwhile PS)]

Or, as Iowahawk said, get an engineering degree.

[Invisible Finger]

Kicking Robin Thicke in the nuts would be giving me what I want. Maybe shooting some ping pong balls, too.

[JW]

Sorry, but the video for Blurred Lines will always make him a hero to me.

[HazelMeade]

So much pop culture is really vanilla these days. Watched any Rom Coms lately?

I saw 'A Good Old Fashioned Orgy' over the weekend, and needless to say, I felt sorry for the characters involved that they had never been to Burning Man, and obviously didn't have any decent connections for LSD or even marijuana.

[The Late P Brooks]

Miley Cyrus presenting herself rearwards like an animal in heat.

NTTAWWT

[Marc F Cheney]

Yes, there is plenty wrong with it. She's gross, and it's pathetic. She's an insult to rednecks. Also retards. (She's a 'tard, right?)

[timbo]

Obama is a tard. She's just a slut.

[The Late P Brooks]

Based on the horrified huffing and puffing on Morning Joke, I'd say her alley cat SHOCK AND AWE campaign was not totally unsuccessful.

[robc]

The Onion

[bmp1701]

"Lady Gaga beheading Will Smith with a broadsword"

NTTAWWT

[OldMexican]

That pic is just nasty.

[Palin's Buttplug]

The Beckerhead dealt with this subject via a letter from a Mom.

Yes, this is what happens when you constantly hear everything you do is awesome. This is what happens when people fawn over your every Tweet and Instagram photo. This is what happens when no responsible adult has ever said the word "no," made you change your clothes before leaving the house, or never spanked your butt for deliberate defiance.

If you ever even consider doing something like that, I promise you that I will run up and twerk so you will see how ridiculous twerking looks. I will duct tape your mouth shut so your tongue doesn't hangout like an overheated hound dog. I will smack any male whom you decide to smash against his pelvis ? after I first knock you on your butt for forgetting how a lady acts in public.

Why would I do that? Because I love you and I want you to respect yourself. Miley Cyrus is not edgy or cool or sexy. She's a desperate girl screaming for attention: Notice me. Tell me I'm pretty. See how hot I am. I know all the guys want me. All the girls want to be me.

You probably know girls who will emulate this behavior at the next school dance. Don't do it with them. You are far too valuable to sell yourself so cheaply. Walk away. Let the boys gawk and know in your heart that they see only a body that can be used for their pleasure and then forgotten.

That sums the outrage up.

[Fatty Bolger]

*YAWN*

[DesigNate]

I find it immensely entertaining that you accuse us of all being fans of Beck yet you're the asshole that posts something to do with him.

[Rhywun]

That's a mom talking to her daughter, presumably. Me - I don't give a shit about other people's kids, but if it was MY kid, you're damn right I would have the exact same response.

[OldMexican]

Does anyone seriously doubt that Cyrus' masturbatory gestures with an over-sized foam finger set back the average age of sexual initiation by a couple of decades?

The whole gastly thing is certainly a turn-off. It has the smae sex appeal as cartoon sex a la Custer's Revenge, and that ain't sayin' much.

[Marc F Cheney]

Wow. I never would have expected such an obscure reference from you, OM.

[Marc F Cheney]

presenting herself rearwards like an animal in heat

I believe it was Crow who said in "Space Mutiny",

"Ugh, she's presenting like a mandrill!"

[James Anderson Merritt]

Hey Gillespie, when you're on, you're on. Apropos to your point, the quote from your Time piece at the top of this article has more real sizzle in it than the entire VMA show. Nice wordslinging, pal.

[Killazontherun]

His premise is off. Lady Gaga's thought processes start with, 'what will make me the heiress apparent of the East Side's great shock artist where the Village Voice crowns me the female Mapplethorpe.'

Miley Cyrus on the other hand is thinking, 'hey, wouldn't it be funny . . .'

[Invisible Finger]

She's a comic genius she is.

[Harvard]

In need only of a scrubbing by bristle brush with Fels Naptha.

[Killazontherun]

If this were Howard Stern in assless chaps most older commenters (my age) would be shrugging but doing so approvingly. They consider a little scamp like Miley Cyrus beneath them, and they are ego invested in being shock proof. That is no more surprising than anything else under the sun. We're getting old, grand pas.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Pretty soon, mainstream pop culture artists will want to do porn.

[Tonio]

That ship has already sailed, Rufus, just not in the way anyone would have predicted. Watch the credits for OITNB. On the shows where they have sex scenes they have an actual p0rn-style legal notice ("custodian of records", yadda, yadda).

[Coeus]

I saw a video compilation of porn stars rapping once. There were a bunch. Everybody tries to get a flow on tape.

[timbo]

She was a ho, fo sho.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I prefer the Cyrus who restored the people of Israel, lol

biblicalreferenceftw.com

[Troy muy grande boner]

If no one is willing to step up to the plate, I will. I'd fuck Miley Cyrus. But, then again, I haven't been laid in a while and would probably even accept advances by Warty.

I saw Roger Waters 4 times and it was awesome. However, I'm completely uninterested in seeing The Wall live.

[Chewbama]

After the show she received 3 texts of Weiner's penis.