The Cult of Noncelebrity Takes MTV Beyond Its Music

In the beginning on MTV, there were music videos.

Lots of them. Twenty-five hours a day of them, it seemed, featuring the biggest names in pop music. Or at least enough that you could catch a video pretty much whenever you flipped to the channel.

But turn on MTV today and you’ll likely find a karaoke show with goofy, ordinary people prancing around and caterwauling to the Backstreet Boys. You’ll see a show where crazed fans are co-stars when they meet celebrities such as George Clooney, Mariah Carey or Snoop Dogg. Or you can tune into the documentary-style miniseries “Real World” in Hawaii and catch the latest melodramatics of Ruthie--a bisexual, alcoholic, quick-tempered, strip-club-loving nudist.

All interesting fare, I must admit. But the MTV that started 18 years ago as a music video network seems to have evolved into a place where videos--the staple that propelled it to huge popularity among the 12-to-34 age bracket--that is its target demographic--are now also-rans.

Its shows today reflect less emphasis on music, or even on the visual interpretation of music through quick-cut, fast-paced, slickly produced videos. Rather, MTV squares the glare of its lens directly on the ever-expanding cult of personality with shows that celebrate the notion that anyone--and everyone--can be a star.

Through MTV’s lens, not only are the singers and movie stars celebrities, so are the subpar karaoke singers, the screaming fans, the formerly everyday people chosen to bare their lives on “Real World.” People such as Ruthie, who was on my television screen every week this summer and is now in “Real World” repeats, her profile boosted even higher by her own spread in People magazine.

That’s what it’s come to. In the hype-focused culture reflected on MTV, the Everyman has assumed tremendous importance. Everyone is fascinating. The noncelebrity is a celebrity.

Take “Total Request Live,” MTV’s daily 90-minute show to count down the Top 10 music videos. The show’s cherubic host, Carson Daly, his audience and the thousands of screaming fans lining the streets outside are as important as the videos themselves.

MTV’s trademark quick-take format jumps from Carson to the teenage members of his screaming in-studio audience, then back to Carson, who sends the camera to a second host in Times Square, who interviews a bouncy fan on the street, who screams into the camera that she’s “THE BIGGEST BACKSTREET BOYS FAN IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!” Then it’s back to Carson, who picks someone from the studio audience to jump up and say why she’s “THE BIGGEST BACKSTREET FAN IN THE WORLD!”

Repeat the above about five times; that’s “Total Request Live” for you. Oh, and the Boys’ latest sappy video is screened somewhere amid the screams.

Then there’s “Global Groove,” a post-midnight program several days a week. Videos? Forget it. For half an hour, skimpily clad men and women in four cities around the world are shown gyrating and wildly thrusting body parts into the camera lens while a disc jockey spins the latest hip-hop dance tracks.

We don’t know who these people are, but they’re given air time. And we watch.

It’s impossible to discuss the phenomenon of the uncelebrated being catapulted into instant fame without bringing up “Real World.” The seven people annually brought together to live in luxurious, Jacuzzi-equipped mansions in exotic locales such as Hawaii or London are not only strangers to one another, but to viewers as well.

But that hardly matters. After a few weeks of “Real World” episodes, you’re rushing to get home every Tuesday night to see whether Amaya is still pawing at Colin, trying to get him to sleep with her. You’re appalled that Teck brought that raunchy stripper home one night. And you’re having lengthy discussions with friends about whether Ruthie really sought counseling for alcoholism and should be let back in the house.

Who are these people? Who cares! They are our MTV celebrities du jour.

Brian Graden, MTV’s executive vice president of programming, says the network’s shows reflect the desires of its target demographic. Audience surveys show the 12- to 34-year-old crowd wants cool. And its concept of cool encompasses real people and cutting-edge, full-blown attitude that you wouldn’t find on say, the staid, sober and hopelessly unhip broadcast networks.

MTV’s research shows that its average teenage viewer has grown up with MTV, all their lives, can’t remember a world without the Internet and are incredibly media-savvy.

“They’re a very empowered demographic,” Graden said. “Because they’ve been sold so much media and so much hype since they were extremely young, they’re anti-hype,” Graden said. “It’s important for MTV to be perceived as not very commercial. We try to serve it up straight.”

To this generation of viewers, simply watching the videos is not enough. They want to know all about the performers’ lives and personalities. They want to inject themselves into the picture, too, because hey, who’s cooler and more interesting than them?

Which explains the many MTV shows that, on the surface, anyway, take viewers behind the hype.

In “Fanatic,” a half-hour gush fest, fans are introduced to their favorite stars with the notion that they’ll find out what the stars are really like. And, of course, we get to hear a suddenly spotlighted fan blab about how “Carmen Electra inspired me to write a play and when I become rich and famous will you marry me, Carmen?”

And in “Making the Video”--a popular show that debuted in June--you get a glimpse of the stressful outfit dilemmas and backstage battles that go into the smooth, three-minute production that flashes on your screen.

For example, Jennifer Lopez is all smiles and pouty moves in her new “Waiting for Tonight” video. But “Making the Video” shows you the death-defying dance stunts she undertook, bravely donning stiletto heels and a micro-mini to perform elaborate footwork on a narrow, 6-foot-high Plexiglas platform while cameras caught her from every possible provocative angle.

Some new shows take this approach one step further. “Spankin’ New Music Week,” which just debuted, follows artists through the process of recording music. And on Monday, the network will premiere “Web Riot,” a daily, interactive music trivia game show in which viewers can log onto MTV’s Web site to participate.

“Web Riot” may prove to be the supreme case of everyday people--that is, unseen viewers, the ultimate noncelebrities--achieving their few seconds of fame. Just tune in, log on, claw your way onto the list of the Top 10 online players, then sit back and watch your name flash on your TV screen.

And, here’s a novel addition--there’ll be music videos on the show.