But the network also does well by its younger viewers. Just as animated “Daria” provided a heroine for the young and disaffected back around the turn of this century, teenage documentary series like “Made,” “True Life” and “I Used to Be Fat” — even “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom,” for all their Jerry Springer potential — respect their subjects. (Viacom’s nastier reality shows mostly roost at VH1, MTV’s older-skewing sister station.) Measured and unhurried, they’re a model of what reality programming should be, prompting you to think twice about people you might easily dismiss, the rich and privileged as much as the poor and floundering.
Even the easily maligned “Jersey Shore,” which began as sort of a parody of the network’s “The Real World,” featuring people who would never be cast on “The Real World” in a place “The Real World” would never send them, has something of this quality. To be sure, there’s something slightly off in the way the show packages blind drunkenness and impaired judgment as entertainment. Yet it doesn’t quite demean its cast; they do grapple continually with the meaning and consequence of their actions. (They don’t necessarily learn, but they grapple.) And they love life.
To a great extent, the network that created the branded network has de-branded itself; there was a time when you could be sure in an instant that you were watching MTV. Now it is harder to tell. At the height of its cultural domination, it provided an integrated experience — from the videos, to the often brilliant promotional spots, to the dance parties and news bulletins. It was not just a network, but a place –- a place you could actually go to, if you got yourself onto “Club MTV” or down to Times Square when “Total Request Live” was in session or down to Florida for spring break.
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