When I left home for college in the summer of 1999, I had no clue but the timing was perfect.
I didn’t know it then, but I was slipping out the side door of something that was already ending. I was leaving a house with basic cable at almost the exact moment MTV stopped being MTV.
That fall, everything happened for me all at once. I started making music all the time and driving hours to see any band I wanted to see until my bank account was dry.
I fell asleep in the very top row of Stephens Auditorium in Ames during a Phish show, lulled into a weed-smoke haze that slowly rose to the ceiling like a weather pattern I was not expecting. I was out on my own, discovering music, discovering myself, discovering that freedom smells like strawberry soda, tropical skittles, and under cooked pasta.
And somewhere in all of that, MTV quietly changed formats.
Reality shows took over. Music videos slowly vanished. And I never really even noticed—because once I left home, I never had MTV again. I missed the transition.. No My Super Sweet 16. No Ridiculousness. No Jackass. I missed all of it, not because I rejected it, but because the door had already closed behind me. It’s like dying young and good looking.. I was out when it started to get really bad.
Only now, with MTV officially signing off the air this past week for good, do I realize how much that channel shaped me.
Growing up in small-town Iowa in the ’80s and ’90s, MTV was a portal. It showed me a world I would not have otherwise known existed.
It taught me empathy before I knew the word for it.
I saw people from neighborhoods I’d never been to, speaking languages I didn’t hear at school, living lives nothing like my own. I saw artists with AIDS. I saw queerness. I saw anger, joy, grief, swagger, vulnerability. MTV quietly taught a kid from Iowa that the world was big and that difference wasn’t something to fear.
It taught me that representation matters.
Seeing yourself reflected in culture tells you that you belong. Seeing others reflected teaches you that they do too.
It taught me patience.
If you wanted to see your favorite video, you had to wait. You sat through songs you didn’t love yet.. and sometimes, those became the ones that changed you. There was no skipping. No algorithm. Just surrender.
It taught me that visuals matter.
A great video could take a decent song and turn it into something unforgettable. Music didn’t just sound good, it looked like something. It had texture. Story. Mood. Mixing art forms made everything stronger, richer, louder in ways that had nothing to do with volume.
It taught me taste comes from range.
MTV didn’t box you in. You got soul, rap, rock, folk, hip-hop, country, dance, alternative.. all back to back. No walls. No guilt. Just curiosity. I loved something in all of it, and I still do.
MTV didn’t just shape what I listened to.
It shaped how I try to move through the world: with openness, curiosity, empathy and a belief that life is always better with music in it.
Of course, it also got me into trouble more than once.. Here is my favorite example.
There’s a Snoop Dogg video.. What’s My Name.. where he turns into a Doberman and sneaks out a bedroom window while a dad bangs on the door yelling at his daughter, “Is that dog in there?” At one point the girl says, “I love you,” and Snoop replies, “You don’t love me.. you just love my Doggy Style.”
When that song came out, I was 12 years old.
I had no idea what Doggy Style meant. Maybe I still don’t.. For sure..
So later that year, during a minor disagreement that my mom and dad were having, I confidently announced,
“Oh Mom, you just don’t like Dad’s Doggy Style.”
Silence… then, “What did you say?”
Then chaos.
I won’t say what happened next, but let’s just say MTV momentarily solved a disagreement by two people.. by creating an urgent hands-on parenting opportunity.
There were other big life moments too. Like the night I had a vivid, religious dream about Jesus talking to me. I woke up scared, turned on the TV in my bedroom and Losing My Religion by R.E.M. was playing. I wasn’t struck by the absolute brilliance and beauty of the song or the video. I was convinced I had just received a direct message from God. Devine stuff!
MTV taught me a lot. Some lessons took longer to understand than others.
Now we live in a world where everything is available instantly. Any song. Any video. Any genre. Any era. And that’s amazing.
But we’ve lost something too.
We’ve lost the accidental discovery.
The shared cultural moment.
The thing you didn’t choose but somehow needed.
I do love watching, sharing, and listening to whatever I want, whenever I want.
But sometimes..
I don’t want everything at my fingertips.
I JUST WANT MY MTV!
P.S. My three favorite music videos of all time are:
Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinéad O'Connor
November Rain - Guns N' Roses
Gold Soundz - Pavement