For a while, I promoted the idea that conservatives need to watch award shows because it was a highly watched part of the culture that we needed to take part in.
Now, I can officially say that this is not the case. Years ago, I used to be able to find at least something substantial to see in the glitterati’s night of self-back patting, but it’s become so masturbatory for the gilded coastals on the left that I’m not sure what the point of watching it is.
Last night, I watched a good twenty to thirty minutes of the American Music Awards before I finally tuned out and put on The Crown, which, by the way, is putting on an excellent third season.
I felt I almost had to tune out. I was getting zero enjoyment out of it due to a constant stream of negative feelings, either of pity for some performers, revulsion from others, and mostly the feeling that I was watching something so fake that I actually felt I was being irresponsible by giving it my attention.
Apparently, I wasn’t alone. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a lot of America didn’t show up to watch what essentially boiled down to being the Taylor Swift show, starring Taylor Swift doing Taylor Swift things:
The American Music Awards delivered steady ratings Sunday — but all that means is that the ABC broadcast is in line with last year’s all-time low.
The AMAs drew 6.73 million viewers for ABC, a slight 2 percent increase over last year’s show (which aired on a Tuesday night in October). The awards averaged a 1.7 rating among adults 18-49, off a tenth of a point from a year ago. If that figure holds, it will be a new low for the awards.
The ratings disaster is a result of many things, the least of which was what was going on that night.
The AMAs began with a live performance from Selina Gomez. It was performed horribly as Gomez sang off-key and then proceeded to get worse as Gomez attempted to perform a lively dance routine with all the pep of a goth kid on a cheerleading squad. It reminded me of Britney Spears’ comeback performance where she moved with all the speed and coordination of a sloth as her backup dancers made sharp, quick movements. I couldn’t help but think Gomez was drunk. I later learned she had a panic attack before going on stage and she was still suffering from that during her performance.
To be clear, I like Selina Gomez. I felt more sorry for her than anything else.
It didn’t get much better. The politics of the night reigned with an iron fist as feminist messages were put front and center. Live performances ranged from being awkward to okay, with maybe the exception of Camilla Cabella and Mendes’ performing their hit “Senorita.”
And all the while, everything — and I mean everything — that happened on stage required a cut to Taylor Swift reacting to it from the front row. Apparently, they figured this was how they’d get the ratings. Keep Swift front and center at all times, and she annoyingly was.
I went back and watched clips of the performances later, but I officially tuned out when Kesha took the stage to perform her song “Welcome to Our Sunday Service” which had a theme of mocking the worship of God. I’m not into that, and so I switched out to something a little less try-hard.
I think it’s clear at this point that America has had enough of this. Politics aside, the majority of mainstream music today sounds like M&Ms taste. It comes in different shades, but it’s all just one flavor. When you compare today’s music to the past, today’s tunes just feel hollow, overprocessed, and tiresome. Even the hooks feel cut with water.
And in a world where we have bands like Lord Huron, The Midnight, Ruston Kelly, Gregory Alan Isakov and more, the AMAs seem like a pop-culture joke, and we’re the punchline. The mainstream music industry takes itself too seriously while not taking music seriously enough.
Meanwhile, other shows were seeing boosts according to The Hollywood Reporter:
NBC’s Sunday Night Football drew just under 17 million viewers in the fast national ratings, a 22 percent improvement on last week’s soft outing. In fact, the game is already ahead of last week’s final figure of 16.85 million viewers, even before the inevitable upward adjustments for the live broadcast.
The sharp rise in NFL viewers is interesting given the fact that it lost a chunk of its audience to politics a couple of years ago. Now that the NFL has more or less done away with it, people are returning.
Fans didn’t show up or tune in to take part in politics, they showed up to watch a game, and a game is now what we’re getting. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am with that. It’s hard enough watching the Cowboys lose a game they should have won due to bad coaching without getting the latest social justice fad shoved in my face as well.
The NFL learned. The glitterati did not, and it’s a hard lesson they’ll continue to learn until they change it up. It’s an across-the-board kind of lesson too. The 2019 Emmy’s also brought in a dismal 6.9 million views, which was a whopping 32 percent fall from 2018, and 2018’s ratings were a 39 percent fall from 2017.
The coastals are bleeding viewers, and it’s not hard to understand why. Their viewers are regular Americans whom they believe are their lessers. They preach at us, throw messages at us, and all the while live in an ideological bubble that puts them further and further out of touch with the rest of us. What we end up getting is ludicrous displays like the kind we saw at the AMAs on Sunday.
