Nothingness. The Void. A wind whips back and forth. We can tell that it is a computer generated electronic wind because it repeats at regular intervals and sounds exactly the same each time.

Suddenly, we hear a voice.

{an ethereal falsetto, somewhere out in the distance}:

I want my mtv…

There are a couple of deep, dramatic drumbeats, followed by a cheesy synth trumpet. The voice is heard again:

I want my MTV…I want my m…t…Veeeee

The drumbeats pick up speed and jump between the speakers, there’s the sound of a guitar tuning up—a power chord is struck as the “wind” grows stronger and turns into a rushing vortex of anticipation …

…by now we’ve recognized the voice as Sting’s…the white-spark thrill of hearing him sing the catch phrase of our new addiction is only slightly lessened when the actual song begins, a boring cock rock guitar jam by some guys called Dire Straits. Whatever. We ride our bikes to Kmart and spring for the tape anyway. We play the beginning of that one song, over and over, until we’ve memorized exactly how long to let it rewind before slapping the Stop button and hitting Play. It becomes a reflex—a call and response that sends us into the same dream each time we hear it. Sting is no longer Sting, in fact, he’s no longer a man at all but a by-product, a glitch or blip in the machine turned ghostly harbinger, announcing with all the withering gravitas of one who has come to BELIEVE, the coming of The MTV Afterworld…

{the wheels turn, the tape sighs, we catch a crimson glimpse when we close our eyes, giving us the barest peek at which way the future lies…}

We see videos without songs

Rock stars without bands

Special effects without movies

Cars without gas

TVs without buttons

Characters in search of a plot…

Games in which the rules are revealed after you win

And millions of duplicated lives that will never end…