MTV has officially shut down, which feels less like a shocking announcement and more like finally unplugging a patient who’s been on life support since the Bush administration. For those of us who grew up in the MTV generation (you know, when the network actually played music) this moment lands somewhere between sad, ironic, and long overdue. MTV didn’t die suddenly; it slowly strangled itself by replacing videos with reality TV nobody asked for, turning a once iconic music channel into a nonstop loop of teen pregnancy, bad decisions, and shows that somehow ran longer than Nirvana’s entire career.
MTV officially shut down its 24-hour music channels yesterday. They ended their final broadcast with 'Video killed the radio star' by The Buggles, the very first video broadcasted by MTV on August 1st, 1981. pic.twitter.com/Crt1UtTV8P
— 80s Kidz (@80s_Kidz) January 1, 2026
Ok, now this is either the most unintentionally hilarious or accidentally honest thing the network has done in DECADES. The song that once symbolized a cultural revolution now serves as the tombstone for a channel that stopped caring about music long before viewers stopped caring about MTV. For those of us who grew up watching actual videos, the irony is impossible to miss: MTV wasn’t killed by changing technology, it was undone by its own obsession with low-rent reality TV and a total abandonment of its original purpose.
It's moving to Substack. https://t.co/oOghdEiU9G
— Meghan Daum (@meghan_daum) January 2, 2026
This somehow manages to be both a joke and a believable business strategy in 2026.
Radio responded: “Still here, guys.” https://t.co/x3fjf0hoAf
— Daddy Warpig (@DaddyWarpig) January 2, 2026
This is what makes the whole thing even funnier LOL
MTV was rotten and stinking up the air years ago. It was buried yesterday. https://t.co/eR4LxTK7Ct
— tony🖤 (@tonytypesalot) January 2, 2026
MTV has been practically dead for a long time now, but in its heyday in the 90s it was one of the best parts of my life. https://t.co/ZOgNTc4cVn
— David (@ActiveTake) January 1, 2026
In the 1990s, MTV wasn’t just something you watched, it was something you planned your day around. This writer came home from school every dang day and turned it on immediately, because missing Total Request Live (TRL) felt like missing pop culture as it happened. Carson Daly turned music videos into must-see, can't-miss TV and made MTV the center of the cultural universe for an entire generation. Today’s kids, raised on infinite streaming and zero anticipation, will never quite grasp what that kind of shared moment felt like ... and neither did our parents at the time, who mostly just wandered past the TV shaking their heads, convinced we were rotting our brains instead of witnessing the peak of music entertainment.
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Then it gave us shows like Beavis and Butt-Head and Daria (this writer's personal favorite and a show that helped shaped her winning personality and sense of dry humor) gleefully broke every rule that adults insisted television was supposed to follow. And it was a bonus that those shows at the time were heavily influenced by the music of the day.
MTV wasn’t a channel. It was a place.
— Sassy Devil Dog 🔥 (@VinoNStrosGal) January 1, 2026
It was summer afternoons with the TV on low, waiting for your song to come on.
It was learning who you were by the videos you rewound.
It was the sound of the future crashing into your living room at 2 a.m.
We didn’t just watch MTV, we… https://t.co/ZRN22TCGza
The post continues: 'We didn’t just watch MTV, we grew up inside it. It taught us style before we had money, rebellion before we had language, and music before algorithms told us what to like. 'Video Killed the Radio Star' opened the door… and somewhere along the way, the suits locked it from the inside. RIP to the era when music videos mattered, VJs felt like friends, and culture happened live, not on demand. We were lucky to be there. And no one can take that from us. Generation X Forever.'
Honestly, at this point I’m just assuming Gen X has officially adopted the older millennials who were raised by MTV while our parents weren’t paying attention. This writer has been officially adopted by Gen X long ago. This was our life, and we've mourned the slow death of MTV and similar channels like VH1 for years now.
They died when they stopped the actual music.
— Red Riding Hood (@RiderofWolves) January 1, 2026
Like we touched on before, the irony is that MTV didn’t abandon music culture overnight, it helped invent and shape the landscape of reality TV. The network’s first real flirtation with this came with The Real World. Early on, it felt honest, even groundbreaking. Revolutionary. But somewhere along the way, MTV learned the wrong lesson. What started as a social experiment turned into spectacle, and before long, 'reality' stopped meaning 'real' and became 'cheap, loud, and endlessly repeatable.' MTV didn’t just create reality TV, it mainlined it, until it crowded out everything else the network once stood for.
I can't believe I out lived MTV.
— DeanLøgic ♎ (@DeanLogic) January 1, 2026
I mean, it died back in the 1990s, but now it is officially dead. https://t.co/zJFTmgV0Kr
MTV is survived by nostalgia, grainy YouTube clips, and a generation that still remembers when a music video could stop time. It was epic and something never seen before and then spent decades pretending it hadn’t abandoned the very thing that made it matter to us. What began as a cultural revolution ended as background noise, hollowed out by bad decisions and cheap programming that appealed to the lowest entertainment base.
In its prime, MTV didn’t just reflect culture, it created it, and that's something worth remembering. It introduced us to music before algorithms, rebellion before the age of 'branding', and a shared experience that can’t be replicated on demand. That version of MTV is gone, but it mattered, and it mattered deeply to those of us who grew up with it.
The channel may be off the air, but the era it defined doesn’t need a reboot. It already had its moment. And for those of us lucky enough to be there, that has to be enough.
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