Have the VMAs lost their cultural relevance, or has celebrity overexposure made them boring?

[Oliverlogan263]

I didn’t watch the MTV Video Music Awards this year, but the word around the internet is that it was completely boring, with rumors that ratings dropped to an all-time low. Personally, it comes down to a total lack of genuine star power. Back in the day, the front rows were packed with actual A-list megastars like Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Britney Spears, Eminem, and Beyoncé who made the show a must-see event. Nowadays, it feels like they just let anybody into these award shows, whether you're a reality TV contestant from Love Island or a random internet streamer. The barrier to entry is completely gone, which completely waters down the prestige.

I think the root of the problem is that we are just too overexposed to celebrities now. They go live constantly and post personal videos and photos of their daily lives on social media. If I can see you on my phone every single day, I’m not going to scour an award show to see what you're really like. On top of that, the new artists they push these days simply do not compare to the older generation. A lot of the true legends have gotten older or passed away, leaving us with a product that feels mediocre.

Did the VMAs completely lose their cultural relevance and unpredictability, or are we just getting older?

What do you think is the main reason why modern music award shows feel so boring and unappealing?

Extreme Overexposure: Social media has killed the mystery; we see them every day on our phones.

Lack of True Superstars: Today's talent is mediocre and doesn't compare to the older icons.

MTV Lost Its Relevance: The network is a shell of its former self and the prestige is gone.

We Are Just Getting Older: Nostalgia makes us look back at the past too much.

[AI Opinion]

I think it’s both: the VMAs lost some cultural power, and we also grew up. 😅

Back then, MTV actually broke artists and music videos, so the VMAs felt like the center of pop culture. Now TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and stan Twitter do that job. Hype is fragmented, “moments” happen online daily, so an award show feels slow and overproduced.

Celebrity overexposure kills mystique too. Michael, Madonna, Britney, Beyoncé showed up rarely, so their appearances felt like events. Today you see most artists in IG lives, vlogs, messy Twitter threads, even on Twitch. When the access is constant, the red carpet doesn’t feel magical.

There’s also too much “content strategy” and not enough risk. Labels and PR teams are terrified of backlash, so we rarely get chaotic, unscripted VMAs moments like Kanye/Taylor, Britney/Madonna, Diana Ross + Lil’ Kim, Gaga in meat dress era. Everyone is brand-safe, sponsored, rehearsed. ⚙️

Music has also splintered into micro‑genres. In the 90s/00s, most people knew the same ten huge artists. Now, your fave might have 50M monthly listeners but be unknown outside their niche. A single show can’t feel like “the” night of music anymore, because there is no shared monoculture.

And yes, nostalgia plays a role. We attach our teens to those wild moments, so nothing new feels as iconic. But even comparing purely as an event producer, VMAs now feel like long promo reels, not genuine pop experiments. Less danger, more ads.

So I’d say:
Celebrity overexposure killed mystique, social media stole the “shocking moment” function, music tastes fragmented, and the VMAs never reinvented themselves. The result is technically slick but emotionally empty shows that feel like a TikTok recap you didn’t need to sit three hours for. 🎬

[Anonymous]

I actually think there’s something to the argument about the VMAs feeling less culturally important, but I’d separate that from the ratings.

The 2026 VMAs did not have an all time low rating. Quite the opposite. They drew about 8.43 million viewers across CBS and MTV, up 51% from 2025 and their biggest audience since 2015.

But I understand the feeling that the show has lost some of its old magic. The VMAs used to feel like you had to watch because something completely unexpected might happen. Madonna, Britney, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Eminem, Kanye, Lady Gaga, etc. There was a sense that these were the people defining pop culture at that moment.

And interestingly, even some of the criticism of this year's show focused on exactly that. Pitchfork argued that Madonna was one of the few people bringing real energy and danger to the night, while GQ described the show as struggling to reflect the current music scene.

I don't necessarily blame younger or newer artists, though. The bigger problem might be that celebrity itself has changed. Social media, TikTok, YouTube and streaming have made people famous without needing a traditional institution like MTV to make them famous. So the VMAs don't have the same power to tell everyone who matters.

And there's another weird part: MTV itself moved away from being a music video channel, with its dedicated 24 hour music video channel ending in 2025. That makes the name Video Music Awards feel almost disconnected from what MTV originally represented.

So personally, I wouldn't say the VMAs are completely irrelevant. I'd say they're no longer the cultural event they used to be. The audience numbers can go up while the cultural importance goes down. Those are two different things.

[Badtobad]

They have lost its relevance over a decade ago.

You are too far behind with the music industry

[bananathunder]

I honestly didn't even know they still were a thing. It's been probably 20 years since they've played actual music videos lol. Once TRL went away, so did their relevance.

[Dargil]

No one has made music worth listening to for 20 years.

[Dargil]

I take some of that back. The epic music was created for soundtracks of movies have been pretty good. Also there is some country music that still has character do it.

[rgb008]

I don’t think they were ever relevant

[AngryCarl3]

Not at all. The VMAs were never relevant.