@MTV #MTVTJ

No longer will Ashton be the only one Tweeting from the Red Carpet

It used to be that you had to be a rock star, an actor or an athlete to walk the red carpet of stardom.  But over the last 20 years MTV has been successful at telling the true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped.  We discovered “what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.”  The Real World was the start of a social evolution.  No longer were we only concerned with the lives of famous folks but we were just as engrossed in the lives of total strangers essentially nobodies.

Reality television invaded our sets.  The sitcom faded from primetime network line-ups in favor of celebreality TV on on VH1.  Then along came Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.  The two random but wealthy socialites famous more for what they did in the sheets than on any big screen made the sex tape an integral part of public relations strategies.  And about three years ago we discovered SouljaBoyTellem, the young teenager with an organic music video and a dance that took our television habits to YouTube.

The point is we’re no longer traditional.  The term “Couch Potato” no longer applies.  We value you entertainment way differently than we did even 10 years ago and consumer media through so many different channels.  Today,  MTV is looking to harness that “reality” yet again.  In effort to rangle their socially network savvy audience, the cable network has launched a hunt for their first Twitter jockeys.

Much like their terrestrial VJ or Video Jockeys (which is ironic since they don’t play videos anymore), TJs will report from MTV events and act like a TV personalities, updating followers via Twitter and Facebook once again following the same format as before.  Making any schmuck off the street with a cell phone a globally syndicated correspondent with 6 figure salary.

MTV has already narrowed down their count to 18 candidates, but is now asking fans to nominate two more. Viewers, followers, and fans will vote over the summer to eventually narrow down the candidates to five. The final contestants will battle it out during an Aug. 8 live broadcast where the fans will pick the winner.

I salute MTV in their quest because instead of sitting in the board room trying to understand why people care about no bodies, they got busy trying to hire them.