Thousands of angry adolescents heaved a collective sigh of relief after going almost a month without their favorite spot on the airways.

Now all those teenagers can again spend six to eight hours a day in front of the mindless fodder that is MTV programming instead of doing other, less productive activities such as outdoor sports or hobbies, chatting with members of their families, or even doing something as ghastly as reading a high school textbook.

Maybe when TCI executives first pulled MTV, they realized that the majority of MTV’s viewers were not the paying parental customers, but rather the ambition-less high schoolers, completely desensitized by its constant refuse and absurd content. Perhaps they finally came around to their senses, realizing that the popular “Gen X” station was completely devoid of any real cultural or entertainment value.

Just to cite a few examples of this quality programming: “Singled Out” (otherwise known as The Jenny McCarthy Dating Game), where contestants go to extreme measures to get a date when they would probably be better off trying to get one in that rare form of communication known as casual conversation; “Road Rules” and “The Real World,” which are constantly passed off as being authentic, when more realistic viewing can be found on the cartoon network; and the quasi-intellectual game show, “Idiot Savant,” which elevates contestants who know everything about nothing to the status of those seen on “Jeopardy.”

The best example, however, is MTV’s own success story, “Beavis and Butthead.” What makes this pyromaniacal pair so appealing is that the whole MTV viewing audience can relate so well to them. Mike Judge created these two as a parody reflecting the effects of teens raised on MTV. In essence, when a regular viewer is watching Beavis and Butthead, he is looking at a frightening mirror image.

With all this trifling content of the past few years, MTV has virtually desensitized America’s youth and is now setting the standards of our culture. Most would agree that lately the standards have been set pretty low. In the many hours that all these shows are aired, it’s rare to come across any videos at all. Maybe I’m being a bit naive, but shouldn’t a music channel play music?

In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a full music video on MTV since 1993, and I’m sad to say that it was “November Rain” by Guns-n-Roses. If I’m lucky, I can turn it on and get the last few seconds of a 311 song, but then it becomes “Singled Out.” Seemingly, there are only ten recurring videos played daily, usually including Alanis Morisette or Smashing Pumpkins — programming which probably makes choosing winners for the MTV Music Awards a whole lot easier.

Apparently, MTV has abandoned what it originally set out to do, which was to provide cinematic renditions of popular music songs, almost like a Top 40 radio station. It has introduced a second station, M2, where it has room to play music videos while still plugging the mundane shows on the original channel. The title alone of the second station reinforces what MTV’s new, primary concern really is.

Their programming is aimed at subjective, young minds, but it’s not very likely that they are the ones MTV programmers are concerned with. Especially since it seems like there are 45 minutes of advertising per hour, it is apparent that MTV is more concerned with what it fills into producers’ pockets, rather than what it spills into a teenager’s head.

We are also constantly told that MTV plays new, “on the edge” music of our generation, when really the station has single-handedly killed what was the “alternative” form of music by making it the mainstream norm. Alternative has now just become another generic term, like rock-n-roll, that has been accessibly defined to label every new band. The fact is that it is impossible to have an alternative form of music when it is broadcast over a medium available in every household.

Young high school viewers of the music channel should be at a creative stage of their lives that is consistently filled with growing knowledge and information, yet MTV has virtually stagnated their mental growth while molding their beliefs and values to those MTV tells them to have. This icon of our generation constantly redefines our culture with music they believe we should be listening to, the clothes they believe we should be wearing, and the attitudes they believe we should be holding as our own. We will be looking back in 20 years and not call ourselves “Generation X,” but rather the “MTV Generation.” That is a label most of us would be happier without.

There is, however, a bit of hope that may have already occurred in this short time, during which parts of the nation have been deprived of MTV.

Maybe all those sad adolescents have learned that there are better issues in their lives with which to concern themselves than who’s having sex with whom. The Real World. Maybe they actually flipped to CNN to watch the hard news stories from around the world, rather than taking in the tabloids of MTV Music News. Maybe they turned to Animal Planet to enlighten themselves with the subsistence habits of African Tigers rather than watch Beavis shove a lit firecracker up a cat’s rectum.

But, of course, it’s hard to get an MTV teenager to watch an hour of intriguing political debate on Crossfire, when MTV News has a breaking story on Marilyn Manson’s new breast implant.

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Brendan Greiner is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines.