Young people everywhere are celebrating MTV's 25th birthday this year. Or at least I'm sure they would be had the channel not robbed them of their attention span, sense of history and interest in non-technology based activities. So, in their absence, why don't we take a moment to mark this milestone, and reflect on a true cultural phenomenon?

From its birth in 1981, MTV single-handedly popularised music videos, soon becoming a globally recognised brand. As glorified ads for albums, videos spurt the values of extreme capitalism, exploit base instincts and patronise you as a mindless consumer. Although videos are now seen as acceptable kids' viewing, the necessary performance talents of a pop star in a video are depressingly coincident with those of a lap dancer.

In recent years MTV has revamped itself to compete with the seductions of on-line interactivity. One new addition is 'lifestyle' programming - we are shown around celebrity homes (Cribs), watch inexplicably amusing stunts (Jackass) and are allowed to follow the fortunes of a fan getting plastic surgery to look like his idol (I Want a Famous Face). Award shows, ring tones, third-rate movies; MTV is a kingpin in the worldwide trade in utter trivia.

Nonetheless, some might say that Christians should be loyally viewing, engaging intelligently with pop culture instead of rejecting. But the danger is more than just the distractions of entertainment. MTV is at the centre of that most sinister regime in the Western world - the dictatorship of the image. Its reign has burdened us with everything from body-obsession to shallow political discourse to trivial spirituality. Images are overpoweringly believable. As a result, people have a tendency to become their images.

It's similar to the Old Testament's oft-repeated warnings against idolatry and creating images of God, in case people end up mistaking the image for the living God. We take in a fantastical image of reality, mistake it for the reality and then end up replicating the fantasy, no matter how absurd or unlikely it is.

Who knows how many media images - about how to act, how to look, how other people/places look etc. - we have internalised and now act upon? In music videos, the viewer is served up impossibly perfect women, sensitive men who don't (ok, rarely) exist, glamorous and empty lifestyles, and all sorts of delusions about sex. All obvious lies, but part of us can't help but believe, and seek, what we see.

However, the situation may not be irredeemable. While Jackass and Cribs etc. are case studies in pointlessness, music videos do have huge communicative potential. Radiohead and Coldplay have made videos which are beautiful works of art. Rage Against the Machine and others have used videos to publicise justice issues. At the Greenbelt Festival this year, rock author Steve Turner even talked about the possibility of 'Christian' videos, giving Johnny Cash's Hurt as an example. In acts of prophetic subversion, artists could, if they chose, use the video not to feed the lust of the moment but affirm the value and potential of life to a generation that watches TV with open ears and minds.

David Mitchell

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