Rarely does a day pass that one doesn’t look at our messy president and the reactionary rhetoric pervading pop culture and declare that we are living in the dumbest of times. One might reconsider that statement, however, after revisiting some of the entertainment MTV was pushing the early ‘00s, because no matter how many episodes of Next you watched on your parents’ couch in middle school you’re still not prepared for just how rotten it really was.
We looked back on some of the contestant’s weird bios a few years back, but a more in-depth look at the world’s most corrupt dating show now comes to us from YouTuber Steve, who suffered through some episodes for our enjoyment.
“I’m Adam, I’m 24, and I won’t even notice if this girl has a good personality ‘cause I’m gonna be staring at her boobs!” declares one cartoonish contestant, clearly at the urging of some tip-frosted producer obsessed with American Pie 2. R.L., another contestant, says he’s going to tell his potential date that his initials stand for “real long.” Now, it’s been hard for cultural historians to define the turn-of-the-century American male, but, watching Next, it appears we lived in a land of Stiflers. Seann William Scott, your contributions have not gone unacknowledged.
“This show is out of control,” Steve says. “It poisoned an entire generation of people.”
He’s not wrong. In these clips alone, MTV’s cameras giddily zoom in on a guy who menacingly pulls his dick out in a crowd of women and highlights a blatantly racist joke also clearly fed to these dolts by a producer.
Anyways, don’t be surprised if it gets renewed, what with MTV being in the process of rebooting pretty much every one of its old properties.