The best and worst moments from the 2022 MTV VMAs

The 2022 VMAs featured Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, and... Johnny Depp

By Sam Barsanti | August 29, 2022 | 12:40am

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The best and worst moments from the 2022 MTV VMAs

Lil Nas X Photo: Kambouris/Getty Images for MTV/Paramount Global

A lot of awards shows hang their reputation on the fact that they’re important, even when it’s not really true, but the MTV Video Music Awards are always about convincing you that they’re important. The awards themselves don’t really matter, but not because a VMA Moon Person statue is some meaningless paperweight (like a Grammy). It’s because the show itself has long since abandoned any pretense of being an “awards show.” It’s just a regular show where some awards are given out, and so it’s the “show” part that actually matters—or at least that’s what matters to MTV.

It’s all about the Big Moments that everybody will be talking about on social media (at least in theory), which is a side-effect of the stan culture fan armies that dominate the music world these days (or at least the MTV version of the music world). It doesn’t matter who wins whatever award, it just matters if the artist or group that you like gets the praise they deserve, hopefully via a big show-stopping performance, but seeing them get a Moon Person is… also fine.

So, in honor of what the VMAs are really about, we’ve compiled a slideshow of the best and worst moments of the 2022 VMAs. (We’ll update with more slides throughout the night as more things happen, good or bad.)

Good: Lizzo’s use of the big triangle screen

The show opened with a big musical medley featuring big stars, and as much as the crowd inexplicably enjoyed Jack Harlow doing a bit where he was a rapping flight attendant, Lizzo showed everybody how it’s done with a ridiculous multimedia extravaganza that involved her standing on a giant triangle screen in front of another giant triangle screen, with graphics flying down around her that were carefully coordinated to her dance moves. She basically just had to stand in the right spot and kick at the right time while singing, but she did it well and it looked cool.

Bad: Giving out awards early

Look, we just spent all of that time saying that the awards don’t matter, but we like it when people at least pretend they matter. Not to keep razzing the Grammys, because it’s a cliché to make fun of the Grammys, but: the Grammys! They don’t matter, but at least people act like they do. The VMAs relegated only a handful of awards to the pre-show, like Italian Eurovision winners Måneskin getting Best Alternative, but if an award is worth giving out, isn’t it worth giving out during the show? We came here to see Måneskin, let us see Måneskin! Later in the show, Song Of The Year was given out as part of a montage. Song Of The Year! That’s one of the big ones!

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Good/bad, depending on who you ask: Taylor Swift dancing

It’s a music-related awards show and Taylor Swift is nominated (her won Best Long Form Music Video and the crowd went nuts when she thanked Sadie Sink), which means Taylor Swift is sitting front and center in the audience and is dancing and singing along with every single performance. Every. Single. One. You could say it’s obnoxious, because she does it every time she’s at a music-related awards show and she can’t possibly be having as much fun as she’s making it seem like she is, but on the other hand… traditions are nice. After years of global chaos, it’s comforting to know that Taylor Swift still dances and sings along to every single performance at the VMAs. Or maybe it’s annoying. We could go either way.

Worst: Johnny Depp as the Moon Person

Christ, who signed off on this? , a real Moon Person (or just a generic, non-MTV-branded astronaut) was seen floating over the VMAs crowd, and before commercial breaks it would zoom in on his helmet to reveal Johnny Depp’s face making some stupid quip. Why? What was the point of this? Why are we as a society still giving Johnny Depp attention? Why the VMAs of all things? He’s not a musician, at least not any more than Billy Bob Thornton is, and he’s barely even an actor at this point. We’re here to see Måneskin, not Johnny Depp! (Måneskin did perform later.)

Good, then a little bad: Nicki Minaj trimming the “Monster” verse in her medley

Nicki Minaj received the Video Vanguard Award, a VMA prize that is not and has never been officially associated with any one specific pop king (awkward cough), and as is tradition, she performed a career-spanning medley before accepting her golden Moon Person trophy. She opened the set with her star-making “Monster” verse, much to the delight of the singing-along crowd (no shot of Taylor Swift during this, damn it), but due to both the motherfucker-less lyrics and a huge chunk of the verse that she skipped over, she actually lost the crowd for a bit before she transitioned to the next song. It was fine, but it was a weird little hiccup. Also: Minaj had a whole thing about how she actually wrote a speech for the first time but then forgot to bring her phone onstage, so she actually ran out to grab it so she could read what she wanted to say. It was fun, so that part was good. Life isn’t black and white, slideshow. Some things are good and bad.

Bad Ape Yacht Club: Snoop Dogg and Eminem’s stupid NFT thing

Are NFTs done yet? Hopefully not, because Snoop Dogg and Eminem wasted a lot of real money on cartoon monkeys for a largely CG-animated performance that heavily featured their dumb NFT characters. We’re cool with Blackpink winning a Best Metaverse Performance award for a song they did on PUBG Mobile, because PUBG is cool (or it was a few years ago), but Snoop and Eminem showing off the cartoons they “own” is hopefully the last time this kind of thing happens at an awards show. Or just at all.

Good, tentatively: Cheech and Chong teaching young people about the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Kids have to learn about the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the fantastical world known as “California” (where everyone is rich but nobody has water) at some point. So it makes perfect sense that an awards show that has been completely dedicated to what’s cool and current would give up a good 10 minutes or so to Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong talking about how great the Chili Peppers are, followed by a performance and the presentation of the Global Icon Award. Is that different from the Video Vanguard Award? Yeah, probably. Either way, Chong made a joke about how, to him, the Chili Peppers are still the band that wore socks on their dicks, which is a thing they first did more than 30 years ago. It was bleeped, though, so how many young people had to ask their parents what the Chili Peppers did with their socks? If the answer is at least one, we’re keeping this as “good.” If it’s not, we’ll come back in and update the slideshow accordingly.

Good (for corporate synergy): Yellowstone trailer

YELLOWSTONE Season 5 Teaser Trailer (2022)

A few months ago, , host Vanessa Hudgens teased an appearance from something related to the Paramount Network’s Yellowstone by asking the crowd—a crowd of MTV-type people—how much they love Yellowstone. The crowd responded with a moment of complete silence… before realizing that they were supposed to react and began cheering. Tonight, in a moment of beautiful corporate synergy (MTV and the Paramount Network share a parent company), Paramount showed off a teaser for Yellowstone’s upcoming fifth season. Did MTV viewers care? Statistically, they probably did. People love Yellowstone. Taylor Swift dances in the aisles when the Yellowstone theme comes on.

Good, really: Bad Bunny winning Artist Of The Year while performing at Yankee Stadium

Some of the biggest winners of the VMAs weren’t in attendance, usually because they were at some bigger event, and they appeared in pre-taped acceptance speeches where they thanked their fans or whatever. You know, boring stuff. But when Nicki Minaj explained that Bad Bunny couldn’t be there to accept Artist Of The Year because he was performing at Yankee Stadium, they actually cut to him doing “Tití Me Preguntó” onstage and then accepting the award live (or at least more live than, say, Harry Styles accepting an award earlier in the night), at which point he gave an acceptance speech to his fans in his audience that was almost entirely in Spanish. It was a rare point in the “winning a VMA actually matters” column, if only to him and if only in that one moment.

Good, bro: Billy Eichner promoting his movie Bros

Though he was ostensibly there to introduce Panic! At The Disco (Brendon Urie performed the mega-retro “Don’t Let The Lights Go Out”), Billy Eichner did what Billy Eichner does and used his time onstage to scream out a promo for his upcoming rom-com —the first gay rom-com made by a major studio, featuring a cast of entirely LGBTQ people. Eichner insisted that seeing his movie and making it a hit would be an attack on homophobes like “Clarence Thomas” and “the Supreme Court” in general. It’s tough to argue with Billy Eichner when he’s screaming about something!

Good for her: Taylor Swift announces a new album

Taylor Swift won Video Of The Year for “All Too Well,” and during her acceptance speech she declared that—if she won, and supposedly only if she won—she would announce that she has a new album coming out on October 21. She then said that she would announce more… “at midnight,” which kind of implies that she was going to announce it tonight anyway but only did it early because she won another Moon Person, but whatever. Taylor Swift can do whatever she wants, including making an announcement that almost—almost—distracted us from the fact that they showed the Johnny Depp thing again during the credits. Oooh, you almost went out on a good moment, VMAs! But, unfortunately, we now have to downgrade that from Good for her to Whoops, you fucked up. Now you have to apologize to Taylor Swift, VMAs! We’re also going to have to go back and say that Taylor Swift singing along in the crowd is bad as well. Those are the rules, unfortunately. Maybe next year, Taylor.

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