The news you might hear the most about last night’s VMAs is that Conor McGregor and Machine Gun Kelly got into a little bit of a spat. The nature of the incident is unknown, but the UFC champion appeared to have thrown his drink at the rapper-turned-rocker before the two were separated. It’s a funny bingo card celeb moment — and it’s also tragically a sign of the times for what used to be a cultural phenomenon.
In 2021, this is the best we get at the Video Music Awards. MTV’s flagship music awards show used to have everyone in a tizzy with each annual gathering and often felt like a flashpoint for the culture wars, but music is different now. Celebrity culture and fame are different. A world champion cage fighter, who is for some reason presenting Artist of the Year at a music show, tossing his whiskey at one of our least exciting (outside of dating Megan Fox) artists in what may or may not have been a manufactured moment to create buzz for that same artist’s performance closing the ceremony (why, for the love of all that is holy, did Machine Gun Kelly of all people close out the show?) — that’s about as tantalizing a moment as we can get from the VMAs.
