What Teens Will Be Watching This Tuesday

I guess one bisexual just wasn’t enough.

Let me back way up. During MTV’s 2007 Video Music Awards, a commercial ran for a brand new show called A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. In this reality show, ex Playboy and Penthouse model Tila, a self proclaimed bisexual, invites 16 gorgeous lesbians and 16 studly straight guys over to help her decide whether she is gay or straight. The commercial for this show alone could have put Viagra out of business. The following day, in my annual recap of that “VMA Awards Show”, I mentioned the commercial and predicted that Tila’s show would be a big hit. After all, the commercial showed lesbians making out, girls in bikini’s brawling with each other… all the stuff our great nation loves.

Tila’s show not only became a hit, but her MySpace page became one of the most popular MySpace pages, with more than 1.7 million MySpace “friends.” Young girls began emailing the ex Playboy and Penthouse model for advice on love, sex, and relationships (receiving quality answers, I’m sure). Season 2 of Tila’s show returned with more of the same (read David’s in depth January, 2008 Youth Culture Window article about that season here).

MTV keeps sinking to new lows each season, knowing that sex sells. Forget the fact that “teens who were exposed to high levels of television sexual content were twice as likely to experience a pregnancy in the subsequent 3 years compared with those with lower levels of exposure.” (Journal of Pediatrics, November, 2008)

The question is… what does Season 3 of this “A Shot at Love…” show have in store for our kids?

It guess Tila didn’t make the cut.

Enter the “Ikki Twins” stage left. That’s right… lesbian twins.

The show launches on MTV tomorrow night (Tuesday, December 9th). The sad fact is, the show is probably gonna be a huge hit with this younger generation.

You’ve got much better things to do than watch this show, so David has provided us with another great Youth Culture Window article about what are kids will be seeing on this MTV reality series. David also includes some questions we can use, talking to teenagers who watch the show (because, yes, many of our kids will be watching it). David says it like this:

We hope you won’t be put in that position, but just in case you hear teenagers you love talking about the show, here are a few questions to help you engage them in conversation on the very important topic of love.

I’ll be a little more blunt. We’re fooling ourselves if we think that kids in our ministry area won’t watch this show.

For a little more about what to expect… here’s the preview from MTV.com. Be warned… the preview alone is more than I would want my kids to see.

(click here to see the video if you receive this blog via email)

And a quick note to the guy who is gonna email me and say, “Why are you providing the link to this preview? That will cause some of us to stumble.” Let me just answer that guy right now. First, sadly, this preview is approved for television. I’m not linking you to something R-rated. Secondly, this is straight off MTV.com  Our kids know where to find it, and the guy struggling with porn knows where it is anyway and, sadly again, knows where the more graphic stuff is (and if you struggle with porn, hopefully you have set up some safeguards and accountability that keep you from going to those sites). I show this preview to you as parents and youth workers for one simple reason: Some of us really don’t realize how bad TV has become. This preview gives you just a glimpse.