NEXT!

Confession: despite my better instincts, on occasion (think 3 or 4 am), I watch MTV's dating show "Next", which may or may not qualify me for automatic admission into level seven of hell. Alas, you are what you are, and I've seen at least 20 episodes of the show. Or 30. Man, I really hope it's not more than 30.

Like all MTV dating shows, it's substantially scripted - so I got to wondering who writes the copy for the show. I've already had experience writing large amounts of meaningless shit meant to blend in with the background (and no, I don't mean this blog). In my senior year of high school, I somehow got roped into being the copy editor for our yearbook, which was this 900-some page behemoth that I believe was the largest high school yearbook in the United States. All I really did was proof some stuff and write some vomit-inducing blurbs when text was needed. "Dedication. Discipline. Devotion. This year's Associated Student Body officers brought their passion and energy to great events like the Winter Formal and the Tricycle Karaoke Contest." Nothing too hard, never took more than 10 minutes to write, everyone seemed happy with the results. My one vivid memory is that I was asked to submit a writing sample, so, solely for the purposes of the sample, I invented a story where a bunch of people I wasn't really friends with got into some kind of water balloon and food fight - hilarity clearly ensues. The "teacher" liked the sample, so I became copy editor. To my horror, this 100% fake story somehow became the featured copy on page 5 of the yearbook, which I did not learn until the yearbook came out. No one ever said anything to me about it, which I suppose is proof positive that no one reads the copy in a yearbook in the first place.

The writing in "Next" is, much like the copy in my yearbook, both frequent and irrelevant. When daters first get introduced, they have to explain why they will win - there's a nice literalism to these encounters that I like. "I'm Lisa, I'm 22, and he'll pick me because I'm a southern sweetheart with some city cool" "I'm Tracy, I'm 23, and he's going to choose me because my breasts are so huge I have severe back problems! Whooo!" Then, I always like the rhyming the narrator has to do after the premise of the show is explained and the daters are presented. "Pablo is looking for a girl with the right stuff. These ladies hope Pablo's body is buff. But will one of them take the money, and leave Pablo in a huff? Find out, on NEXT!" Then a dater comes out of the bus, three "facts" come up, which are invariably the stupidest set of fake things you can think of. "Once ate a live cricket in Tanzania" "Is afraid of white tablecloths" "Collects underwear from old women". Now, armed with this incredible arsenal of knowledge all dreamed up by some copy writers and editors, the show can begin.

I think I might like to be a copy writer for "Next" - there literally seem to be no standards, you can just say anything since the kind of people who the show is intended for are probably listening to The Click Five and just have an eye on the TV to see if anyone will start making out. Seems like it could be a fun job to do with your friends. And it's not even THAT shameful - I think MTV has about 5 or 6 shows that are, almost unbelievably, considerably worse than "Next".