VMAs host opens with safe space jokes, and bombs hard
The 2018 VMAs didn't have a host, and ten minutes into the 2019 VMAs, fans were wishing this year's show didn't either.
Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco -- already the host who launched a thousand SEO-optimized "Who is...?" posts -- opened the show with a series of jokes punching directly down at the crowd in front of him, and not in a particularly clever way.
From a punchline-free bit about people recording things on their phones (fresh!) to an extended rant about how there was a "safe space" backstage for anyone who was "triggered", Maniscalco didn't endear himself to the audience in the room or at home.
"If you feel triggered or offended they’re providing a safe space backstage where you’ll get some stress balls and a blankie," he joked, adding that Lil Nas X had brought his horse backstage as an "emotional support animal." (The fact that he missed a "horses in the back" opportunity there is nearly as bad.)
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Props to the producer who cut to Queen Latifah, whose "ooft" face is an instant classic reaction GIF.
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It's not that the kids are ageist -- 58-year-old Billy Ray Cyrus got a huge welcome introducing his buddy Lil Nas X's performance of "Panini."
But Maniscalco was already a strange choice for the gig, and his tired, tone-deaf decision to wheel out shitposter punchlines from 2014 got the audience offside before the first commercial break.
"Not caring is not cute," declared Jonathan Van Ness before presenting the Video For Good award -- a category that's existed in various forms since 2011 specifically because this generation genuinely gives a shit about social justice and about each other.
"We want to let the music do the talking a little bit more. We love having a host, if it's somebody that is pin-point and dead-on for what we're looking for," said EP Bruce Gillmer last year at the pre-show junket, explaining the hostless show.
If Maniscalco is what MTV thinks is "dead-on", the immediate backlash will be a nasty surprise for both.
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Caitlin is Mashable's Australian Editor. She has written for The Guardian, Junkee, and any number of plucky little music and culture publications that were run on the smell of an oily rag and have since been flushed off the Internet like a dead goldfish by their new owners. She also worked at Choice, Australia's consumer advocacy non-profit and magazine, and as such has surprisingly strong opinions about whitegoods. She enjoys big dumb action movies, big clever action movies, cult Canadian comedies set in small towns, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Replacements, smoky mezcal, revenge bedtime procrastination, and being left the hell alone when she's reading.
