The Bests, Worsts, Mosts, and Leasts of the 2023 VMAs

From two old crones.

We have arrived at the award show that makes us feel the oldest: The MTV Video Music Awards, where we truly cannot tell the difference between musicians, influencers, TikTok celebrities, and All of the Aboves; and where the flashbacks and reunions -- *NSYNC, Shakira, tributes to hip-hop -- are far more in our wheelhouse than 80 percent of the nominees in any given category. It’s okay. We’re at peace with it. Turn on the Internet Crone bat signal, because we’re ready for action.

We realized pretty quickly that most if not all of the presenters at the VMAs this year were clearly reading off cue cards or a Teleprompter, which made us wonder how the Writers Guild of America feels about this, given that they’re on strike and most other awards shows have been canceled or received a waiver that involves not scripting anything. A cursory Googling hasn’t brought up anything indicating what arrangements were made here, though nobody seems to be complaining about it, either; interestingly, MTV to…