The 2000s might not have been the best time for fashion, but they had their shining moments of glory: Barack Obama’s presidential bid, Nicole Richie’s Memorial Day BBQ, and MTV’s iconic music video countdown Total Request Live. The afternoon show aired its last episode in 2008, and nearly a decade later, it’s finally coming back to screens. MTV is already overhauling a massive Times Square studio in which to make the magic re-happen, company president Chris McCarthy revealed in an interview with the New York Times. The new TRL is set to return in October 2017.
Throughout its 10-year run, TRL was responsible for such memorable moments as Destiny’s Child bidding farewell to fans and Mariah Carey giving an impromptu striptease to host Carson Daly. (Carey checked into rehab shortly after that particular episode aired.) The show also featured appearances from Prince, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Eminem, Britney Spears, and P. Diddy, who ran on a treadmill for the entirety of his hour-long hosting gig.
This is hardly MTV’s first attempt at recreating the 2000s for the Snapchat era. Earlier this year it was announced that My Super Sweet 16 would be making a comeback with the help of social media app Music.ly. Cribs, which featured a somehow even more memorable appearance from Mariah Carey, was recently revived for Snapchat. In September 2016, TRL itself was briefly brought back from the dead as Total Registration Live, a one-night-only episode that aired on Voter Registration Day.
MTV isn’t just relying on nostalgia to make itself great again. McCarthy is also developing a series called We Are They, about the coming of age moments of gender-nonconforming young people. And at the VMA’s own gender-free debut on August 27, winners will take home an updated version of MTV’s iconic Moonman. Telling the Times, “It could be a man, it could be a woman, it could be transgender, it could be nonconformist,” McCarthy revealed that the statue will now be known as a Moon Person. Because honoring the early 2000s shouldn’t mean reverting to retro gender norms.
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Text Hannah Ongley
Image via YouTube