I heard the KACC disc jockey talk about this, and I had to see it for myself: VH1 is holding an air guitar contest. You make a one-minute video of yourself jumping and flailing to one of four classic rock heavy metal songs, and viewers vote for their favorite. The winner gets to – I can’t believe I’m about to type this – compete in the U.S. Air Guitar Championship Finals, to be held in New York City.
I participated in an air guitar contest when I was in college. We did Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”, and lost to a team of frat boys and sorority girls who did Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus”. It was fun, but I can’t say I’m upset that no video of this event exists. The still photos from that entire era are embarrassing enough, thankyouverymuch. The idea that air contests still exist outside of the 1980s frankly boggles my mind. (I suppose 20 years from now I’ll be saying the same thing about competitive eating contests, except for the bit about having personal experience in such a matter.)
So, does my astonishment represent further evidence that I’m hopelessly out of touch with modern pop culture, or is everybody else shaking their heads in disbelief along with me? Help me out here.
I don’t put anything past VH1 these days. This is the network that gave you a C-list celebrity version of “The Real World” (“The Surreal Life”), a dating reality show featuring Flava Flav (Flavor of Love) and a prime-time version of the dozens (“Yo Mamma”).
The next thing you know, you’ll have the World Air Guitar Tour, sponsored by Gibson.
Air Guitar contests were big when I was in college as well, but I haven’t heard anything about them in the intervening…*cough* 19 years *cough*. I’m not surprised that they’re still around, though. Who doesn’t occasionally do a little air-drumming while sitting in traffic? 😉