I actually missed the season finale of Game of Thrones to watch Katy Perry play host at the 2017 VMAs  while further embarrassing herself in what has already been a pretty humiliating year for this past-her-prime star. But, hey, I’ve got priorities and Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar + Lorde are high up on that slim list, well above cleaning my car, properly shaving my legs or applying to graduate school.

I want to get to the good parts, like how alive Kendrick Lamar feels, that man is spitting fire + talent like Daenerys’ dragons breathe fury.  But, you know that’s not what I really care about because T. Swizzle is back with a pouting vengeance and I’m too pudgy and suburban momesque to really get the coolness of Kendrick Lamar. I want to, I really do, but I’m just not young enough to be worthy of it all.

 

And good ol’ MTV understands people like me because the channel wasted no time in getting to the “real” performance of the evening: a premiere of T. Swizzle’s ridiculously-catchy, good-girl-gone-bad tool of reinvention: “Look What You Made Me Do.”

 

Oh, Taytay, look what you just made me do: fall in love you all over again.

Who cares that I might miss Jon Snow and dragon lady get familial on GOT? In this candy cane of cinematic perfection, Taylor goes dead like a White Walker while metaphorically digging her own grave, only to later throw all the Hollywood trash into it.  This stuff, I get.

See, I want to be one of those people, the people that are too smart for Taylor’s obvious marketing ploys and scheming plans to devour the world without gaining a pound. I want to be horrified by her schilling $60 snake rings on her website, but really, I want to buy that damned ring and wear it without irony. I want that ring to go with my sarcasm and smirk, just like I bet it matches Taylor’s cynicism and exhaustion with her good girl image.

How can someone that didn’t even show up to the prom end up being the queen?

Well, that’s Taylor, baby. Love it or hate it.

Ugh, and while we are hating, I hate myself for admitting that Lorde was the train wreck that you just couldn’t watch, not for one second longer than was absolutely necessary. As grueling as it is to stomach some of GOT’s torture scenes, this was worse.

Lorde’s performance pained me more than Jared Leto’s continued denial of his own hotness. I want to believe that Lorde had the flu and couldn’t sing, but she should be on the phone firing her manager quicker than Katy Perry, and that is pretty freaking quickly.

Oh Jared Leto, how could you do this to me? You were my Jordan Catalano, man. I am as confused over Jared’s constant need to desecrate his God-given beauty as I am by the fact that 30 Seconds to Mars is still making music! C’mon, MTV, was every member of Fall Out Boy, Blink 182 and Good Charlotte too busy to play?