MTV Hosts Most Bloggable VMAs of All Time

After years of uninspiring and lackluster awards shows, MTV has delivered the most bloggable VMAs ever.

The storyline that evoked the most texts last night and the most articles this morning involves music's cockiest star and also its sweetest. Yes, Madonna's tribute to Michael Jackson was pretty egotistical, but it seems that Kanye West has passed up the material mom in at least his vocalization that he is the shiz. The rapper, drinking Hennessy cognac on the red carpet before the show, was poised to make his most memorable outburst since declaring that George Bush doesn't care about black people.

The first category of the night was for Best Female Video. The list was stacked but one video seemed destined to take home every award it was nominated for - "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)". It was the only video on the list that was the least bit iconic. Twenty years from now, a new generation of girls will be liberated by the song and be parodying the dance. It was a phenomenon. So when Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" was announced the winner, the audience was understandably surprised, Swift included.

"I always wondered what it would be like to maybe win one of these some day, but never actually thought it would happen," the singer said before a buzzed West hopped onto the stage. "Yo Taylor. I'm really happy for you, I'm going to let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time." Cut to a shocked Beyonce. Best reaction at a VMA since Justin saw his ex swap spit with Madonna. Cue boos. Commercial break.

My phone would not stop buzzing. Everyone was pissed at Kanye. "Kanye is an idiot!" read one text. "Spoken like a true jackass," read another. The audience felt the same way. When the rapper's name was read for his nomination in the Best Hip-Hop video category, a wave of boos washed over Radio City Music Hall.

As the show neared its end, every video nominated for Video of the Year , except West's "Love Lockdown", had won a previous award. Spreading the awards out seemed like an attempt on MTV's part to please as many fansites as possible and heightened anticipation for the eventual winner.

The card was open, the winner was read, and Beyonce was vindicated. Kanye, who had since been kicked out of the show, ended up looking even more like a douche. As Mrs. Jay-Z took to the stage, she told the crowd how much her first moonman meant to her when she was a 17-year-old singer in Destiny's Child and invited Swift back on stage to finish her speech. Everyone cheered. The two singers in red dresses embraced. It was a storybook ending to one of the best Video Music Awards in recent memory. But was it staged? Some bloggers think so.

"Six-ish hours later, and I’m still unsure if the Kanye West/Taylor Swift brouhaha at tonight’s Video Music Awards was ... the result of a genuine outpouring of emotion on Kanye West’s part, or just a way for the VMAs to sneak up behind the rest of the cable lineup and command the television-watching nation’s attention," Maura of idolator.com wrote. "Beyonce [comes] out smelling like a rose after all this, ceding her acceptance speech for the night’s big award to the wronged teenager. It just all feels so… calculated".

In the end, everyone ends up winning. MTV blew up the Internet, Beyonce is a saint ("God bless Beyonce" one friend texted me), Taylor gets the collective "awwww"s of the world (and maybe enough buzz to push Fearless over Michael Jackson's Number Ones in sales), and Kanye got his name in lights once more and cemented in the everyone's minds whatever they thought about him already. Either he is the cockiest piece of trash on the planet or he's the most provocative and controversial pop star since Madonna.

If it wasn't staged, MTV just got a home run handed to them and if it was, we all just got punked.