By Waldo L. Jaquith
April 11, 2002

This afternoon, VH1 sent out an urgent and alarming message to their Dave Matthews Band fans e-mail list. The message read:

Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 12:14 PM
Subject: Fight For Dave Matthew's "Crush"

Warning: Parental Advisory
A VH1 Original Movie
Premieres Sunday April 21 at 9/8c

Hey Dave Matthew Fan!

- Where do you stand on censorship? Pick a Side. Join the Fight. PLAY!
- Check out VH1.com's newest game, Rock'N Box. It's Down, it's Dirty, it's Rock n' Roll Boxing!!!
- Dave Matthew's "Crush" is featured as one of twelve songs chosen for possible censorship.
- Take a stand and prevent it from getting censored! CLICK HERE!

From,
VH1.com

Ignoring the repeated misspelling of "Dave Matthews" (to say nothing of the omission of "Band"), this is a somewhat alarming message. The thesis is that some unknown organization has selected Dave Matthews Band's "Crush," one of the hit singles from Before These Crowded Streets, to possibly be censored. It's not stated what organization, or what form of censorship (editing, removal from broadcast, zapped off the face of the Earth, etc.), but it's clear that immediate action is necessary on the part of the reader to ensure that their favorite band's music is not trod upon. Enough people were concerned by this that half a dozen nancies.org users forwarded the message to us within minutes.

All of the links in the e-mail lead to the same place: a page on VH1's site advertising their upcoming movie, Warning: Parental Advisory; A Comedy of Censors. What a coincidence -- "Crush," along with eleven other songs, is threatened at the same time that VH1 is preparing to release a movie on the subject. Oddly, there's no mention on the web page about Dave Matthews Band or the impending threat of censorship.

That is, unless the user plays the "Rock 'N Box" game on the site. The game lists a dozen songs, including Marilyn Manson's "Dope Show," Afroman's "Because I Got High," and Nine Inch Nail's "Closer" and -- yes -- Dave Matthews Band's "Crush," as candidates for censorship. The idea behind the game is that users create an account on VH1's site and play a boxing video game on behalf of their favorite artist. Users can play up to 20 times each day, each time being entered in a drawing to win a trip to Las Vegas. The winner is to be announced during the broadcast of Warning: Parental Advisory on April 21. The game tracks wins and losses, and ranks each artist on the basis of cumulative scoring, with a loss counting towards "censor" and a win counting towards "rocker." (Presumably "rocker" is the opposite of "censor.")

This appears to be an amusing game, but it still doesn't clear up the original e-mail: who wants to censor "Crush," and why? How do we "[t]ake a stand and prevent it from getting censored?"

A little reflection makes the situation all-too clear.

It appears that none of these songs are in any danger of censorship. There are only two organizations that could censor a video anyhow: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Viacom, VH1's parent company. And in the case of the FCC, they don't censor specific recordings, merely fine broadcasters that transmit materials that are deemed obscene. That leaves just one organization, and that's Viacom. Yes, it seems that VH1 themselves are threatening to censor these twelve songs. Which begs the question: on what basis?

Those of you who have seen the "Crush" video may be scratching your heads at this point. There's nothing obscene or offensive in the bar-filmed video, and the lyrics certainly contain little that could be considered inappropriate in the context of popular music, or even by most reasonable standards. So why would VH1 select this song in particular? Why, in fact, would they select anything from DMB's lyrically-tame catalog?

Looking over the other artists selected, a theme emerges: Madonna, Afroman, Aerosmith, Dave Matthews Band, Missy Elliott, Marilyn Manson, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Kid Rock, Eminem, Chili Peppers and Nine Inch Nails. Interestingly, nearly all of these bands are known for having a strong on-line fan base, replete with mailing lists, websites and fan clubs. The sort of fans that tend to vote obsessively during the annual VH1 Music Awards and write impassioned defenses of their favorite band on bulletin boards. It's almost as if they selected the songs to be censored on the basis of their fans' rabidity. Just a few weeks prior to their movie on the topic.

It seems that taking a stand against censorship consists solely of playing a video game. In reality, there is no actual threat of anything being censored by anybody. The e-mails sent out to presumably thousands of Dave Matthews Band fans (nancies.org has been unable to find evidence that they were sent to fans of any of the other bands) were intentionally deceptive, providing an appearance of being an ACLU-styled censorship alert.

Reading over the site's discussion board, it's plain that visitors to the site have been uniformly fooled. Writes "dmbfannumber41": "Honsetly... the censorship board (or whatever they are) needs to get out of their 1950's bomb shelter and join the rest of the world who are living life to it's fullest....because life is short but sweet for certain..." It's hard to blame the impassioned writers: VH1 intended to deceive, solely for the purpose of promoting their new TV show.

The most insulting part of all of this is that VH1 believes that Dave Matthews Band fans are so collectively stupid that we'd fall for this. That nancies.org is run by such fools that we would put up a story alerting everybody to the impending censorship, and DMB fans would flock to the site to box their way to freedom, and that we would all tune into Warning: Parental Advisory.

We've got our own letter here at nancies.org for all you Dave Matthews Band fans.

Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 10:30 PM
Subject: Fight For DMB Fans' Respect

Warning: Parental Advisory
A VH1 Original Movie
Premieres Sunday April 21 at 9/8c

Hey Dave Matthews Band Fan!

- Where do you stand on misleading promotions? Pick a Side. Join the Fight.
- Check out nancies.org's newest game, Flamin' VH1. It's Down, It's Dirty, and They Want To Hear From You at help@vh1mail.com!
- Dave Matthews Band's "Crush" is featured as one of twelve songs chosen because VH1 thinks that DMB fans are sheep.
- Take a stand and boycott the show! Discourage others from watching this show!

Love,
nancies.org

Don't swallow VH1's marketing, don't let them insult your intelligence, and don't gratify them by watching Warning: Parental Advisory.

nancies.org | April 11, 2002