Empty-Vee

English

Alternative forms

eMpTyV, Empty Vee, empty-vee, Empty-V, Emptyv, EmptyV, eMpTy V

Etymology

A pun on MTV (originally "Music Television"; American cable television channel) and empty; from a belief that the channel's programming is vacuous.

Pronunciation

enPR: /ˌɛmpˌtiːˈviː/, /ˌɛmˌtiːˈviː/
Rhymes: -iː

Proper noun

Empty-Vee (dated, slang, chiefly US, humorous, derogatory)

A nickname for MTV (American cable television channel). [from 1980s]
- 1985 August, James Wolcott, “Mixed Media”, in Tina Brown, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 48, number 8, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 15:
  Like “We Are the World,” it too would end up as a video on Empty-Vee (MTV).
- 1994, David B. Feinberg, Queer and Loathing, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 18:
  Meanwhile, the youth of America sit glazed in front of empty-vee watching Monkees reruns.
- 1996, Jack Banks, Monopoly Television: MTV's Quest To Control The Music, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, →ISBN, page 206:
  These clips often break the clichés and formulas of typical videos on “Empty-Vee” as some call [MTV], by using the form of music video in unexpected, provocative ways
- 1999, Tom Minarchick, quotee, “Record Reviews”, in Jersey Beat, number 65 (zine), Weehawken, NJ: Jim Testa, →OCLC, unnumbered page, column 2:
  Not the kind of rock that you hear on the radio or see on eMpTyV
- 2006, anonymous author, “Rue the Day III (Carpe Diem)”, in Painfully Awkward, Volume Publishing, →ISBN, page 166:
  “ […] Am I on that stupid Empty Vee show, the one where the brain dead former male model plays tricks on his rich and vapid celebrity friends?”
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Empty-Vee.