A little more than two months ago, I made a point to avoid watching MTV’s Video Music Awards. I had my reasons; MTV becomes less relevant every year, devotes undue attention to flavor-of-the-month mediocrity, and doesn’t fucking play music anymore. Worse than all of that, they’re now providing an outlet for acts once relegated to the Radio Disney gulag, confirming that, yes, pop music is for 8-year-olds.

In the days that followed the VMA broadcast, though, details of the event began seeping into the real news. Apparently, the host (noted entertainer Some Dude) had made some untoward remarks about the Jonas Brothers. Other performers had rushed to their defense, offering rebuttals that I’m sure were terribly witty in context. Numerous bloggers and commentators were up in arms about the implications of this whole affair. And I was forced to ask a very important question.

Who the fuck are the Jonas Brothers?

It is in the spirit of that noble inquiry, and all others like it, that I present our newest feature, Codger Corner, in which we will help our fellow geezers figure out what those damn kids are always talking about. Because by god, the world needs this. Not everyone likes watching E!, and even when you do watch it, those TV assholes just assume you know who they’re talking about.

My generation – and probably other generations, as well – is dealing with a hard truth: we are getting too old for this crap. The pop-culture universe keeps moving, and we’re struggling to keep up. When some amazing new band puts out a good album, we’ll be able to find it, but do we really have to pretend to care about Hannah Montana while we wait for that to happen? Hell, I thought Hannah Montana was a cartoon character until I saw those pictures of her dad expressing his boundary issues.

Thanks to us, you’ll never again need to worry about such nonsense. If one of these glorified birthday clowns starts doing something newsworthy, we’ll tell you who they are and give you some really mean shit to say about them the next time the subject comes up. You won’t just be informed; you’ll be the funny guy at the office! I mean, it would be nice if you could credit us, but we’re more interested in helping you. We’re like TMZ, except actually funny, and not written for an audience of semiliterate manicurists.

Oh, and the Jonas Brothers? According to Wikipedia, they’re a Disney Channel act made up of three actual brothers. All three are clean-living Evangelical homeschoolers who wear those fucking purity rings to advertise their dedication to waiting until marriage to have sex. If you need us to help you make fun of that, you are decidedly not part of our intended audience.