Ever since middle school, I dreamed of becoming a MTV VJ. I wanted to have two nails painted black like Carson Daly and talk to my favorite music artists in the middle of Times Square. Well, dreams do come true, and sometimes in better ways than you can dream. Here I am in Buenos Aires, Argentina as the brand new VJ for MTV Essentials!!
How does one become a MTV VJ? The short answer is you send in an incredible audition tape, know your sh*t when it comes to music (yes, they still care), and are able to talk to the black hole that is a camera as if it’s your friend. Sounds easy. If only it were.
My MTV dreams began as a painfully normal teenager in Michigan. Every day after school I would race home to catch TRL at 3:30pm and enjoy the 30 seconds of the music video I had voted for earlier in the day. It was awesome, and I am still nostalgic toward that time and that show.
I went to NYC for the BIG New Year’s celebration of 1999 to 2000. Hey, if Y2K was going to happen I might as well be in a sea of thousands of people partying. Sober. I was 14… and with my parents. Ok, it sounds better on paper. While there, I was a “guest” on MTV, cast perfectly as a fan professing their love of 98 Degrees (and their boxing shorts, if I recall correctly) for “The Hardest Thing” music video. The bragging rights of being on MTV back in Michigan were pretty awesome. Especially for someone as awkward as me.
Then, I went to NYU where I studied journalism. There I kept my “shameful” dream in the dark as I was surrounded by serious journalists who wanted to change the world, go into wars, and have bullets fly by their heads. I’m not joking. A girl literally said her dream was to have bullets whizzing by her brain on the front lines of a war. I knew I was in trouble.
Fast forward after graduation, and I got my dream audition for MTV! I had to write and memorize three openings and do an album review in under a minute. And guess what- they loved me! I nailed it! I was so excited. At 21 I was about to book my dream job! And yes, while the PA that worked the camera loved me, her boss, the casting director who discovered Damien Fahey, did not. Ah, the bitter taste of rejection. Kind of like raw cranberry juice.
I meandered my way onto the MTV airwaves a few more times. Providing fan commentary. Or as an audience member. Or as a lip-synching girl in the MTV2 Promo commercials. Anything to get into that 1515 Broadway address.
But after too many years of the NYC hard knock life and going nowhere as a host-but-really-full-time-cocktail-waitress, I decided to move to LA. 
Then, this funny thing happened in March 2012. Charly Friedrichs, aka Final Kid, came across my demo reel online… from Amsterdam. Two weeks later, I was flying out to ULTRA in Miami for my first music festival, first live stream and first ULTRA. I fell in love. I had always loved dance music after living in Florence and London. And I love traveling the world. It was/is the perfect job.
So, I had just come back from UMF Korea and put together an audition video for MTV. They wanted someone who was “cool”, knew her music, and would be able to come to Buenos Aires to shoot for a month. While it felt like any other submission tape, I guess all the elements came together: my year in the EDM scene gave me the music credibility I needed and my confidence was on a high from just coming off a hugely successful livestream.
And now, here I am, in Buenos Aires at MTV Argentina. Hard Work. Confidence. And above all, Persistence. Dreams comes true.
