At the height of her fame in 1997, singer-songwriter Fiona Apple stood up in front of a live audience at the MTV Video Music Awards and made what should have been an obvious observation about the state of pop culture at that time, followed by words of wisdom.

This world is bullshit, she said in her acceptance speech for Best New Artist. And you shouldnt model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what were wearing and what were saying and everything. Go with yourself.

It was met with sprinkles of awkward yet somehow spirited applause from an audience that was likely only half paying attention to the words Apple was uttering. With Criminal, she had a massive song on the radio accompanied by an equally mesmerizing and highly sexualized music video that hurtled her right into the mainstream. And yet this image of her that we clung to so fanatically wasnt who she was or ever wanted to be .

But none of that mattered. The VMAs were an opportunity for young people, both at home and in the audience, to attend a pop culture event that was tailor-made for us to ogle and devour, then spit out minutes later when we moved on to another unfulfilling distraction. The 90s were rampant with these moments and particularly influential to a generation that lacked an identity and tried exhaustively to emulate pop culture. We unequivocally looked up to pretty much anyone on-screen, and MTV took that thirst to the next level.

A mere image or comment from a public figure could redirect our entire line of thinking. Thats what Apple was calling out. And its one of the few times we decided to tune out a celebrity, even though we should have been listening the hardest.