The past week, the hype surrounding Britney Spears’ appearance at the 2008 VMAs has been boring into my skull like a weevil. Is she performing? Yes! There’s a video of rehearsal on Perez Hilton! Wait, no! Her manager says she’s not! By the time the show actually rolled around, one thing was certain, Britney Spears was in fact ”opening” the VMAs.

And what did that entail? Well quite possibly the most literal definition of “opening” you can imagine. After a stilted video skit with Jonah Hill (almost a bigger star than her these days), Britney was hustled from the dressing room to the stage by people wearing headset mics. Oh this must be it! It’s her comeback, that body is tight! Prepare yourself!

"Thank you so much. Thank you for all the love. I'm here tonight to celebrate a very important birthday, the 25th anniversary of the VMAs. This is the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards and it starts right now."

Four sentences? I went out of my way to turn on MTV like a sixth grader for four ****ing sentences? Alright, that’s it. If there was ever a time for a Britney comeback, it was last night. The build-up this week sustained fans’ hopes of salvation from last year’s horrendous opening, but no, we get four sentences read off a goddamn teleprompter.

Britney actually went on to collect three moonmen throughout the course of the night (for “Piece of Me”? Have you ever heard of it?), accepting them in what should have been an SNL parody of a VMA thank-you speech (“First, I’d like to thank God...”). These were actually here only three VMA wins ever, despite being nominated about 40 times back when she was actually popular. Other big winners included Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, Tokio Hotel and oh God I can’t pretend like I’m in middle school anymore. If you really want to know who won everything, check out the comprehensive list here.

Oh right, and Russell Brand is Amy Winehouse in drag. That is all.