Here at AUX, we’re all about taking one for the team. Last night, we did you a favour: we endured the American Music Awards, so you didn’t have to. You’re welcome.

Every year at the AMAs, the shiniest and fanciest commercially-minded pop stars bring out their big guns. Here are 5 takeaways from last night’s awards show.

One Direction fans want to murder Carly Rae Jepsen

When Carly took home the award for Best New Artist, she welcomed a world of pre-pubescent Direction-er pain into Jepsenland. Avert your eyes everyone; you’re about to be violated by half a dozen “Kill Me Maybe” YouTube parodies.

Taylor Swift has shed her country cocoon, and hatched into a full-fledged pop butterfly

Taylor Swift doing choreography to a dubstep bridge marks the death of innocence. Puppies don’t look as cute anymore, and candy doesn’t taste as sweet.

It’s worth nothing that when it comes to blonde women singing at the VMAs (there was no shortage), the power-rankings shake down like this:

1. Ke$ha (but really)
2. Gwen Stefani
3. Taylor Swift
4. Kelly Clarkson
5. Carrie Underwood
7. P!nk
6. Christina Aguilera

Nicki Minaj is not at all qualified to judge a singing competition

When you need to bring in a gospel singer as a ringer to inject some melodic chops into your tuneless performance, can you really sit on the judging panel for a singing competition? That might be unfair — Nicki is at least as good a singer as Randy Jackson.

MC Hammer is Psy’s spirit animal

If Psy was doing the “Gangnam Style” dance, and he accidentally crashed into MC Hammer doing the Hammer Dance, it would have created a reverse pop-culture supernova, swallowing everyone in the building. Count yourself lucky that didn’t happen, because if it did, we’d probably snap back to that awful era where Creed was the most popular band in the world.

Justin Bieber gives very eloquent speeches

After dragging his tiny, beautiful mother on stage, Justin Bieber treated us to a masterful display of his oratory skills. Watch his acceptance speech for Artist Of The Year above, and check out the transcript below:

“This is my Mom. This is my mom. She’s little, but she’s beautiful. And thank you so much. First of all, I wanna say, uh…[sighs]…You told me to [stutters] Uh, uh. I can’t even, I can’t even think, I mean I’m just so blown away right now, I just… [To his mom] I wanna thank you for, just, always believing in me. I wanna thank this, uh…just, everyone. This is amazing. This is amazing. I, uh…Scoot. I am at a loss for words, I just wanna say that, um, you know, i-it’s hard, it’s hard growing up, you know, with everything going on, you know, with everyone watching me. And uh, I just wanted, I wanted to say that as long as…as long as you guys keep believing in me, I will never…I-I-I…I will never [long pause] I will always make you proud, I will always make you proud, so thank you guys so much, I love you.”

So just to recap, here are the main points we were able to glean from that:

– Justin Bieber’s mom is little and beautiful.
– Justin Bieber wants to thank (just) everyone.
– Growing up with everyone watching him was hard. (You know it’s hard out there for a Bieb)
– As long as we believe, he will always make us proud. So I guess Justin Bieber is stealing Santa’s business model.

Oh, we’d be remiss if we left out the fact that Jenny McCarthy tried to eat Justin Bieber whole:

Here’s a complete list of the night’s winners. Don’t cry, there are only 364 days until the next AMAs!

Best Pop Rock/Male Artist: Justin Bieber
Favorite Country Artist Female: Taylor Swift
Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album: Nicki Minaj
Favorite Rock/Alternative Artist: Linkin Park
Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist: Usher
Favorite Country Male: Luke Bryan
Old Navy New Artist Of The Year: Carly Rae Jepsen
Favorite Country Band, Duo Or Group: Lady Antebellum
Favorite Electronic/Dance Music Artist: David Guetta
Favorite Pop/Rock Album: “Believe,” Justin Bieber
Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist: Nicki Minaj
Favorite Country Album: Carrie Underwood
Artist Of The Year: Justin Bieber