Of course, you can't collect airdrops with an empty wallet.
Since when was this true? Isn't the main point of 'airdrops' is that you give the tokens for free in exchange for some Facebook likes and such?
MEW said that I could not use the wallet until I had deposited some Eth in it. I tried an airdrop and it didn't recognize the MEW.
Is this perhaps a MEW-specific problem?