Cynical Depression

I made my first American Idol text vote last night and just felt dirty. It has a lot to do with Vote For The Worst and how much I hate the show now. I want to see it turn on itself. I want to see it destroy and mock itself. I actually even watched last night's episode and it's really a karaoke competition gone bad. As I sat there, though, and thought about the ramifications (and ramekins since I was near the word in the dictionary) of this movement, I realized i might be making a huge mistake and inadvertently giving in.

When better than thou hipsters start turning against schlock and mobilize on the Internet you get situations like Snakes on a Plane and "Are You Smarter Than A fifth Grader." It starts off funny as we marvel at the lameness of an idea and watch to see how bad it is. This is the rubbernecking of the media. The only problem is that marketers find and analyze this audience. The step that follows is the strategic targeting of that audience and then congratulations, you and your Internet movement have just lowered the bar to make horrible standard. This makes the way for Deal or No Deal and pretty soon "How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up behind My Back."

The gist of my argument (if it could even be called that) is that the consumer should ultimately have the power and if not funded, any idea or concept should sink. This is totally moot when it comes to Jennifer Lopez. She must have given pints of blood to the devil or have some serious dirt on her publicist because she has no right to even be a part of pop culture. One word: talentless. So, anyway, if you pay your ten dollars to go in and clown on a movie, you've just helped produce the next shittier one. If you buy the Daughtry album to leave in your co-workers office so that you can walk in and go "Oooh. What's this CD co-worker?" in front of everyone in your office, you've just bought that douche bag lunch.

So, as I push that talentless piece of poo, Sanjaya through to the finals, I will feel a bit dirty, but hope that eventually the public between California and New York will have some kind of idea of what's really been going on the whole time. Taylor Hicks? American Idol? Give me a fuckin' break. The only thing similar between him and Elvis is maybe weight and age. It was a joke.

And Ryan fuckin' Seacrest...I gotta work.

Update: Addenda Sanjaya article on Yahoo!