Well it's always easy to choose an easy target to rip into but sometimes you have to remind yourself "If it's so easy then there must be good reason to do it". At the moment one thing that is annoying me is the coverage by UK media outlets and the reaction from people who should know better on the phenomenon that is "X-Factor.
Firstly you have the programme itself which deludes masses of lazy young people that to have a career in the music industry all you need is to win some 'talent' show. Forget the hard work of coming up with your own material. Who needs to write songs when you can sing other people's songs badly and be lauded for giving a "new take" to a classic (read "butchered the fucking life out of but we want to market you as 'edgy'"). Forget touring round the UK playing to small crowds and generating a following through raw grit and determination when we can create a "journey" for you and make the public like you out of sympathy owing to the fact your mum has three boobs and that you're "doing it for Nan". All we need to add is a montage with Take That playing in the background (it used to be Keane or Coldplay but everyone's favourite boyband are back as flavour of the month). Forget even that fact you need to be any good at singing as that's what the auto tune button is for anyway. The whole programme can be seen as a metaphor for modern living when people want everything while doing nothing and want everyone to see them do it.
The media doesn't help matters though. You have certain low-brow red tops who plaster their pages every day with "X Factor star has secret child" and "so and so is knobbing the weird one with the bad haircut". These are nothing stories about nothing people on a nothing programme. And yet I must be wrong because people buy the papers on the strength of these articles. Unless, of course, that the papers themselves are the ones generating the desire for the brain dead to feed on this pap. I'd rather eat brains myself.
We also have the whole question of "who are the real stars of the show?" to answer. Of course it's not the contestants who are replaced and forgotten about with consummate ease...I mean who remembers who finished 5th in 2007? The real stars of the show are the judging panel. You have Louis Walsh, a man who plays the role of arsehole on the show (and has a natural flair for it), Danni Minogue who is still trying to emerge from the tiny shadow of her sister, Cheryl Cole, a woman who has marketing people screaming at us in our faces convincing the nation's populace that she is the new "People's Princess" - a title held by Princess Di (won't even go there) and jade Goody (don't need to go there) despite the alleged assault and racism (who came up with the method of having sex with black footballers to convince people you're not really racist? Cheryl or Danielle Lloyd?). And then we have Simon Cowell. I do not dispute his genius because he has helped to create a money making machine and could probably walk along any street he wanted and literally buy any person on it. He's the honest one telling idiot after idiot they're crap and not to bother but people watching never stop to ask "Does he want the best person to win or the one that's easiest to market?" (see previous about what you need or don't need to be on this programme). Anyone who thinks the former needs their head checked.
So I don't like it. That much is pretty obvious. I try to avoid the whole thing and nowadays I have pretty much succeeded. One problem remains though and that's Facebook.
Now I'm not going to rant about the evils of Facebook (one for another time) but more the people on it. This show seems to have taken people who are generally good judges of taste and totally brainwashing them into thinking this crap is somehow relevant. Every week I'll read "This is a fix!", "so and so (the one that knobbed the weird one with the bad haircut..he dumps her in tomorrow's exclusive) was robbed!" and the oft used "I'm not watching it again!!"...only they do watch it again and every other week because they're addicted. I don't know what is worse. The fact the show is basically a fix or the fact that people know it, complain about it and yet still watch (and vote...Cowell needs to keep those teeth maintained you know).
Maybe people will realise that it's not worth watching and there are far superior programmes on television that are worth watching (and a whole world out there that doesn't need a TV to access it) but I doubt it. Besides, when this finishes we'll have Britain's got talent on again!!
