The Cringe Factor

As soon as this week’s Vocal challenge about cringey TV shows to binge watch to, the first thing that came to my head was Simon Cowell’s kingdom of talent shows that have been dominating screens for nearly twenty years. I have a serious love/hate relationship with these kind of shows. As a child, I was a big fan of Pop Idol and The X Factor.

Year after year the shows started to get worse as they became desperate to cling onto viewers that would watch Stictly Come Dancing instead. I always knew what’s going to happen. People audition. Some go through and many others don’t. The lucky winners and runners up get a record deal and sometimes a hit or two on the charts. There’s so much wrong with the show, like repeating old formulas and milking in on obvious sob stories and damn-right rudeness for the sake of it.

Talent shows are dated, predictable and often used to boost the careers of people already famous. I won’t lie, there have been acts that I’ve enjoyed that have entered these kinds of shows. I know a lot of it is fake, trashy and recycled, but I just can’t stop watching. There’s even celebrity versions of this show. Despite enjoying it, I still feel bad about it. They’re like the sugary donuts you know you shouldn’t eat but you devour them anyway.

Sometimes I wonder if I should really consider myself to be a rock chick or a metal head when I secretly listen to music generated from this kind of shows. Elitists would call me a poser as if it’s a crime to like more than one genre. Although I am not a fan of cancel culture, corperate stuff like this deserves to be called out on. As much as I try to keep myself away from these kind of shows, the drama is irresistible. Who needs soap operas when you have stuff like this.

The only true winners of the show are the judges, with the exception of Natalia Kills and her husband. I don’t think Cheryl Tweedy’s solo career would have gone half as well if it had not been for her stint on the X Factor. Though let’s be frank, everyone watches it for Simon Cowell tell somebody that they suck monkey balls.

There has been some genuine talent that has gone through and had great success. Kelly Clarkson form the first season of American Idol is perhaps the most successful winner of the show. It was clear that World Idol was set up for Kelly to win, even though she got second place. More successful winners from these sorts of shows that come to mind include Little Mix, Leona Lewis, Will Young and Alexandra Buke.

Despite the horrible auditions, the cruel format and obvious manipulations, these talent shows are a breeding place for underdogs. Ironically talent dosen’t really matter. Personality and charisma are also important features. Even though some of the artists I’ve mentioned in the last paragraph are household names, many of he runners up have gone on to become just as, if not more successful. The likes of JLS, Rhydian, One Direction and Stacey Solomon. A lot of them don’t always end up staying in the music industry and end up dabbling in theatre work, radio and TV presenting.

As great as it is to see other people succeed, I am guilty of watching it for all the wrong reasons. I love watching the bad auditions because I think they’re funny and a lot more entertaining then some of the soulless karaoke. You never really know what to expect and that’s the main hook of the show. Even though a lot of it is a muppet master pulling strings on puppets.

I do feel somewhat embarrassed and bad about it though, because some of it is outright cruelty and not just for the eardrums. The producers manipulate a lot of them and push them to do certain things and the contracts a lot of them have to sign are slavery contracts. A lot of the contestants are potrayed very one-sided. I feel bad about enjoying it because I know it’s contribruting to major damage to the music industry.

This video by contestant Zoe Alexander is a good example. I believe everything she says in this video and I think we should all be aware about the damage that it’s caused a lot of the old contestants. I think for every contestant that it’s boosted, there‘s several more that have been wrecked.

Everything about the talent shows are 9/10 times to be fake and passing it off to be real. Watching the old Pop Idol show made me appreciate Pete Waterman a lot more. He took it so seriously and he made his passion for the music business very seriously. Whilst he was percieved to be just as mean as Simon Cowell, he was proven to be right in the end. Michelle McManus never became the second coming of Britney Spears the industry tried to make her be, but in the end, she became a lot healthier and happier than Britney Spears out of the spotlight.

I’d like to dedicate this article in memory of Ariel Burdett aka Arabella Starchild. After watching Zoe Alexander’s video, I feel like she was another victim of this show, portrayed as one-dimensional nutcase. I alway thought her audition was cool with the way she used so many vocal styles and how she stood up to the judges and said she’s not a number.

In the words of Severus Snape: Fame isn’t everything.