I've created two posts, two days in a row, about American Idol. As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to post again - about American Idol. But this post isn't going to be a prediction of the outcome, who did what and how well ( or poorly ) they did it, or who should be sent home. I think it's time I moved beyond that and open a discussion of what is driving this season's decline from what started as a great idea to the beacon of mediocrity it is quickly becoming. I suppose that's an unfair statement. It isn't that the producers made a conscious decision to drive the show into the ground. And perhaps, as demonstrated by the popularity of the show, it isn't really being driven into the ground. But it would appear that there is a concerted effort to invalidate the integrity ( well, I'm using the term integrity very loosely here ) of the show.
American Idol has willingly fallen victim to the stupidity of the mob. Let's face it . . . there are people making gazillions of dollars off of the show. As consumers, is it too much to expect that there is at least some semblance of an attempt to remove any air of impropriety? Or are they merely basking in the riches that the publicity is giving them? Allow me to explain . . .
Let me start here . . . Recently, as you may have heard, Time Magazine named "You", meaning everyone, person of the year. But where does that really leave us? We ( read You ) support and constitute this new, profound and collective group who not only build the content that provides so many businesses their foundation ( think YouTube, Flickr or Digg ) as well as income, but also we consume it, rate it, rank it, and provide input about it. Don't make the mistake of believing that I see something wrong with this. I don't. I believe that each of the services I mentioned, as well as all the copycats and variations they have spawned, are great services and obviously fulfilling a niche that either didn't exist or improved upon an existing one.
So, if there is no problem with this whole prospect of collective wisdom and creation by the masses then what's the issue? I believe that the creation side is fantastic. The problem lies in the collective wisdom that supposedly provides a standard for judgment. At Digg, each time a link to any particular item on the Internet is posted it is effectively "ranked" according to how many people have "Dugg" it rather than a body of editors deciding which of the submitted URLs is actually the cream that should rise to the top. Can we really have faith in the wisdom of the user community to decide which is the best or worst?
As reported by Annalee Newitz, it's not so hard to game the system at Digg. I'm not the only person who wonders about the validity of the system to provide beneficial results. There are a host of reasons why people would want to game the system. These range from web traffic, popularity, curiosity, and most of all . . . money. Simply put, where there is a system to subvert there are reasons to try. That isn't to say that no one should try to build a service which is intelligent enough to consolidate and aggregate the collective wisdom of the community in an attempt to find the best. Web sites have been trying to perfect this for a number of years for commercial reasons.
Amazon, Yahoo and Google all try to find out our likes and dislikes so that they can personalize and recommend things that may interest us. But in the end is it really working?
My contention is that we aren't witnessing the collective wisdom of the masses. We are witnessing the collective wisdom of the mob. American Idol has been plagued with problems in the past with auto-dialers being used and lines being jammed causing some contestants to gain illegitimate votes while others did not receive the votes they should have. And this season is no different. If you are, or have been, a fan of American Idol I'm certain you'll come across someone who disagrees with the outcome of any season. There's nothing inherently wrong with that either. Opinions vary. Some people like this; some people like that. But there is a problem when there exists a concentrated effort to game the system for results not representative of the wisdom of the masses and predominantly representative of the wisdom of the mob.
For a while there has existed a website designed especially to subvert the wisdom of the masses as applied to American Idol. This season, VoteForTheWorst has concentrated their efforts to see Sanjay Malakar all the way to the end as he is crowned America's Next American Idol. It's important to note here that I see nothing wrong with this. Ordinarily I would be willing to support them in their cause. The problem I have is that American Idol is allowing this to happen - and profiting from it. They profit when you vote. They profit when you sit in front of the television viewing their Ford and Coca-Cola ads. They profit from you under the pretense that your collective wisdom is selecting The Next American Idol.
American Idol has truly become a farce that has bent to the will of the wisdom of the mob. In my opinion, it is even worse because more than likely the publicity they receive because of the controversy and weaknesses in the system, the more money they make when businesses run to them for advertising slots. Even worse, we're not even seeing the best that audition for American Idol. If you're curious, read about the truth behind the American Idol auditions. We, Time Magazine's Person of the Year, are the one's being gamed in the name of entertainment.
So, if there is no problem with this whole prospect of collective wisdom and creation by the masses then what's the issue? I believe that the creation side is fantastic. The problem lies in the collective wisdom that supposedly provides a standard for judgment. At Digg, each time a link to any particular item on the Internet is posted it is effectively "ranked" according to how many people have "Dugg" it rather than a body of editors deciding which of the submitted URLs is actually the cream that should rise to the top. Can we really have faith in the wisdom of the user community to decide which is the best or worst?
As reported by Annalee Newitz, it's not so hard to game the system at Digg. I'm not the only person who wonders about the validity of the system to provide beneficial results. There are a host of reasons why people would want to game the system. These range from web traffic, popularity, curiosity, and most of all . . . money. Simply put, where there is a system to subvert there are reasons to try. That isn't to say that no one should try to build a service which is intelligent enough to consolidate and aggregate the collective wisdom of the community in an attempt to find the best. Web sites have been trying to perfect this for a number of years for commercial reasons.
Amazon, Yahoo and Google all try to find out our likes and dislikes so that they can personalize and recommend things that may interest us. But in the end is it really working?
My contention is that we aren't witnessing the collective wisdom of the masses. We are witnessing the collective wisdom of the mob. American Idol has been plagued with problems in the past with auto-dialers being used and lines being jammed causing some contestants to gain illegitimate votes while others did not receive the votes they should have. And this season is no different. If you are, or have been, a fan of American Idol I'm certain you'll come across someone who disagrees with the outcome of any season. There's nothing inherently wrong with that either. Opinions vary. Some people like this; some people like that. But there is a problem when there exists a concentrated effort to game the system for results not representative of the wisdom of the masses and predominantly representative of the wisdom of the mob.
For a while there has existed a website designed especially to subvert the wisdom of the masses as applied to American Idol. This season, VoteForTheWorst has concentrated their efforts to see Sanjay Malakar all the way to the end as he is crowned America's Next American Idol. It's important to note here that I see nothing wrong with this. Ordinarily I would be willing to support them in their cause. The problem I have is that American Idol is allowing this to happen - and profiting from it. They profit when you vote. They profit when you sit in front of the television viewing their Ford and Coca-Cola ads. They profit from you under the pretense that your collective wisdom is selecting The Next American Idol.
American Idol has truly become a farce that has bent to the will of the wisdom of the mob. In my opinion, it is even worse because more than likely the publicity they receive because of the controversy and weaknesses in the system, the more money they make when businesses run to them for advertising slots. Even worse, we're not even seeing the best that audition for American Idol. If you're curious, read about the truth behind the American Idol auditions. We, Time Magazine's Person of the Year, are the one's being gamed in the name of entertainment.
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