The Lowest Common Denominator

Living in oblivion: Flipping through the channels the other day, I stumble across one of this season's American Idol audition episodes. I am stunned.

1. The record companies have discovered an easy way to find new talent with a built-in fan base before the first album is ever released. Rather than expend any effort or money, they get a major network to do the search and make an obscene profit in the process.
2. The tuneless, clueless, and delusional show up by the thousands. Many of them display a bizarre sense of entitlement, and are rude and abusive when rejected.
3. Scarier than the tone-deaf are the truly stupid, who so lack self awareness that they willingly parade their ignorance to millions of viewers. "Simon, he ain't even American. I don' even know where he from, like France or somewhere." ("He's British," says Ryan Seacrest, amazingly keeping a straight face.) "Then, he should go back to British is what I say." Well, thank you for showing us the shallow end of the gene pool.
4. Americans also prove that they are incapable of doing simple math. The Seattle auditions, which pulled a modest 10,000 hopefuls, lasted two days. Let's crunch the numbers. Assume that Paula, Randy, and Simon put in a nine hour day and manage to blast through one contestant every four minutes. With no breaks at all, they could get through 135 contestants a day, or 270 total. Start adding in breaks, auditions that run longer, etc., and the real number is probably closer to about 70 contestants total in two days. Yet people seem to buy this. American Idol blogger Chris Mathew Sciabarra explains:

And the truth is that these kids get up in successive rows and sing to off-camera judges for a few seconds. The judges are often not interested in booking talent; they are interested in booking people on all ends of the talent spectrum because they know what sells. Part of what sells is the oddball, the over-the-top, the delusional. So a kid with a good voice may be totally passed up for a kid who dresses like Apollo Creed. Some of those outfits are worn by people who may know that they are not really talented (except as practical jokers). They just seem to be seeking their own 15 minutes (well, maybe 3-4 minutes) of fame.

I quickly change the channel, and am eventually soothed by a grizzly bear eating a hiker. That is precisely what American Idol needs: grizzly bears. Someone should call Fox...