So You Want To Be a Star

American Idol is a cultural phenomenon (news flash from Professor Obvious). I defy anyone on this planet to tell me they don’t know what Idol is and haven’t secretly wanted to audition. Even I, who have the musical talent of a tree sloth, have had the tiniest thought that, if I was a couple of years older, I might try out.

But then I think, I’m gonna totally suck and Simon will tear me apart and Randy will cringe and talk about how much better Mariah would have sung that and maybe, just maybe if I'm lucky, Paula will tell me I have nice hair. But in the end, I’ll walk away feeling really bad about myself and thinking how stupid I am for even stepping foot in the same room as those people…so why do it?

Evelyn - and lots of critics - think people just want their fifteen minutes of fame. And for those of you who don’t know what that means, it comes from Andy Warhol, the artist who has been famous for like a hundred years, who said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” I don’t think people really understand it the way he meant it. I think he actually meant that our society is becoming so splintered, so schizophrenic that nothing will last beyond a figurative fifteen minutes. He had a commercial art background, after all, where “art” lasts a very short time in people’s memories. It’s disposable art, designed to elicit a particular reaction from the audience: buy this now. Once it’s completed its task, it can be thrown away and forgotten and that’s what he was saying about people and fame.

That’s my interpretation, I guess.

Back to Idol…is the theory that everyone just wants to be famous accurate?

No, I don’t think so. I think Andy Warhol was partially right: our society is so splintered but not in a schizophrenic way. We are so separate from each other, we all live in our own little worlds, that we are desperate for a connection - any connection. If that means we will debase ourselves to make contact, then we will do that. We jump on the bandwagon - we get in line with thousands of others across the country - we become part of the cultural phenomenon and thus help create the phenomenon.

I see this a lot where I live. Everyone in RC drives their own cars. No one carpools or uses public transportation. We are in our little bubbles of security. We don’t talk to people at the grocery store or in lines at Starbucks. We isolate ourselves with cell phones and iPods and the internet. We have NO contact with anyone else. But we humans are really social creatures and we long for the personal connection, the casual conversation about the weather and “that’s a nice purse where did you get it” sort of remarks.

So I think that auditioning for Idol, or those dance shows or any of the reality shows, even when we know we have no earthly chance of making it or doing well in front of millions of others, is simply a reflection of our inner drive to be with other humans, to share in their lives and to have them share in ours.

Why else would MySpace be so popular?