I saw the video. Okay, yeah, obviously obviously she was set up for failure. Simon saying there was a similarity (when there wasn’t beyond the name) was probably because someone told him she idolized Paula.

Yeah, if I were Paula I’d be really upset too. She’s a lucky woman that girl didn’t kill her, too.

I guess that’s my point…it isn’t too difficult to see, if you watch the video, that this girl had some problems. But in the name of ratings the producers let her go on to what the general public assumes is the “real” audition, which is the one we see on TV. Presumably the first audition for the producers is to weed out the baddies, but it seems that they throw in about 50/50 goods and bads to make an entertaining few weeks of audition specials. And quite frankly, if I were Paula Abdul, I’d be plenty ticked off that they let someone like this through to her.

I just got tired of watching people get stomped on all the time so I quit watching…it was just too painful to see and I could no longer justify it to myself. Simon does some of these people a service, but those people are the ones who shouldn’t get through to start with. He should be saying things like, “You’re good, but you could be better. Take a year off and practice a lot and come back and try again,” not, “My God, who let you through to this round? Leave and shut up!” Oh wait, that doesn’t make good TV.

My favorite is Ruben, but he was probably too R&B for the mainstream.

I can’t watch the video until I get off work, so I can’t see how disturbed she appeared on the show, but if she’s drawing life-sized drawings of Paula Abdul when she’s an adult, her family should have thought “Hey, maybe our kid isn’t all there.” And why Paula Abdul of all people? She made a few okay songs, but she wasn’t around for very long (and then randomly she was brought back to life for American Idol).

I don’t think the show is wrong in showing us videos of people who suck at singing. Americans like to laugh at themselves, and that one dude from I think second season even got a contract just for sucking as bad as he did. And if people don’t want to be made fun of, they shouldn’t even be attempting to become pop stars. Like ANYONE takes Britney Spears seriously! Jessica Simpson? HA! You have to have a lot of balls to be able to survive celebrity-dom, so hopefully the elimination process crushes their dilusional spirits enough to know their own limits.

However… if the show is doing what I think it may be doing, and showing the SECOND elimination round, that’s wrong. I know sometimes shows have a first round that is not videotaped for public showings, and I would bet Simon Cowell is not getting to slander EVERY single person who tries out for the show. I think they are taking Round 2’s competing youth, having told them they completed Round 1 and are semifinalists. If that’s the case, then that’s just plain cruel. I just auditioned for a record label in September, and if I had been called and told I’d made the next round, only to be LAUGHED AT, I would probably never try anything ever again. It’s one thing to get laughed at in round one, but to have a glimmer of hope be pounded to nothing is just plain mean. And I think that might be what AI does, and why contestants go on those outtake episodes with a little more courage than someone who sucks would normally. Because we wouldn’t laugh at them if they looked about to cry from nerves from the start.

The whole American Idol thing is crap. Sure, there are plenty of people who can sing karaoke pretty well, but singing original material and selling yourself isn’t something most of these kids are able to do. Aren’t there only like three or four kids who really made it and really have strong careers? I can only think of Carrie Underwood, big butt (what’s her name? Texan who won the first year?), and Jennifer Hudson (and I still do not understand why she won an oscar, but whatever, she seems like a nice girl). I don’t count Clay Aiken because his name alone elicits laughter these days, though he did have a year or two of good sales. Oh yeah, Kelly Clarkson, that’s her name.