‘American Idol’ reveals more about our society than we’d like to admit

By David McElroy · June 17, 2011

What’s the most important and most talked-about election in the United States today? Although political candidates have their fans — and some people would say the presidential election gets the most attention — I’d say more people passionately care about voting for their favorites on American Idol. What’s more, the level of public discourse today has gotten so bad that the presidential campaigns might not do any better than American Idol at addressing things that matter.

In 2008, there were 132.6 million votes cast in the general election for president in the United States. Just last month, American Idol attracted 122.4 million votes one week. So while the presidential election is still barely in the lead, the gap is small and shrinking. What’s more, if you took everyone who voted at least once in a season of American Idol, I’m betting that total would be higher than the total who voted for president. (Yes, I’m ignoring the facts that people can vote more than once for American Idol and that there are no qualifications to vote. Still….)

The 2006 movie “Idiocracy” was a campy comedy exploring the notion that people are getting less and less intelligent. (See the trailer here.) Although the movie wasn’t a cinematic masterpiece — and got only mildly positive reviews — I can’t be the first person to feel as though we’re getting closer every day to living in that world.

Even if you still believe in the morality of majoritarian systems, the truth is that political campaigns are looking more and more like entertainment today. We’re reaching the point that ads are meant to entertain us and appeal to the lowest common denominator. (Look at this current independent ad running in California as an example.) The idea of democracy was that it would be a “marketplace of ideas.” What we have today has nothing to do with ideas and everything to do with pandering to idiots.

Our elections are about entertaining and shaping people’s opinions about reality. What they’re not about is the reality that it’s impossible for anyone to do everything that people have come to expect a modern government to do. If you’re still participating in the electoral system, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that you’re “doing your duty” as a part of the civic religion, but you won’t be making any more of a real difference than those who vote for American Idol.

American Idol is pablum, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything except pablum. It doesn’t pretend that it’s about idea and that it’s serious about solving the world’s problems. In that way, it’s more honest than modern electoral politics.

The sooner we quit wasting all of our time, money and effort on campaigns that can’t be won, the sooner we can find realistic alternatives that will erect a wall of safety between us and the people for whom American Idol is the height of intellectual development.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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