I am a 60+ year-old white, reasonably conservative American male and even I have shake my head at the extremely flawed AI voting system and at the complete and utter racist morons who are doing the voting. After tonight, if I were a talent agent, I would advise any prospective client to avoid this show if you value your career.

I have watched AI since season three, and one thing I've noticed that there is little correlation between the amount of votes a contestant gets and the amount of music they will sell after their AI career is over. With the exception of two Idol winners, no one has begun a successful music career after winning the AI title. Why?

Basically people vote their bias and not their appreciation of talent. Which means that the majority of the voters don't buy cds and are only voting to prove a social point. If you notice, the majority of the top vote-getters are from the South, not a demographic that has much appreciation for, nor knowledge of actual music and what musical talent means.

Singers like Johnny Cash become mega-stars when they latch onto a lifestyle and become a representative of that life style. Mr. Cash couldn't sing his way out of a megaphone, but his skills meant nothing because he became the exemplar of the backwoods gentleman and had everyone south of the Mason Dixon line in his corner and buying his music.

Bruce Springsteen (in my home state of New Jersey, sadly to say, became the model of the cloddish, boring white American male, so it doesn't matter whether his voice sounds like a castrated bull's wail of pain, he was accepted as a suburban, white icon and beyond criticism. This is, and always has been the American music scene and I've gotten use to it. But I don't have to buy the Cash or Springsteen crap and I haven't. The difference with Joshua and Jessica, two of the bottom trio on tonight's show, and why I'm so POed, is that these two are just starting out in their careers and I may never get an opportunity to buy their music, and why? Because a small group(18 million people watch American Idol each week, so how many of this audience is actually voting) of morons vote them off the show. Even worse, I will know longer have the privilege of listening to the two most talented performers on the show and maybe for the entire existence of the show, which will lead me to tune out the show the week after their absurd dismissals. I wonder how many people in the TV audience will join me and boycott the remaining shows and perhaps forgo watching it next year unless Idol creates a one phone one vote system to prevent the speed dial voting that has turned the show into a joke. As it stands, winning this idiotic title means absolutely nothing unless the winners are able to turn their win into cash, which they haven't been able to do with the exception of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. Alas, AI may be going down in flames if it doesn't find a way to eliminate the bigots and idiots who are misusing the telecommunications system.

• RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,mrc, 10:20 AM, 04-13-12
  • RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,Starshine, 11:28 AM, 04-13-12
    • RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,agman, 11:34 AM, 04-13-12
• RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,agman, 10:59 AM, 04-13-12
• RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,csnumber23, 08:49 PM, 04-13-12
  • RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,Snidget, 10:19 PM, 04-13-12
    • RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,qwertypie, 05:55 PM, 04-18-12
      • RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,agman, 07:28 PM, 04-18-12
        • RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,qwertypie, 01:15 AM, 04-19-12
          • RE: Racism, stupidity and facetious voters,agman, 02:22 PM, 04-19-12

If you notice, the majority of the top vote-getters are from the South, not a demographic that has much appreciation for, nor knowledge of actual music and what musical talent means.

This is one of the silliest things I've ever read on these boards. I could make a list of southern musicians and artists, but I'll just assume everyone else agrees that this claim is unsupportable.

The Beautiful South

Pushes "like" button!

You never explain how these voters are all racists! How do you support your claim that the majority of voters don't by CD's?

Mrc, already covered your claim about the supposed lack of musical talent and appreciation in the south, so I'll ditto his feelings. The point you make that I will agree with is that the voting system does seem to have some flaws that need to be worked out.

Please don't post this bs here again. Race??? This isn't the 1950's. Melanie Amaro just won X-Factor and last year's winner on The Voice was African American so your baseless post was a waste of time for me to read.

Different shows I think have different audiences so different voting biases.

People are always trying to say the voting habits of Idol voters is racist, or sexist or whatever.

IMO more has to do with how the shows are cast. They need a certain diversity, but they like their diversity in certain ways.

I suspect some of the "black flight" from Idol (after all 2 of the first 3 Idols were African American) has to do with how the show is cast. After all they only cast certain kinds of any people (any race) and they are going to pander to the largest demographic and what will bring in the ad revenue.

Certain types of people I think are much more likely to be power voters, and as it has been said before Idol is a voting competition, not a talent competition. You let people vote, they will vote for whatever reason. Now some people will vote based on their biases, and I think the average viewer is not had a lot of training on how to determine a great technical singer. So they vote on looks, who they lust after, personality, who gets the good lighting, etc. If they wanted a pure talent show they would have judges of the type that critique technical singing and performance skills. And, IMO, being able to pick out who will hit it big on a pop chart is not about finding the best technical singers.

Now I do agree that voting like crazy for someone does not in any way ensure they will buy CD's. Typically winners do better overall than 2nd, 3rd, or 10th place finishers. The everyone is so good they have to have some amazing career handed to them just for being on the show is the myth they like to sell, but who does well has to do with who works hard in a smart way, with a bit of who has a name/voice we remember months later. None of them will get the kind of representation that generates huge numbers and the show isn't making money from CD sales so they really don't care if a winner does well or not. It is only about what storyline will keep the ratings up enough they get the ad revenue where the big bucks come from.

being able to pick out who will hit it big on a pop chart is not about finding the best technical singers.

I don't have musical training, but I love singers that sing with emotion. Jessica does not move me with her singing so I will never vote for her, buy her CD or even listen to a song of hers on the radio for more than 2 seconds.

My take on this is that America decided on mass to flush out the "immunity idol" the judges were holding. I wonder what this weeks results are going to be.

Maybe they'll send the judges home!

win-win!

LAST EDITED ON 04-19-12 AT 02:22 PM (EST)

It's the only interesting possiblity for this season! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNN.....I don't care what they say, Jessica is overrated