LAST EDITED ON 05-23-09 AT 12:19 PM (EST)

Pimpage, 21-30:

21. Singoffs at top 36--I contend that no one who has to do a sing off and has it shown on the show makes it to the F4. For example, Michael Sarver had to do a sing off to make the top 36. Out at 10. It’s a way of making the audience pull for someone yet question whether they are good enough. Just another drama created moment for the show.

22. Casting. We know it happens. How did Carly wind up on the show last year? Why were there so many “church singers” on the show this year? IMO they were to be the contrast to Adam. What is a delight is that we saw that the average guy can win (Kris), and not just the Junior Star Search preselected candidate (Jordin).

23. Themes --let’s face it, some themes benefit certain contestants more than others. Hard Rock night with Slash when it’s down to 4? Michael Johns mentioned in an interview that in his season they were not allowed to show who they were in the early rounds unlike other seasons--they were given theme weeks from the start with a small list of songs. He felt he was not able to show enough of who he was.

24. Song choice, part 2: F3 and F2 song choice includes the show’s selecting songs for the contestants. F3 is the judges’ selections and F2 is the producers’ selections (was the Clive Davis selection for the earlier seasons, now it’s Simon Fuller). Paula choosing a lesser known 80’s song for Danny “Dance Little Sister” versus Simon’s choosing U2’s “One” for Adam, a more contemporary song can impact the audience’s perception of the singers.

25. Song choice, part 3: the coronation song. Sometimes there have been 2 songs, one for each contestant. Sometimes the contestants have to sing the same song and they can change it to suit their styles and sometimes they can not. Season 6’s coronation song was clearly slanted for Jordin’s abilities and Blake was not allowed to change it up at all, which had been his forte on the show, changing up songs to be slightly hip hop or adding a beat box element. Having the contestants sing the same song that is slanted towards only one of the contestant’s strengths is just one of the frustrating things the show does to manipulate perceptions or the outcome.

26. Judges’ antics. This has gone on for seasons, but this season it has been particularly noticeable that the judges spend scant time giving comments to one or more of the performers and then proceed to kill time squabbling among themselves or behaving childishly while that performer is still on stage with Ryan. This behavior usually involves Simon, and I think it is meant to distract the audience from performers that are not part of their F4 and F2 agendas. It happened quite a bit to Kris and yet not to Adam. Next season I'll take more note of who gets the respect from the judges and who gets the antics.

27. The extraordinary pimp moment. This is the unusual pimp that has happened once in awhile For example, when Chris Daughtry was booted at F4 in season 5, much to the producers’ dismay because they really wanted him to win despite his hitting the bottom 2 three weeks before, that left Taylor, Kat and Elliot standing as the F3. Quickly shifting to a new agenda, the producers had Taylor do an encore performance of “Jailhouse Rock” for the audience on results night. How unfair was that to Kat and Elliot?

28. PR campaigns/ the media. Articles are written all season long about AI but some of the mainstream media seems to have some built in pimpage that imo has to be directed by the show. I really noticed this with the media in season 5 as they touted Chris D before his boot; and this year it has been apparent with Adam. One magazine that seems to deliver this pimpage is TV Guide, with large pictures of Danny, Adam, Lil and Allison and an article discussing them as front runners and and showing smaller pictures of the rest of the group.

Subsequent articles mention only some of the idols, and Adam has had more mentions than the rest in TVG. EW featured Adam on its cover before the F3 were chosen. Note that the AI ers get interviewed by EW and do an “Idolatry” video segment after getting booted. Cozy arrangement with the show.

29. Twitter. Unclear for now, but Twitter was starting to be an element this year, with backup singers, Ryan, guest artists, etc. twittering leaks about the show. Seems like a pimpage tool for the future. Ryan has over 1M followers as of mid May 09. Wonder what it will be by next season.

30. Fan boards. AI has its own message boards and they are monitored with some of the messages getting deleted seemingly willy nilly. Season 6 I tracked message board numbers to see if they would portend anything and noticed that large numbers of messages were being deleted from Blake’s board, which had many times the messages that Jordin’s board had. I don’t post there so I don’t know what else goes on on those sites but have read complaints from AI board poster refugees who start posting on other boards.

**There are other pimpage moves, too. Carmen Rasmussen wrote an article that talked about the head games the vocal coaches and judges played by suggesting she was off key and how it worked to undermine her confidence: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695265205,00.html

Similarly last year Simon did a repeated head game on Carly Smithson about her apparrel.

**Playing in the mosh pit is another move I'm studying. I don't think it flattered the performer much; it appeared to overwhelm them.

More as I remember them!