On Being a Public Spectacle

I watched American Idol tonight. Whatever would you do a silly thing like that for!?, you ask, and that would be an excellent question. I got an email today from a friend that said they were pretty sure they saw a guy from our high school class on the preview for tonight's show. The potentially funny part was that this guy also happened to be considered quite a nerd by most everyone.

His name is also Nick, and people would sometimes mistake us for each other. I knew he considered himself to be somewhat of a musician, and tried out for the music group I was in, but didn't make it. A little pitchy, as Simon would say. Ok, very pitchy- any high school choir ALWAYS needs more guys, and he was still turned down. So you can imagine that when I heard he was on American Idol, I could only think it was a joke, and I honestly hope he thinks it is too. Or.... maybe he's had private lessons since high school. LOTS of private lessons. From Renee Fleming.

So we watched tonight's show, and as long it was a joke, it had to be one of the funniest things I've seen on TV. He was bad. Hysterically bad. Simon even said that that day in Seattle was the worst day in American Idol audition history, and that his audition was the worst of the day. Ouch. I think his was the longest segment of the whole show. Almost every commercial break they were hyping his upcoming performance. They had at least three minutes of non-audition camera time with him. He was ratings gold!

But what if he didn't think it was a joke? What a sad thought- him being up there actually singing his heart out and trying to be the next american idol, and all of us are laughing hysterically at him. In one context, for those of us that know him, he's a hero, and in the other, we uncomfortably look the other way. It got me thinking though as to why people are willing to make a public spectacle of themselves. I'm not talking about the people who go on as a joke and be really bad, but the people who go on thinking they're really good, but aren't. Are they any different than the Jerry Springer type people?

Anyway, I sent him an email and told him it was awesome, I just didn't tell him that I thought it was awesome in the humorous sense.