'Text Neck' and other modern malaises

The X Factor USA: Unfair and corrupt? Voters need to think and decide The Fox Channel’s X Factor, a singing competition, is one of the most unfair, if not corrupt, ‘reality’ shows on television today. The X Factor USA judges, in the November 22 show, cheated Seattle contestant LeRoy Bell out of at least one more chance of achieving a top spot on the show. It’s crooked and even sometime illegal to change a competition’s rules midstream, but that’s what The X Factor did. After the voting was finished, the producers announced that two people would be eliminated from the competition, not just the usual one person. First, the person with the lowest number of votes would be sent home. Then, the person with the second-to-last number would “sing for his life” against the third-to-last vote getter. This new rule sent the group, Lakoda Rayne, home immediately and put LeRoy Bell, the second-to-last vote getter, in competition with Marcus Canty. And although the judges agreed that LeRoy’s performance was better than Marcus’, they voted in such a way as to create a deadlock — two for keeping LeRoy, two for keeping Marcus. In a deadlock, the rules state that the lowest vote getter goes home. And although in truth, the lowest vote getter was already sent home, they eliminated LeRoy because he allegedly had fewer votes than Marcus. If the rules had stayed the same, LeRoy would have sung for his life against Lakoda Rayne, and most likely would have won. The judges would have appeared too transparent if they selected a group, since the voters all along have preferred single acts. LeRoy would be in the competition next week, and perhaps would have performed well enough to move safely away from a bottom spot. Of course, this all relies on the fact that the judges, or at least some of them — knew the outcome of the voting. It certainly looks as if L.A. Reid and Simon Cowell, at the very least, knew the voting numbers and invented the new rule. Many people have cried foul on the Blogosphere. People who view this show should think about why they support its lack of ethics and its ill treatment of contestants and the public who is asked to vote for potential winners. It’s especially interesting in today’s political climate, where both Occupiers and Tea Partiers renounce corrupt and greedy politicians and corporations that accumulate wealth at the expense of everyday Americans, that The X Factor is not a target of public rage and disgust. It’s entire structure’s goal is to make a very few people extremely wealthy. Here’s why the show is unethical. The four people who judge the acts — Simon Cowell (judge of girls), Paula Abdul (judge of groups), L.A. Reid (judge of boys), and Nicole Scherzinger (judge of people over age 30), also mentor the contestants. They have a strong influence over what songs the contestants sing as well as their make-up, clothing, and staging — lighting, backup singers and dancers, and special effects. This would be like going to court with your attorney after being charged with a crime, and learning that the judge is the prosecuting attorney’s mentor. You wouldn’t stand a chance. This is a serious conflict of interest, but it gets worse — the judges are also competing against each other for the glory of being the judge whose act wins the competition. Therefore, if a judge sees an act as a liability, he or she can choose an unsuitable song and influence other aspects of the performance that would put the contestant in a bad light. Judges can, and do, insult one another’s acts in a tawdry attempt to influence the public. How the show works. After the judges choose what they think are the top acts during auditions in several cities, each judge is assigned an equal number of acts. One judge gets all the girls, another all the boys, another performers over age 30, and another judge is assigned groups. Artists in the different categories perform in front of their judges at the judges’ homes, until the final group of 16 is selected. Then, all acts perform in Los Angeles, and The X Factor viewers vote for their favorite acts. It is not a ‘one man, one vote’ situation like a political election, however. People can vote as many times as they want for two hours after the show. Land lines, cell phones, and computers can all be used to vote, putting people with access to all three at an advantage. The day after the performances, a second show is aired to announce who will be going home. The original rule was that the bottom two vote getters are announced, and each act ‘sings for his life” (or her life), and the judges vote on which act they will send home. If there is a deadlock, the person with the lowest number of votes goes home. This last minute announcement of the double elimination was unfair because if people had known about it before voting started, voting may have been done differently. The X Factor producers insist that an independent firm tallies the votes and the vote is not revealed until the live show’s emcee announces it. Because of the rule that lets the judges decide which of the low vote getters goes home, the end result will be that the judges will pick the winner from the two remaining acts (unless they make up another new rule), not the voters, although the show is promoted as being one in which the public chooses the winner with the most “X” factor. The November 22 show is not the first time the rules were bent. After each judge picked her or his final four, Cowell told the world he had made a terrible mistake in sending one of the girls, Melanie Amaro, home. He made a huge show of traveling to her home in Florida for a “surprise” visit, where, coincidentally, her family was all at home sitting around the house. That gave Cowell one more act than the other judges when the voting segment began. It all seemed pretty staged. Cowell is not a humble person who would admit a mistake. The fuss he made about his snafu brought a huge amount of attention to his act, and as of this writing she is in the final 7. X Factor’s winner will receive a $5 million recording contract paid out in five $1 million installments. The contract’s terms are not known and will probably never be revealed but most certainly the presentation of that annual check will depend on performance, sales, and other factors. If the winner is a success, the show’s owners and investors — especially Cowell and Reid —will become even richer than they already are. This probably makes them think the conflicts of interest are acceptable, as well as their not leaving the winning choice up to the voters. The public will digest the November 22 show’s outcome and look more closely at other signs that she show is not fair, and the result will be a drop in viewers and a corresponding drop in the number of downloads people buy of contestant performances.