American Idol (the brainchild of Brits Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell) has been airing for 12 years or so and despite being nowhere as popular as it used to be, FOX continues to air a new season running 4 months or so and has also spawned a bunch of imitators to boot, including Cowell's X Factor.
From having non-singers and people who mostly can't sing without Autotune being judges, to having "contestants" who act like they are on Prozac or some happy drug 24/7, to the "coaching" done off-screen, to the screaming banshees in the audience, to seeing people being given permission to butcher pop songs, to Ryan Seacrest, to the usual rigging of results, etc. this show has done irreparable to both television as it has begat more reality television and music as there's an innate sameness to everybody in pop music. For shame.
All American Idol does is make stars out of people and then give them no say in their new line of work at RCA and offer people more Schadenfreude in their life, like they need it. Sound familiar?
