Seattle People: Are You Gonna Take This From Simon?

[lamont]

lol. why? all those high tech left brained people?

not enough sunshine? (I mean the suicide rate is common knowledge)

Seattle is the biggest "small town" there is. Its a place that people come to raise kids in the suburbs, have a high standard of living and go backpacking, hiking, mountain bike riding and snowboarding. Its not really all that cultural, it doesn't have great food (although its got great sushi), its stuffed up in the NW corner of the continental US and is remote from the East Coast and Southern/Middle California. All the restaurants close at 9pm and the city practically shuts down. There's a quantum jump between Seattle and actual big cities like SF or NYC and the latter tend to siphon off the talent.

But I just heard Tucker bow tie, on csnbc say that they have intentionally gone out and collected people with "problems" to mock and ridicule for the show. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that. and I only caught clips on other shows.

I doubt they need to intentionally go out and find them. The do a first screening, though, where they clearly let through people who "make for good teevee" in addition to just passing through the ones with more talent.

 

[Rick Inman]

"Now recruiting for people who wish to get publicly humiliated, ridiculed, insulted by the rudest of people, put down, have your flaws joked about and your idiosyncrasies pointed out and laughed at by millions of people... all for the chance of having it happen for another 20 weeks until someone (most likely not you, and absolutely not the most talented) will become a star."

9000 people got in line.

And all got what they asked for.

 

[RonDawg]

9000 people got in line.

And all got what they asked for.

Agreed. Though I think Ryan Seacrest said the figure was closer to 10,000 that filled the Key Arena.

Especially in this country, you have to know what you're up against when you audition for AI. It's not like it's a totally secret process :shakehead

I disagree that AI went out of their way to "recruit" mental cases; I think it's more the mental cases came to THEM. Again, 10,000 people showed up for just the Seattle audition alone. Of course, the ones who sang REALLY badly, and who danced poorly or just looked weird (like the red-headed guy at the end, or the one guy with the widely spaced eyes), will of course get the spotlight over a normal-looking or even beautiful person with a mediocre, but not awful, singing voice.

Again, I feel a lot of them show up not because they truly feel they have a chance at winning, but because it's a chance at their "15 minutes" (more like 5 at the most) of fame.