In case you’re unaware (ie, completely socially retarded), American Idol is an annoyingly popular show in which people from around the country who think they have the ability to musically perform compete against each other to see who really is the best.  To say the least, it’s a mashup of our natural affinity to music and our natural affinity to seeing awesome people wipe the floor with stupid people.

For 7 seasons, this show has aired, giving millions of viewers an excuse to drop what they’re doing and get home before 8pm.  I spent a little time pondering the logical side of this show (which for me was much more fun than actually watching it) and came to the conclusion that, despite, or rather BECAUSE of, its success, the contestants on the show cannot possibly be the best singers in America — and hence not TRUE American Idols.

Put On Your Thinking Caps!

The idea of American Idol is to take THE BEST performers and pit them against eachother.  So, no matter how many people audition for the show, only THE BEST ones are allegedly selected.

It is also true that once a contestant has been selected and appears on the show, they will NEVER return to compete subsequent times.

Downward Spiral

So, in the 1st season of AI, THE BEST performers are selected, they duke it out, a winner is chosen, and those 10 contestants NEVER come back.  When season two rolls around, the show again chooses THE BEST contestants.  However, by the show’s own definition, it is NOT choosing THE BEST contestants, but rather THE BEST ONES AVAILABLE (because the previous BEST contestants are not allowed to return).  This continues in the third season and all others following as THE (alleged) BEST actually become less and less farther from THE BEST.

In other words: The quality of contestants on AI is constantly getting crappier.

The Persistence of Crap

So a show that is constantly becoming less and less entertaining should get canned lickity-split, right?  Well the problem in this scenario is that AI IS STILL RUNNING.  Why is it still running?  Because it gets good ratings of course!

The only way for a show to get good ratings is for lots of people to watch it, and of course people will not watch something that they don’t enjoy.  Or to transpose that last clause: people will only watch shows they enjoy.

You Like That Show?  It’s Crap.

See where I’m going? If people only watch shows that they enjoy, and people watch a show that is constantly getting crappier, then the obvious conclusion is that PEOPLE ENJOY WATCHING CRAP.

Please withold all “Two girls, one cup” jokes.