Why America's Obsessed with Crafting Their Own Popstars

In 9th grade, I auditioned for The X Factor. All my life I’d grown up watching competition singing shows like American Idol and The Voice. Only after seeing fellow Long Islander Carly Rose Sonenclar coast to the finale of X Factor, did I feel it was my time to audition. Ironically, it is because of Carly Rose that X Factor held auditions in Long Island that following year. All it took was a PowerPoint presentation to convince my parents that allowing their 14-year-old to enter show business wasn’t as much of a trainwreck of an idea as they thought. We filled out release forms, and with some wishful thinking I was well on my way to being ready for stardom. I’m sure you can guess how the story panned out---I’m not a world famous musician, you have no memory of me as a contestant, and you’ve probably never heard of me before. I’m a good singer, but my voice cracked during my audition and the scout I sang for thought I was too young. He encouraged me to come back the following year, but the show was cancelled that same season (an instance I still revel in, because I am slightly bitter about what happened). All in all, not getting far in my The X Factor journey was a blessing in disguise. I was not ready for the sort of pressure, media scrutiny, and attention contestants garner week after week (ie. Rachel Crow’s Season 1 elimination). Also, in the seven years since, I realized my true passion lies in filmmaking, and while I enjoy singing and am good at it, I really only wanted to audition because of what I thought a show like The X Factor could bring me: instant fame and attention.

For a moment, let’s go back to 2004. It’s a Wednesday in May and America is sitting in their living rooms, grip tight on their remotes, faces huddled in front of their televisions as they wait to see if they’ve cast the deciding vote. The candidates? A 19-year old from North Carolina and a 16-year old from Georgia. The two women campaigned each week, telling us their backgrounds, sharing their platforms, and working tirelessly to ensure they were worthy of our votes. It all came down to that day in May, where their fate would be read aloud and their future decided. The prize, however, wasn’t a seat in office, but a shiny record deal, lots of money, and the adoration of their country. The lights dimmed, the envelope was brought on stage as the two teenagers clasped hands, and we waited with baited breath as Ryan Seacrest announced that the American people had voted Fantasia Burrino as their Season 3 Winner of American Idol. Runner-up Dianna DeGarmo, gave a tearful concession speech and Fantasia sang her victory song, “I Believe”,  as the credits rolled. What made Fantasia’s win so special to us, and what makes her still so special to us, is her story. We know what she went through to get to the finale and we watched how hard she battled the other contestants week after week to prove she had what it took to be a star. Watching her hold back tears as she belted the song to her family and an audience of thousands as the nation looked on resonated with us for some reason. That reason is a very precise formula crafted by American Idol that made us tune in faithfully every year for more than a decade. 

American Idol is precisely what its title refers to. The focus of the show is to take ordinary people from off the streets, and with the help of industry savvy judges and musical mentors, craft them into someone the American public can idolize. Right before our eyes we watched them transform from their often humble beginnings to superstars. Typically those who win are the embodiment of the “American” image. Think of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Jordin Sparks. They were all sweet, relatable young girls with bubbly personalities in addition to their amazing voices. You could imagine them as your sister, daughter, cousin, or friend. They were people we liked and therefore were easy to root on and so we kept pushing them further and further into the spotlight. Even notable contestants like David Archuletta, Katherine McPhee, and Kellie Pickler, who didn’t win, were able to have successful careers after their time on the show, largely because the public was so enthralled with them, they were desperate to continue to support them. 

Perhaps it’s because Idol caters to the general public and what they wish to see from their superstars, why the show has produced more household names than any other singing competition show. But the idea of the “American” image sometimes backfires, like in the cases of Adam Lambert and Jennifer Hudson. Hudson competed in the same season as Fantasia, but was eliminated after being in the bottom three with Barrino and another Black contestant, LaToya London. In a statement, guest mentor Sir Elton John said the results were “ incredibly racist” after noticing that she and the other “Three Divas” were constantly in the bottom despite their talent. Only later, when she won an Academy Award for Dreamgirls, did people remember Hudson was on the show and lamented on how it was possible she could have ever been eliminated. Adam Lambert lost his season to winner Kris Allen. It was evident that Lambert was the clear winner, but to my shock and the shock of others, the public crowned Allen the victor of Season 8. It was rumored by many that Lambert lost because he was gay and because Allen, a devout Christian, had a more docile, “tolerable” image that didn’t upset more conservative viewers. Lambert went on, of course, to be the more successful of the two, becoming a member of Queen, getting a Grammy nomination, and a host of other accomplishments while Allen’s career faded after the show ended. 

Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t, but by and large Idol worked because Americans knew what they wanted and proved they would do what it took to get it. Even when we chose the wrong winner, as long as we liked them, they always had our support, because we revel in being able to say “we knew them when” even when we didn’t know them at all. If we feel like we know these contestants, if they feel familiar to us, because we see ourselves in them, then we do whatever we can to make them succeed, because it means we can too. That’s what a show like Idol is for. Simon Cowell said it best himself that night in 2004 when Seacrest asked him what the winner of [the] competition gets, “What they always wanted: fame, stardom, a ton of money...ummm, it’s what it’s all about. I have to say, this competition has proven. This is the best talent show on Earth.” 

For some years, American Idol was the best talent show on Earth. Then Cowell left, it went through a period of rotating judges before Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson left for good as well, and what used to be the pinnacle of American competition reality television slowly faded to make way for newcomers. Insert: The X Factor (the show Cowell left Idol for). My desire to audition for the show was inspired by what I’d seen on the previous two seasons, most notably: Fifth Harmony. Back then, they wore bright, feminine clothes and signature giant bows adorned their clothes. They were five teenage girls brought together by the judges, and made it to 3rd place and eventually world stardom. As we know, the group disbanded and the girls pursued solo careers, most notably Camilla Cabello and Normani: the group’s standout members. But Fifth Harmony wasn’t the only group to be manufactured by The X Factor. While there have been several, there were two notable groups created on the UK version of the show: girl group Little Mix and boy band One Direction. Just like their successor, Fifth Harmony, both bands were created on the show, and competed in the finals. One Direction placed 3rd and Little Mix became the 1st band to win. Other The X Factor contestants you may know are James Arthur, Olly Murs, and Leona Lewis. 

There is something to be said about X Factor and its ability to produce stars. It’s clear from the title that the show is about finding someone who has the “je ne sais quoi” that we know to be star power. You must have the perfect combination of age, style, sound, look, likability, and personality to make it far on that show. It’s rare that someone outside of the context of what’s cool will make it past televised auditions. In the case of 1D, they were cute, young boys, who Simon believed would be easily bankable because together they had each of those qualities mixed in the perfect format. Liam had sound, Zayn had style, Harry had the look, Louis had personality, and Niall, likability. Each of them possessed each of those qualities, but it was their ability to play up their dominant one that helped launch 1D into the world’s first billion dollar boy band. All of the image training and guidance they received as contestants and later in their career is why many members have gone on to broach successful music careers (ie. Zayn, Niall, and Harry’s solo album releases). 

The X Factor is a show that pushes its contestants to be ‘industry focused’. They are molded and guided by their judges on what they can change to be more appealing, with judges going so far as to insist their contestants get makeovers and then commenting on them during the show. Noticeably when judges fight for their contestants during elimination episodes, they often plead with the public to save their contestant by listing the many things that make them special rather than necessarily highlighting their vocal capabilities. Even when complimenting their contestants, a lot of emphasis is placed on how good the contestant looks or how appropriate their set dressing and performance are rather than focusing solely on their voice. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Often when watching live performances during awards shows like the Grammys or the VMAs our critiques are not always or only focused on vocal performance. As an audience, we can forgive slightly shotty vocals, but not if they are accompanied by stiff dance movements, boring lighting choices, and dry stage presence.

The Voice, on the other hand, follows the opposite approach in its mentoring of contestants. Their focus, as evidenced by the show’s title, is on a singer’s vocal capabilities. Auditions begin with the judges’ backs turned to contestants, completely unaware of anything but their voice. This show is all about the talent and less about the image. You can be a 45 year old parent of five, a college dropout, or a plucky Midwestern teenager and have the same chance to succeed as anyone else. Of course, as the show progresses contestants are styled and given makeovers and the judges’ advice starts to get slightly more industry focused. The focus is still primarily on the voice, but when it comes to eliminations, judges often subliminally reinforce their contestants' pasts as reasons why they’re more deserving to stay than another judge’s contestant. There’s even a part of the show, the Battle Rounds, where judges select two members of their team (often with similar styles and tones of voice) to compete with each other before eliminating one. This is when external factors and marketability come into play. Some judges blatantly say they know they can take one contestant farther than another as the basis for their decision. In those instances, talent and vocal ability are not the major deciding factors. Overall, the show has a more wholesome feel to it that is lost in American Idol and The X Factor. It’s less blatantly about finding someone who has star quality and is moldable to the industry, and more about finding people who may have been discounted by record labels because they don’t fit an image. 

Interestingly enough, of all the shows I’ve mentioned, The Voice has the least number of recognizable contestants. Go ahead, tell me who won last season? I’ll wait. All jokes aside, contestants Cassadee Pope, Melanie Martinez, Christina Grimmie, and Tessanne Chin (who already had a small following in Jamaica), are the only ones with name recognition. None of these artists have anywhere near the same accolades as Idol’s biggest stars. Aside from Martinez (who gained some Internet fame after the release of her single “Cry Baby” and Grimmie (who was tragically murdered in 2016) many of The Voice’s former contestants haven’t seen their careers take flight the way they might have had they auditioned for other shows. It’s ironic because The Voice has contestants that are the most relatable to its audience. The contestants’ achievements are attainable and the contestants themselves are not that different at the end of the show than they were at the beginning. If there were ever people to project our obsession onto, surely it should be them. But maybe, because their success isn't as big as we want it to be, is why The Voice fails in comparison to its contemporaries. We don’t want our superstars to be relatable, but rather seem relatable. We don’t want to be friends with them, we want to think we could be them. Their successes are our successes and if they gave it their best shot and are still relatively unknown with little money, what does that mean for us in our pursuit of the American dream? That’s an answer I’m not sure we’re ready to hear yet.

Recently, Diddy produced the show The Four: Battle for Stardom. It was a follow-up to his early 2000s success, the Making the Band series, which produced girl groups Danity Kane and Day26. Diddy, forever the capitalist, likely saw The Four as a way to reintroduce the singing competition show to American audiences. Its only season brought us memes and a white girl with dreadlocks, but little cultural impact outside of that and it seems now, like Diddy and all involved have moved on. It should’ve stuck around longer or at least had more of a cultural footprint, but the brief return to cult following reality tv competition singing shows, was not as welcomed as initially thought. Likely, because of the Internet. After Scooter Braun and Usher discovered Justin Bieber and rocketed him into super mega-stardom in the early 2010s, a crop of other YouTube wannabes popped up in his place. Bieber clones Cody Simpson, Austin Mahone, and Shawn Mendes owe their careers to the website (and to the now defunct, Vine). The accessibility of standing in front of a camera in your bedroom with just your instruments and your voice, seemed like an easier route to stardom for most people than subjecting themselves to the rigor and judgment of a competition show.

This platform that largely was used for funny cat videos, became a source for talent at a time when Internet content learned it could be commoditized. If you think about it, contestants on Idol post- Cowell, X Factor, and The Voice circa 2011-2013, never really stood a chance at becoming like the superstars before them. In an age where one can go on Twitter and discover their new favorite rapper (Meg Thee Stallion, Flo Milli, CupcakKe) or curate their career with stylized covers of songs (Jessie J, Tori Kelly, Charlie Puth), it doesn’t seem so necessary to go on TV to find your audience. And we, the audience, still get a little rush of dopamine with each click and share of a video because we know when we see these stars get a Beyoncé cosign, we helped get them there. So when it comes to our faves, like Chloe x Halle who are managed by Bey, listening to their new album, Ungodly Hour, feels like we were right there with them in the studio throughout the process. When the sister duo inevitably clean up at the upcoming Grammys ceremony, Black Twitter will dust off shelves in their own places to house the phantom trophies we won alongside them. 

As someone who briefly tried to transcend from viewer to participant in reality competition tv show history, I must examine our inherent fascination with these shows and why we, the “audience”, are obsessed with taking part in crafting our own pop stars. It is deeply entrenched in the minds of Americans that we all have the opportunity to transform from rags to riches. It’s why billionaires are so revered in society. We somehow believe that if these people who came from humble beginnings can game the system and amass levels of wealth, that we too have the same opportunities. We each have the same 24 hours, right? It is this capitalistic ideal that is fed to us why we center our lives around wealth and status. For all my critiques of capitalism and billionaires, I can’t say I would turn down free money or the chance to get a bigger house or go on nicer vacations and if there’s an easier way to achieve those things, I’d go after them. The allure of a show like The X Factor, American Idol, and The Voice is their ability to turn Average Joes into instant celebrities with built in fan bases and wealth beyond their wildest dreams. As someone with (I think) above average talent and ambition to spare, The X Factor felt like my chance at that, but for others, it can be one of the tens of other existing shows or one soon to be in fruition. Singing competition shows will never stop being made and people will never stop wanting to audition for them. And we will continue to consume because we’re obsessed with building people from the ground up. It’s just the American way.