America's Got Recycled, Repackaged Talent 2008. Where Have I Seen This Before?

It surprises me to be posting about something along the line of Reality TV, and PLEASE Mods, move this to the Lounge if you need to, because I'm not even sure if I should be posting about subject matter like this in this forum anyway.

Why a Post about annoying "reality" pap like this?

Because if anyone is familiar with Season 2 of Britain's Got Talent, if you saw the premiere of this season's American version of the show, you would probably be very taken aback by what you saw.

In fact, if you have any knowledge of Season 2 of BGT, or perhaps caught it on YouTube, you would probably remember the shy, painfully bashful Cell-phone salesman, Paul Potts, who took the British ITV Audience by storm with his Opera Chops (Pott's was the ultimate winner last year), a kind, but self-confidence lacking "underdog" who seemingly came out of nowhere, and stunned the judges, the crowd, and the country with his singing.

As Simon Cowell lamented what I am sure most were thinking after his performance.....

We weren't expecting that.

You would also remember the adorable 6 year-old Connie Talbot, who made it to the finals by being the most precious little singer she could be.

And also Craig, the Baton Twirler who hid his passion from his parents and his friends because of the fear he would be bullied at school. He put on a great performance, and his Grandmother, who has always supported him, came out onstage to thunderous cheers to stand by his side.

You probably also would remember their back stories, the set up for their introductions and performances, the crowd and judge reactions, etc. It all seemed like good fun, good entertainment, and like a true diamond in the rough was discovered in Potts. An underdog conquering his fears and the world story if there ever was one.

Enter last night......

And what did wondering eyes find on this show?

Jonathan, the 17 year-old baton Twirler. Similar looking to Craig. The back story was changed a bit, family supported him completely, bullied by his peers. Put on ggreat performance (Hey, the kid was good), and then just like Craig's Grandmum, the proud mother joins son onstage to thunderous ovation.

Wow that was eerily similar.

Then later we see Kaitlyn Maher, 4 years-old, strikingly similar to Connie Talbot, but nowhere near as good a singer. Still, very similar back story and setup as her British counterpart.

Hmmmmm. That's kind of odd.

And then we get to the end of the evening with Neal Boyd, the unassuming, shy Insurance salesman who was there to.....

Sing Opera.

????????

And sing Opera he did.

Just like Paul Potts did last year.

The same song. The same reaction.

WTF?

Now look, I don't want to seem cynical, but if I didn't know better, this appears to be a very slickly produced, repackaged recreation of the show from last year, tailored and altered slightly for the American audience.

As for the singers in question, do they have talent? Watch for yourself, that's not in dispute. Their abilities speak for themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVrAIPuFLhM

But as far as how they are being PRESENTED and PACKAGED as undiscovered underdogs out of nowhere? And those packages are being presented as true out of the blue, by chance discoveries that are genuine, spontaneous, and completely unexpected by everyone involved with the respective shows? As far as how the shows themselves are being presented as genuine and legit?

After going to Boyd's Website and reading his Bio, and finding it to be basically Paul Potts 2.0, American Edition, color me skeptical.

Now, I will be the first to admit, after being subjected to 7 years of Political and Media Propaganda that the World has not seen since Goebbels, perhaps I'm being a little paranoid, a little overboard, and blowing things out of proportion. It wouldn't be the first time I have done so in my life, and it won't be the last. If that's the case, pardon the interruption, and by all means, let's get back to the Last Days Of Our Republic, already in progress.

I mean, there is no disputing we've got a HELL of a lot more to deal with on our plates than this. (See Iowa, Midwest Flooding)

And for those who are fans of either of these gentlemen, I am NOT throwing stones at them or their talent. They have beautiful voices, and like I said, their talent is not in dispute, nor should they be denigrated for it.

What I have issue with is the manufactured reality that is being built around them, and sold to the public as genuine and undiscovered, and something special.

Propaganda, Social, Behavioral, and Cultural Engineering come in all forms, and in my opinion, this is just another cynical example of it.



The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

They are doing it to us on a Political Level and a Cultural level. And just about any level you can think of at this point.

And although many will probably dismiss this post as much ado about nothing, if you think about what's being done to ALL of us on said Political and Cultural Level, it's just another example of manipulation and manufactured reality. Sure it's being marketed as harmless entertainment.....

Because it makes me wonder where it all stops.

On Edit: The relevance of this Post? It's just another example of how forms of Media and Entertainment are used to manipulate you and sell and market something to you as "Reality", when it is more than a bit obvious that it is anything but.

we do just what they want us to do. Where does it all stop? It doesn't. K&R

...for $cientology!

LOL!

Call me crazy, but how many of the finalists are members if the world's most dangerous cult?

Plus, American Idle is so closely tied to corporate music it doesn't need any more bad stories coming out about it.

manipulation of the public, in every aspect of our lives, as Autumn wrote. Everything we see and hear on MSM is being packaged and sold, from products to politicians to pundits to peanuts,and your OP points that out quite well.

Fortunately most of us @ DU are intelligent enough to recognize this manipulation, and can decide who and what we believe, what to buy and not to buy, etc. but there are a lot of feeble minded, apathetic, terminally indifferent or just plain willfully ignorant people in this country who can't or won't decide what's best for themselves or their country, they depend on the "Experts" to tell them what to do. This is why, IMHO, all the stuff I've read here of a "landslide" win for Obama is DANGEROUS.

I know that most here probably "get it" when it comes to things like this, but a lot of the reaction I saw yesterday on YouTube and other communities was astonishing.

People even went as far as to say even if it WAS probably scripted, they didn't care because it made them feel good, and they "couldn't help but be suckers for it." And anyone who tried to calmly and rationally point out and discuss the points I made in this post was met with such blind hostility.

There is a disturbing percentage of people in this country who are almost desperately willing to believe whatever they are shown and told, and be manipulated by it. What's worse, they see nothing wrong with it. They would rather believe in the lie than face even a hint of any difficult truth, or acknowledge any evidence that they are being manipulated and played like puppets on strings.

It's all about feeling good, feeling powerful, and comfort, and having their emotions stroked in a way that is satisfying. The Truth? That's just too hard. Can't be bothered with that.

We keep wondering why The Dam doesn't break in this country, and people do not rise up and take their country back. Maybe many of them just can't be bothered to.

They don't want to think for themselves, and have no interest in learning or actually engaging in anything that resembles critical thought.

Whether they realize it or not, they are perfectly content in their servitude.

And what's worse? They STILL Think They Are Free.