Friday, August 1, 2008

Gets Idolized

I feel safe here, so I will just lay it out on the table. I am an idol fan. Now, there is a strict hierarchy in the system, and I am proud to say that I am nowhere near the top of the Idol food chain. Let's disect for a minute, we'll start from the bottom:

The 'drop in' - This is the fan that 'drops in' every year to see who they like. Sure, they'll watch the prelimenary episodes to catch all of the freaks, but rarely stick it out through each and every round. They'll catch an occasional song and possibly the finale, yet you'll keep hearing them say "So wait, where's Dunkleman?!"

The 'watcher' - Here you've got your 'average joe.' Sure they'll TIVO each episode and rate their favorites, but this person has a handle on the mania. Not only will they rewind through the commercials and added product placements, but they'll lay low when all of the voting hoopla gets out of hand. (this is where I fall)

The 'fanatic' - Ok, so this is when it starts getting serious. These people remember past seasons, donate to "Idol Gives Back," vote on a very regular basis and occasionally frequent the message boards. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with this kind of devotion, I just think that there needs to be an accountability partner or some sort of watch group for when things get a little nutty.

The 'lunatic' - What we have here is a serious problem. The key elements to this status are emotional outbursts, hours logged into Idol research/stalking, exorbant amounts of money spent on paraphenalia, and heated discussions that leave people thinking "wait, is she related to that contestant?!"

Now, those are just the high points of the Idol hysteria. Sure, you can fall into a 'grey' zone and consider yourself a 'tweener,' but the main objective is to keep yourself in check. I use all of this to explain that I found myself in a grey zone this week. I received a frantic email from Robbie wanting to know if I wanted to sit in the 11th row in New Jersey for the American Idol concert. No aspect of this email was unusual. Robbie inquiring about upcoming show - normal, needing a turnaround time of five minutes - nothing out of the ordinary, American Idol concert - a little bit of a stretch. Listen, I love little Archie with the best of them. I even bought into the whole David v. David finale...but I felt certain that I'd never crossover into an actual fan. Well, plans change my friends. I put on my sundress, bought my cotton candy (pink) and enjoyed the show that was full of so much awesomeness that I won't even begin to try and cover it all, but I'll try my best to supply you with some serious mental images.

So let's see...the highlights: Kristy Lee sang 'Proud to be an American,' Syesha got a boob job, Carly fixed her teeth (veneers?), Little Archie sang 'Apologize', and David Cook wore enough eye makeup to keep MAC in business. All in all, it had the trappings of so much ridiculousness that we couldn't contain ourselves. We even stopped to wait for them to come out, until we realized that we were losers that had to be at work the next morning. Plus, there was a Make-A-Wish girl in a wheelchair right next to us, and it just didn't feel right trying to get an autograph on our ticket stubs when she had literally flown across the country to see them, so we left.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so the better part of the night will be flashes in my mind, but as you can imagine...it was everything that a mediocre fan could hope for.

Notable quote: "Carly...look up." - my gentle attempt to tell Carly to look up for me to take a picture with my cell phone. Low point.

2 comments:

  1. Awesome! You SO know that with your descriptions, Coleen would definitely fall into the "fanatic" category. She does vote religiously and i wouldn't put it past her to donate to IGB. And, I'm just going to add that I am very dissapointed that you forgot your camera....tisk tisk.

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  2. pickle from a stranger?

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