In Defence of X Factor Viewers

This past Saturday night at 8pm, I sat down, along with millions of other people, to watch the first episode of ‘The X Factor’ 2012.  It was a reasonably entertaining opening episode, but there was nothing particularly new going on.  A supermarket worker who turns out to have an incredible voice.  A dead granddad.  A on-stage meltdown from a rejected contestant.  Numerous idiotic Louis Walsh moments.  Oh, and the thousands upon thousands of tweets by holier-than-thou nitwits who just can’t resist reminding all of those watching The X Factor how intellectually inferior we are.

I love Twitter.  Some (my husband) would say that I’m addicted to it.  However, come the autumn months, I really, really begin to loathe it.  It’s been happening for a good three years now, but still, I never fail to be amazed by the vitriol spouted by those who don’t watch The X Factor.  One year, on the night of the final, I was called the rudest word you can imagine (yes, that one) because I was choosing to watch that instead of the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth on UK Gold.  Never mind the fact that I’ve seen the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth so many times that I could probably recite it to you right now, and never mind the fact that I actually own it on video and so don’t need to watch it every time it’s aired.  It’s astonishing, really, the extent to which people who have no reason to care get so personally offended.  These same people might not like Eastenders, for example, but you don’t see them tweeting four times a week about the stupidity of those who do.  This is very much an exclusive X Factor thing.

So, why?  Why does The X Factor make everyone so angry?  Well, firstly, the ‘lack of talent’ seems to be an issue.  How ridiculous.  No-one can deny that in the auditions, and, sadly, even in the live shows, there are people with no real discernible talent being given airtime.  However, the vast majority of the contestants CAN sing, and some of them can sing incredibly well.  You might not like their style, you might not like the songs they choose to sing, but that doesn’t mean they’re talentless.  Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there’s the whole ‘manufactured’ issue.  It seems to be the belief of many that ‘manufactured’ acts did not exist before TV talent shows…that boybands didn’t exist before TV talent shows…that cover versions didn’t exist before TV talent shows…that artists who sing songs written for them, rather than by them, didn’t exist before TV talent shows.  In fact, teenage girls probably didn’t exist before TV talent shows either.  The whole history of popular music is littered with the above, and if you honestly believe that Simon Cowell invented it all, then it’s probably fair to say that it isn’t my intelligence that should be being questioned here.

What The X Factor does is very simple.  It takes processes that would normally be happening behind closed doors, and puts them on TV.  By doing so, it gains the record company more money, the artists more exposure and hopefully gives millions of people a bit of light entertainment on a Saturday night.  The vast majority of X Factor viewers over the age of 21 know this to be the case.  We know that, while it would be illegal to actually fix the results, the producers do everything in their power to make sure their chosen contestants win.  We know that they put through the likes of Wagner and Jedward because they get people talking, therefore gaining the show more exposure.  We know that we’re being manipulated.  We know that the show isn’t going to give us the new Beatles or Stevie Wonder.  Guess what?  WE DON’T CARE.  It’s Saturday night TV, for goodness sake.  It’s designed to be easy viewing, to be enjoyed with a takeaway and a glass of wine at the end of a long week of work/school.  What on earth is so bad about that?  Just because I watch X Factor, and God forbid, might even buy a Leona Lewis or JLS album on the back of it, who cares?  Really, why does it matter?  Acts like Leona and JLS would still be in the charts without it, just as acts like Whitney and Boyzone were before it began.  Oh, and wait, what’s that?  It’s ruined Christmas number one, you say?  Oh, I KNOW.  I miss the days of Mr Blobby and Bob the Builder too.  Hey, remember when the Spice Girls got Christmas number one three years running?  You know, the Spice Girls: that totally non-manufactured, incredibly talented pop group.

If you don’t like the kind of music that comes out of The X Factor, that’s fine.  I don’t either, half of the time.  It’s not going away though.  There’s a market for it-always has been, and always will be.  What’s more, if The X Factor does come to an end soon, the human race won’t suddenly decide that it loves Les Claypool way more than it loves Rihanna.  So just…calm down.  Let it go.  Listen to what you want, and let everyone else get on with what they want too.  It would make the world so much nicer.