American Idol: The Mind of the Voter

As we have progressed through this second edition of American Idol, one thing has become clear – many voters are not basing their votes solely on the performance of the week, but on either their overall performances or simply the fact that they are fans of that contestant. In case there was any doubt, we’ve had two straight weeks where Ryan Seacrest might as well have screamed it for all to hear when he announced the results. Rickey and Kimberly should not have gone yet based purely on the performances of those weeks. But they aren’t around anymore, and it’s the viewer votes (or lack thereof) that sent them home.

Many of us here at Foxes On Idol and RealityNewsOnline have mentioned this situation in passing, but it’s time to address it head-on. I will do so in part with e-mails I have received on the topic.

We’ll start with an e-mail from Shannon that was written a couple weeks back when we were talking about how poorly Joshua had performed:

First and foremost, your article and the follow-up brought up an interesting aspect of the competition: That Joshua should have been in the bottom three last week because he sang poorly on Tuesday. I can honestly say that until I read your article and then really thought about it, I was not under the impression that voters were "supposed" to vote on the individuals’ performance of the night, and I don't believe American Idol has ever made that point clear either. Each week I vote on who I like, period. … If Ryan Seacrest EVER looked into the camera and said "Based on what you heard TONIGHT from our singers, and what you thought about them TONIGHT, call in your votes and vote for who you think should go on..." I honestly believe that millions of votes would be different, and that Americans would feel much more obligated to vote on talent and 'superstar potential' from that week alone, and not just who their favorite is for whatever reason.

There is some logic to this. Shannon pointed out later in the e-mail that if a singer has done admirably throughout the competition but had one bad week, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to refuse to vote for them. Isn’t everybody allowed a mistake now and then? Indeed, as I was writing this, I realized that I was guilty of this myself, as I wrote an article last year encouraging people to vote for Kelly even if by some slim chance she slipped up in her final performance. But the fact is that Kelly never did slip up, and so perhaps that’s what some of us are expecting from this year’s Idol as well.

There is other logic to it as well. Because of the genre-hopping, it’s possible that a good singer could end up in a genre where there is simply nothing to suit him or her. Yes, American Idol this season has not exactly been strict in their interpretation of the genres, but still, if we’re looking for somebody to sing pop songs, who cares if they can sing country? I don’t particularly want to hear country, anyway. Kelly Clarkson, on her new album, has a number of different styles of music – but not a single “big band” song among ‘em. She did well in that category last season, but what if she hadn’t? Should we have voted her off? Of course not.