I remember bounding down the stairs on weeknights as an adolescent, eagerly anticipating the mockery that was soon to ensue on the family-room TV.
American Idol changed the way we looked at and interacted with reality TV, not just for my family but for the whole country.
My mom would convene my dad, sister and I after long days of school and work in order to watch the one thing that seemed to calm our nerves: American Idol or, in other words, the show in which millions of people’s nerves got the best of them.
I was a mere second-grader when the phenomenon began.
Kelly Clarkson stunned the entire country with her vocals, and soon enough Fox’s Idol became an Americana mainstay.
But it wasn’t just the punchy vocals the contestants displayed that broke ground for reality television. It was the fact that their fate was in everyone’s hands.
Across the country, Americans would tune in because of a moral obligation.
They felt responsible for each participant’s livelihood in the competition.
I would sit on our oriental rug in my pink fleece pajama set and bounce up and down at Simon’s British indecency.
When the end of the show was near and my bedtime approached, my mother would cast five votes by fervently dialing her favorite vocalist’s number.
It became a routine of sorts — a familial bonding that formed an interconnected web of fans simultaneously aroused by their stake in the hearty battle.
But as time went on and second grade suddenly became seventh, I, like many other cold-blooded teenagers, began to distance myself from my mother and Idol’s juvenile idiosyncrasies, as did the pseudo-stars the show cranked out .
I call it the Disney Channel effect: moving as far away from the very thing that made them famous in the first place.
It’s most easily seen with child celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato, whose break-ups with Disney were far from clean.
In years past, successful Idol participants like Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood and Fantasia ended up distancing themselves from the pageantry altogether in order to create their own identity.
Hudson went on to pursue an acting career, Underwood became a country music legend and Fantasia went back to her Broadway roots.
The show, besides experiencing a few judge swaps, stayed the same.
But it’s key to realize the world around it was experiencing a multitude of changes in terms of the vast advances our digitally dynamic world is constantly undergoing.
Now, 14 years and 15 seasons later, American Idol has come to its close.
It’s an idol of American culture, not for the talent that has risen up from its empire, but because of the paradigm shift it created for reality TV.
Tiny screens on tablets and cellphones have eclipsed the hulky television sets that Ryan Seacrest’s face graced every season.
Instead of watching entire episodes, individuals share the most memorable performances via YouTube videos posted to Facebook.
We invest our time in camaraderie.
From sports games to shows like Survivor and American Idol, reality TV shows provide us with a healthy dose of competition and entertainment every week without having to get our hands dirty.
jlkarl@indiana.edu
@jkarl26
