Malaysian Idol: Whinging about whingers

There is a discussion titled "Complains everywhere!!!! NO PROFESIONAL JUDGEMENT" on the Bluehyppo/Malaysian Idol discussion board. Basically some people are upset (others are very upset) that there is a pre-audition round and not all the contestants meet Paul/Roslan/Jee. Words like "unfair" are being used. The crux of the complaint is that bad singers are getting through the pre-audtition and good singers are not.

How do I put this? Erm... STOP WHINGING. Yeah, that's right. I could add, "Life is unfair", "the world isn't Malaysian Idol" and "then do something about it already".

I think some people hold on to unreasonable expectations:

• All contestants should meet the three judges: It was announced that auditions would take place in four cities, for a total of twelve days altogether. At the last count, nearly 10,000 people auditioned for Malaysian Idol (6,000 in KL alone). If the three judges saw each of them for two minutes each, we'd be looking at about two months of auditions. You could have figured out before auditions even began that there would have been no way for the judges to meet everybody. And for those of you who say "But the judges meet everyone on American Idol", do the maths yourself: For AI3 70,000 people auditioned. Did they really meet everyone?


• They should only let good people through pre-auditions: The Idol series is entertainment. And the bad singers are funny. Entertaining, even. Given the success of this format overseas, it is unreasonable to expect people to stop doing this in Malaysia.


• If they select "bad" over "good", good singers will miss their chance to impress: The questions to ask are "How many good singers have lost out because they let bad ones through?" and "Of those singers who lost out, how many would have made it to the top 100?". My guess? The bottom 10% (of those short-listed) would have lost out to "bad" singers. And the top 20% (of those short-listed) would have been picked for the top 100. Fudging the maths a little, assuming that the bottom 10% would have been visibly worse than the top 20%, I would guess that out of everyone who auditioned (10,000), maybe 10 people or so lost out the chance to be in the top 100. 10 out of 10,000. Roughly your chances of getting 2nd prize on Magnum 4D.

Let's face it: If you're auditioining because you want to win MI, then yeah, it might seem harsh. But if you're auditioning because you want a recording contract - then this is one out of many options out there. If you're really good (good enough to win MI), then this is just a minor setback, and put into perspective of the sweat and tears involved, it's nothing.

Stop whinging.

Labels: tv