to be amazed that something as psychologically manipulative as X Factor is allowed on air?

[moondog]

I've been watcihng it for the 1st time.
I can't beleive they are allowed to toy with people's lives like this, building them up, playing with them and then casting them aside.

What an unbelievably unpleasant concept.
I feel tainted for having watched it.

That's true - but once they're there they're manipulated and toyed with like a cat with a mouse.

but not only the contestants. the viewers are played like a fiddle every series. X falls out with Y, Y threatens to leave. Z votes off A then changes their mind and runs after them with the news of a lifetime

Soppy music accompanies every sob story, with Ant & Dec practically in tears. X factor is only for the terminally gullible

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Ant and Dec?! They haven't been on it for years, pffft! Dermot is practically in tears.

Yes, upsetting people and making people cry is acceptable - in fact, is good entertainment? And the judges making out that they didn't want to do it - but doing it anyway?

Well, yes, the premise of the show is that acts will be sent off until they are left with a winner, whether the public vote them off or the judges. It's a competition. They can't all win or else it wouldn't be a singing competion. It's a bit like a football match; one team will lose, one will win. If both teams win, it ceases to be a competition. Are you suggesting that the people singing in the live shows don't know this?

Sorry but that's just the arts world.

Every on eof the judges will have had knock backs, public humiliations etc

Just because someone cried doesn't mean their life is runined. Every one who has ever had a dream has cried along the raod to achieveing it.

I LOVE it! Watching people being made to cry is the highlight of my entire week. None of the contestants have SN, they might be thick but that doesn't make them SN. Get a grip!

And to be honest I've seen some threads on MN where some of the breast beating posters on here have completely slated the work of a writer.

Do they not think that such comments hurt a writer? Do they care?

Of course they don't. Once you put your stuff out there you have to grow avery thick skin indeed.

Animation - at the end of the day, the X Factor is in the business of making money and entertaining people. The contestants know the score and are quite prepared to make total tits of themselves for their 15 minutes of fame - yes, there are some very vulnerable people put up for ridicule in the audition stages, but that's entertainment to millions of people - sad but true. ( look at Jeremy Kyle, it's all point, stare, gasp, laugh, TV )
Plus lots of people will go on the X Factor just to get some exposure - they know they'll never win it but it gets them seen.

This is all very interesting but one thing I have learned in life is this - you will never ever beat the professional disapprovers. Never. It's their raison d'etre. If it wasn't this programme it would be another. Back in the day these people used to be elderly men and women who got through life by clicking their tongues and disapproving. Now it's much younger worthy types, seriously humourless types who are never ever going to be happy with anyone else enjoying a frivolous, albeit entertaining, TV show.

Funny though how they all know so much about it!

"The contestants know the score and are quite prepared to make total tits of themselves"

I don't believe the score should include emotional manipulation - and the young 16-18 years olds are too young for that treatment. I have a 15 year old and I hate to think of her stood up there last night. It's too much!

Animation - why? Is your 15 year old a crap singer? ;)

:o Bats. You read my mind!

Bats, they only saw it for the first time last night/at their "friend's" house. You do know that, right?

Anyway, one can't sit reading Proust all the time. The X-Factor and the like are like little holidays for the brain.

If you go on such a programme, you have to be prepared to a degree for what happens on it. However, in my view all judges should have the following etched on their brains:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

W B Yeats

Oh yes - d'oh - silly me! Of course they only saw a very small bit of it by complete accident and are now so traumatised that they'll have to spend the entire day beating themselves with home made recycled hemp whips.

"Animation - why? Is your 15 year old a crap singer? ;)"

I think she is too young to go through a process like the one last night and be reduced to tears and sobbing. Having a 15 year old brings it home to you how traumatic it must be for them.

It's a programme on ITV, so its primary purpose is to pull in viewers, max out advertising time & make money. It pulls in the viewers by being watchable. Whether you like it or not, it is watched by millions & millions of Brits.

It is worth bearing in mind that only 100 years ago, people thought watching hangings was an entertaining way to spend a morning & we paid to visit Bedlam & laugh at the mad people. We've come a long way!

I actually think that whilst it glorifies the pop industry, it does teach people that life is full of hard knocks & you have to work really hard if you want to be a singer. It is not just a question of pitching up, singing & making a whole load of money. You do have to have half an iota of talent, work hard week in week out & be able to pull off the whole performance thang.
No one is forced to go on it. Yes there are some really, really poor singers who get humiliated - but they are there of their own free will. If you really don't like it, don't watch it, write to ITV and complain, write to the TV ombudsman & write to your MP!

Who is fifteen? They have to be sixteen to get on, don't they?

Having been a 15 year old singer, I would have given my left arm for that kind of exposure, tbh. Teenagers who are focused on arts careers are tougher than you think, I willingly put myself through all sorts when I was that age and I don't regret an iota of it.

Yes they have to be sixteen - is that a world of difference?

I think it's very similar to visiting Bedlam and watching hangings.

I wonder if any of the judges / producers / TV execs are on MN?

Maybe MNHQ should arrange a webchat with Gary Barlow so we can drool all over him Simon Cowell and get his opinion?

I don't understand the people clutching the hems of their cardigans about such things. I agree with cognito that this is the the continuation of the crap programmes which were on TV in the 70s and 80s. I can remember Nina Myskow being absolutely brutal to some poor sap playing the ukelele or whatever.

Yes X factor is rather more sophisticated in its manipulation of both contestant and audience, however I think the contestants know what they are getting into, and the audience also have a level of cynicism towards how the whole programme is effectively puppeted by Simon Cowell.

I think this whole cycle of talent contests has had its day - in years to come people will look back and be rather scornful and amused at how people were so entertained by Simon Cowell's vision of the music industry, and i assume he will be considered a creep like Hughie Green is now. And then some other TV fad will take over. And that possibly will be just as manipulative as this one.

American x factor they are a s young as 12.

Plus American x factor have much much much better singers on it.

Melancholista it is not like watching a hanging. That is a silly thing to say, IMO. Because no-one dies.