The Susan Boyle phenomenon (assignment 3a.2)

People won't shut up about Susan Boyle.

But despite all the teary-eyed colleagues who claim that "you just have to see her performance!" or the mass email that I and every other woman at Smith over the age of 23 received last week, I'm honestly not convinced. Though Susan gave a lovely performance, this whole thing stinks of a pre-packaged formula meant to spice up viewership and give the audience an emotional connection with the Britain's Got Talent brand.

I took a good seven minutes out of my lunch break to watch the video and I would describe my reaction as the following journey:

1. This woman is not ugly (which is what everyone who had described her to me up until that point had said).
2. Everyone's reactions to this woman -- who is funny and dorky and cute like a grandmother might be -- reminds me how hideous our culture actually is.
3. Of course she had an amazing voice. They wouldn't have put her on otherwise. The producers knew that people would be "surprised."
   
4. Every reaction each judge has merely reinforces the fact that Susan's acceptance is entirely based on her ability to perform in this well-honed sphere of "talent." Had she failed to deliver, she would simply return, in the eyes of the viewers and judges, to being an unattractive woman.

I have been told that I'm overintellectualizing this whole thing. Why can't I just "let her have this moment" and why do I need to "ruin it for her?" But for me, this moment has very little to do with Susan Boyle. It has a lot more to do with our reactions to this video of her performance.

And mind you this whole ordeal has been completely shaped by an editing room that went out of their way to be sure that you knew she was thought of as a social reject.

The only reason we (the grand all-encompasing "we") accept Susan Boyle is because she excels as a singer and because we don't expect her to. And even that definition of "excelling" is shaped by the parameters of the show itself. What would have happened had she opened her mouth and sounded like, say, Joanna Newsom (who, full disclosure, I cannot stand as a singer)? Conversely, if Joanna Newsom looked like Susan Boyle, would she be as lauded and praised as she is? (Second point of disclosure: I actually really like Newsom's songs, but not her singing them).

This, my friends, is all about optics (my favorite buzz word du jour) -- how it looks for the camera.

Our reaction to Susan just makes me sad. And though I am certain that her experience was amazing and uplifting and I don't look to take that away from her, I do want to grab all my friends who are falling for this by the shoulders and shake some sense into them.

Susan Boyle's story was fabricated for you by a bunch of producers who think you are a sucker. And guess what? You are.

"Happy V-day, Nice Pants" (or, Commenting IRL)

Photo courtesy of Greg Saulmon at MassLive.com

In the ongoing experiment of active online commenting, I finally posted my first comment to a piece on MassLive today.

I don't know if it is entirely fair, considering my previous disclosures about enjoying the safety of social networks, as I know the author of the post. Still, I pressed send and watched the words vanish behind the wall of the moderator. Something tells me that it will be our very own guest lecturer from last week who either passes it on or hits "delete."

However this post does double-duty, as I not only took the great leap forward of adding my opinion to the pile (that would be a pile of one, as there was not a lot of traffic surrounding it), but the piece I chose to comment on had to do with commenting IRL! (That's acronym-online speak for in real life for any readers who have not spent the last four years of their life consumed by academic treatises on the Internet).

Greg's post is titled, "Things people say when you give them a space to say them." The photo captures a message that is both witty and entertaining as well as timely commentary on our culture.

He writes about these interactions with public sphere from his own experience as an online journalist:

...When you give people the space to say what they want, you're going to get a fascinating mix of incredibly smart and incredibly stupid comments.

So, today in Northampton, when I spotted a collection of paper hearts with hand-written messages taped to the kiosk outside Urban Outfitters, I felt the same little twinge of excitement that I feel when I see a news story followed by a long comment thread. What are people saying? What are people thinking?

In the case of the paper hearts, the messages were mostly predictable: ruminations on love; commemorations of anniversaries.

There among them, though, was the message above -- a paper heart talking to a chain store. In a sense, from Anonymous, to Anonymous. Is it an example of the impersonality of commerce, or an example of how there are more ways than ever to say what you're thinking?

Honestly, I'd say it is a little bit of both...

This is so meta

Photo from fish2000, courtesy of Creative Commons/Flickr


Hello world.

Im using this blog to comment about commenting. As I said, this is so meta.

Consider this the meta of meta. I'm just commenting on the fact that I will be commenting on commenting.

Put the microphone in front of the amplifier and crank it.

With feedback as the objective...well...yeah.