Happiness through Television

[labrujah]

jenslinky & I spent many consecutive hours watching TV last night, as is our right as Americans. I had the pleasure of learning about Bobby, the VJ host of the non-cable music video channel "Flava Videos." This is an excellent phenomenon. He is funny and personable, and isn't even mean to girls named Precious who call in and say they want to give him their phone number. Jen says he's their 5th roommate -- he's in a close-up with a black background, and he often talks to people offstage who you can't hear, like Talk Soup. Anyway, he is great. You know what else is great? American Idol!
Now, I like to think I'm not a sucker for the Fox-spawned thrillfests like Celebrity Boxing or Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire. But this one is bona fide -- all kinds of young people auditioning to be a superstar, including sappy, over-trained, bratty, hopeless and sincere. It's like the amazing audition tapes of the Real World -- people representing themselves to be judged, and in the process revealing the strange criteria of appeal which these kids interpret from the media-entertainment they're steeped in and then try to translate themselves into. Stranger than fiction, for sure.

We cheered and booed and switched over to Flava Videos during the commercials only to find that Bobby was watching American Idol also!

And then we had our own auditions, and I pretended to be the mean judge ("Congratulations! You've succeeded -- at failing!") and Jen had to be Paula Abdul and tell her roommate Addi that she should take lessons and believe in herself.