I hate the American version of The X Factor and here are 5 reasons why.

[Kitsa]

(I hate the original too, but that's a different post)

1) Cultural Tunnel Vision: the whole "watch Simon Cowell's NEW show", tune in to see what happens on the NEW show, blahblahblah. Except it's not the new show at all, is it? It's the almost-ten-years-old show, regurgitated for an audience for whom all television knowledge begins and ends with American network TV.

2) We know what you're doing: The UK version of the show, while already bearing some strong similarities to Pop Idol (or American Idol, as the case may be), was about as lazy effortwise as you could get while still being its own part of that original group (Pop Idol, X Factor, Britain's Got Talent). Not only did each of these shows get an American makeover and proclaim themselves as new things to an insulting level, but really. Why not call this American Idol 2? The judge lineup is so formulaic you just re-used two of them and chucked in someone who image and background-wise might as well be the third. All of the original shows might as well have been the same thing anyway, and now all the new shows are just like shoveling some more manure on the pile.

3) Hubris. Formulaic hubris, no less. I'm getting tired of how heavy-handed it is.

4) It's all meticulously staged bullshit. Does anyone really believe for one moment that the pants-dropping gentleman would have gotten to the stage? Does anyone for a moment think that the lipglossed elites on the dais are going to sit through thousands upon thousands of cattle call auditions, and that this wacky guy just happened to make it through? Really?

5) If seeing some random idiot's bobbing peen makes you run and throw up, you've got bigger problems.

I could go on, about overproduction and unlikable "personalities", but I'll stop there. I hate these shows and don't know why I held off changing the channel as long as I did. Won't make that mistake again.

Is no one else insulted that producers would think you're that stupid?