Racism in American Idol?

[GWB]

Article (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20040513-1828-tv-americanidol.html)

quote:
Of the 29 states in Verizon's local territory, only New York and California logged more calls on its network than Hawaii after the show, a Verizon spokesman said Thursday. California and New York are among the most populous states in the nation; Hawaii is among the least.

[Hirez]

how is it racism if people are just voting from the same state

state-ism maybe, not racism.

and stuff like this will always happen unless american idol does a 1 vote per phone type rule which they wont because then they wont be able to say OMG 35 million calls last night!(*(*$(*Q#

[Milo Balzich]

I have make many call on my cell horn. Nobody can see it is from same person who is me Milo Balzich. I call American Idol show and vote, but each time is with how you say Pre-Paid Telephone Card. I always vote for Rian OceanCrust, but he does not vin.

The show I think is racist because there are too many Germans and Cretins, allot of Cretins and not the ones from Crete. I saw one Dalmatian, but she was kicked off by that mean Simon.

[OnlinePokerCoach]

Jeez, no wonder the she stayed in. She is not in the same class as the other three singers. In fact, I thought La Toya was the best singer, albeit she could use some image enhancement given she carries herself with the maturity of a 40 year old (50?).

OnlinePokerCoach.com

[GrannyMae]

only New York and California logged more calls on its network than Hawaii after the show


simon cowell, in his dumbass wisdom, decided to make the comment,
"jasmine, you better hope every home in hawaii has 5 telephones, because you are going to need it"

insult a local hero from any state of any size, and you can guarantee that they will hit redial for 2 hours. FWIW, the only week i voted i was able to vote 10 times for fantasia in 10 minutes, then got bored with it. if the population of hawaii did this for 2 hours, it is no suprise whatever that she advanced.

matter of fact, simon's words will still ring as a "challenge" to them this week, and i expect jasmine may be in the final 2.

cowell was trying to protect the show, and he fuked up bad.

http://smilies.sofrayt.com/%5E/3/fie.gif

[astroglide]

you hit the nail on the head. after having heard about the "situation" in hawaii prior to this, my jaw hit the floor as soon as he made that comment because i figured he had accidentally kicked a hornet's nest.

if jasmine makes the 2, i think it should force voting reform, which can only be a good thing. 5 votes per phone number, verified using caller id. no caller id, no vote. simple, right?

[jdl22]

It's clearly not racism. Racism would involve voting for one person over another simply because they are of a given race. That's not the case here. I believe the girl from Hawaii is filipino. The people voting from Hawaii are certainly not only filipinos but also whites, asians, and native Hawaiians.

To anybody that knows someone from Hawaii or has been there not just as a tourist it's quite simple. People from Hawaii are more proud of their state than people from any other state including Texas. For example, before sporting events they always sing the state song after the national anthem. I'm from Oregon and have no idea whatsoever if there is a state song. At a UH volleyball game I went to (I would strongly advise anyone going there to attend a volleyball game, it's pretty fantastic) I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the gym other than the opposing team that did not know the words to the state song which is in Hawaiian. People there tend to fly the Hawaiian flag before flying the American flag. This has changed somewhat after 9/11 and I have a biased sample having stayed on winward Oahu where most people living there have ancestors who were living in Hawaii back when it had a monarchy and was a recognized nation in its own right.

If you want more evidence of peoples love of their state you simply need to watch Sportscenter. Neil Everett (who went to the University of Oregon!) is from there and it's pretty damn obvious when you watch his broadcasts. Every time there is a player from Hawaii making a play he mentions it even if it is the other guy making commentary on the game and every time he mentions when a game will be televised he says what time it will be in Hawaii (Tamba Bay - Philadelphia will be on ESPN tomorrow at 3:30 Eastern, that's 9:30 Hawaiian). While I am not familiar with him there was apparently a guy from there on a while back whose homerun catchphrase was "Aloha means goodbye!"

While I didn't watch the last show and have only seen it sporadically if Simon made some sort of challenge (accidentally or on purpose) to people from Hawaii then you can certainly expect a ton of phone calls from there. My fiance (who's Hawaiian) and I have said for some time that the girl from Hawaii would probably make it all the way to the final two or three and then likely lose if she wasn't that good because the votes from Hawaii would then be of less effect.

It seems this year that based on the way the voting has gone they certainly need to change the system. Whether they will do that nobody knows because the controversy is good for the show as long as one of the top few manages to win the whole thing.

[daryn]

stop saying hawaii!

[GrannyMae]

While I didn't watch the last show and have only seen it sporadically if Simon made some sort of challenge (accidentally or on purpose)


was definately accidental. he was not thinking. the three he wanted for original final 3 are but one now. then he had to adjust to the fact that his 3 were not going to be there when jen h. was tossed so he settled in on diana. simon cowell did NOT want latoya gone. cowell is worth in excess of $80 million admittedly. most of this is from idol. people who get rich on idol have no reason to want anyone but the very best to win.

neither diana nor jasmine deserve to be in final 3, and this is ultimately bad for the show and its credibility. latoya will be 1/2 the superstar she would have been if she made it to final 2.

<font color="red">fantasia no longer needs american idol, they need HER.</font>

if fantasia does not win, randy has quietly hinted he will not return. i do not believe this for a second because his agents etc will slap the shiit out of him until he smells reality again and realizes that sitting behind a sound board is not going to make him rich. none of the judges will go anywhere regardless of any travesty that may occur. alot of viewers will, but judges? no.

It seems this year that based on the way the voting has gone they certainly need to change the system.

never happen. would be an admission of defeat. stong admonishment of the importance of voting, coupled with judges thinking before they speak are the only thing to help this "problem". latoya is the 2004 tamaya, and there will be another in 2005. changing the voting system makes it "judges decide who is american idol"

that title is too long. also, if you change the sytem it is tantamount to telling the viewers "you suck, we don't trust you, so we will be drastically changing the essence of the show". this slap in the face would be the demise of AI and is not needed anyway.

"american idol" is fine, and they WILL get the winner right. it will just be a bit less entertaining than it could have been.

http://smilies.sofrayt.com/%5E/m/weedsmilie.gif

[ChristinaB]

[ QUOTE ]
cowell is worth in excess of $80 million admittedly. most of this is from idol. people who get rich on idol have no reason to want anyone but the very best to win.


[/ QUOTE ]
Does he own the show or something? He certainly is not worth that much money based on his contribution to the show.

[jdl22]

I'll see what I can do.

Incidentally how much was your keyboard? I'm sure you got a pretty good rate since it has no shift key. Oh, wait you did type ! so apparently it has one that doesn't work with letters. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Good luck on your finals.

[jdl22]

You think that if they only set it up so that each phone number would get only 1 vote that would cause the problems you speak ok?

I don't see any downside to that other than that they can't say that more people voted for AI than the presidential election or whatever crazy numbers they put up.

[GrannyMae]

Does he own the show or something?

he does not own it. he does not even produce it. his net worth has come from:

10% his recording business
20% endorsements
70% salary from british and american idol


He certainly is not worth that much money based on his contribution to the show.

you are right. he is worth twice that amount. he IS american idol, like it or not.

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[daryn]

i never capatalize, gotta stay consistent.

thanks for the finals.

oh yeah that hawaii comment was a simpsons reference.

[Jim Easton]

[ QUOTE ]
will slap the shiit out of him until he smells reality again and realizes that sitting behind a sound board is not going to make him rich.

[/ QUOTE ]

He already is rich. I can certainly see him walking away from the money if Jasmine wins. Jerry Seinfeld turned down $5 million per show for another season of Seinfeld. That's $110 million for an extra season. Entertainers will turn down money. Randy certainly isn't in Seinfeld's league financially, but I'm certain he doesn't "have" to do American Idol to live very comfortably.

[ QUOTE ]
if you change the sytem it is tantamount to telling the viewers "you suck, we don't trust you, so we will be drastically changing the essence of the show". this slap in the face would be the demise of AI and is not needed anyway.


[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, I think you are right here. I was thinking there needed to be a way for the judges to trump the audience's decision. Giving them votes (a large number, perhaps increasing each week, to be able to affect the outcome) would cause the problems you state.

I do like the limit the number of votes per phone number idea. What do you think of that? The drawback is the teenagers don't get to power dial for their favorite.

This is the first season I have watched the show. I was floored when Jen was voted off and now seeing Latoya voted out I really don't think much of the show. I'll casually watch the finish - it will be on in the family room and I'll see parts of it as I walk through the room, but I will not be "into it". The final four should have included Jennifer, Latoya, and Fantasia. At least I know not to bother watching the next season.

[GrannyMae]

You think that if they only set it up so that each phone number would get only 1 vote that would cause the problems you speak ok?

can't be done yet. maybe one day the technology will be there but it is not there yet. all this would do is favor the dishonest computer/speed voters and make it more of a travesty. the demographics of this audience would beat any system like this. (but it may be a good thing for society because these geeks would produce less worms and viruses)

ONLY answer is an electoral college system that the viewers would be happy with. this would be a hard sell tho.

http://www.anchoredbygrace.com/smileys/nerdglasses.gif

[Jim Easton]

[ QUOTE ]
can't be done yet. maybe one day the technology will be there but it is not there yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

My phone has caller ID blocking. When I call some people, my call is blocked because they don't accept calls from blocked numbers. It seems it would be easy enough to only accept calls from identified numbers, then limit the number of votes per number. Would it really be that easy to spoof different phone numbers to make multiple calls? I'm not sure about the text messaging votes, maybe just kill the text messaging option.

[BookOfIcculus]

Why not just rig the results, and lie to the puplic what the results were.

[GrannyMae]

This is the first season I have watched the show. I was floored when Jen was voted off and now seeing Latoya voted out I really don't think much of the show.

i happen to know that you are the exact demographic they are seeking as new viewers. they already have the kids, teens and seniors. they want mommy and daddy to sit down and get excited too.

if nigel lythgow or simon FULLER saw your comment, it would hit home. however, they would not be able to do much for you yet. this would sicken them to have new viewers in ideal demographics becomming "bleh" about the show before their first year of viewing has even finished.

your comments just bolster my argument that it is in EVERYONE associated with the shows best interest to have the three best as the last three standing.

as far as your comment on randy. yes, he is doing fine in the recording field and would do fine without idol. however, being watched by 30 million viewers a week (many more in the final 2), is something that nobody will ever walk away from because they think latoya london got shafted. if fantasia comes third, maybe randy leaves in a storm of publicity, screaming about racism. that exit would be calculated and self serving, and he knows that too. it is UN-american to run from something like this. it is distinctly american to stay and try to fix it.

imo, the only time you will ever see a judge from this 3 leave would be over a contract dispute. many many people from the black community would be furious with randy for leaving. who's to say he would be replaced by a black judge?? if there is no black judge, are the future black contestants at even MORE of a disadvantage?? i strongly think this is fact.

if he leaves, he would be a bigger cop-out and crybaby, and would be seen as an abandonment of his heritage. he can oly make a difference for one or two weeks when they follow him around for interviews after he quits. beyond that, he is forgotten. randy is too much of a man to abandon the show. he's just angry.

funniest thing is that if you turn to the back page of any rolling stone mag (sales charts), the top names are all black acts. these sales are NOT coming from all black buyers. randy owes it to the future of black recording artists to keep that show from going 100% wonderbread.

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[GrannyMae]

It seems it would be easy enough to only accept calls from identified numbers, then limit the number of votes per number. Would it really be that easy to spoof different phone numbers to make multiple calls? I'm not sure about the text messaging votes, maybe just kill the text messaging option.


so you are saying that i can't vote because i have a blocked number? also, are you saying that all the single moms who have blocked numbers can't vote? asking us to dial the code to temporarily unblock our numbers is not practical. we will only be able to get through if very lucky, so none of us would vote (not to mention the people who REFUSE to unblock their number)
any form of disenfranchising any subset of viewers is wrong imo.

also, i have heard that the technology that allows them to recieve 28 million phone calls in 2 hours is not yet capable of deciphering whom has already voted. also, they have admitted that there are kids who power vote with computer speed dialers.

lastly, the elimination of text messaging will never happen. it is a huge money maker for their #1 sponsor in way of revenue from the call and the fact that they practically have bought the show through commercial contracts for the next 10 years.

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[Gonzoman]

[ QUOTE ]
You think that if they only set it up so that each phone number would get only 1 vote that would cause the problems you speak ok?

can't be done yet. maybe one day the technology will be there but it is not there yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

The technology is there. All the servers that are receiving the calls have to do is store the numbers coming in by originating phone number. When a new call is received, do a lookup or query and reject any duplicate calls.

[george w of poker]

i thought paula abdul was black

[GrannyMae]

i thought the same. however i have read recently that it can't yet be done. i'll find the article later. it suggested that these look-ups, queries and rejections would grind it all to a halt. the article said voting would have to be extended past 2 hours, and by doing that you no longer get an accurate vote because most fans have lost interest in the first 60 minutes of voting. it is already known that power voters dominate that last hour, so maybe a better solution is to keep it how it stands, but shorten the voting time to 1 hour. as i said, i got through 10 times in first 10 minutes the week i voted. the week i voted was the week they broke the records. it was the week after jen got the boot. so if that was the busiest week of voting and i got through 10 times in 10 minutes (including getting through on FIRST try), then we don't need 2 hours to vote. i would be interested to see what the breakdown was after 60 minutes versus 120 minutes.

last year i voted the last 3 weeks for 205. i got through 3 times in 5 minutes those weeks as well. because of my larger investment this year i increased to 10 times. i WILL be voting next 2 weeks btw. i took last week off from voting because of complacency and my horse was bottom 2 again. fortunately there are only 2 votes left so complacency should not be an issue again for this season.

http://www.anchoredbygrace.com/smileys/smilie_groupflip2.gif

pic 1: remember the bare feet. this will be her trademark

http://idolonfox.com/contestants/fantasia_barrino/images/galpic_13.jpg

pic 2: anyone who saw her in week one will appreciate her transformation. she was not oly a villian at the beginning, but also rough looking and not very attractive. if you ask granny, she's now a cutie pie.

http://idolonfox.com/contestants/fantasia_barrino/images/galpic_15.jpg

[Gonzoman]

[ QUOTE ]
i thought the same. however i have read recently that it can't yet be done. i'll find the article later. it suggested that these look-ups, queries and rejections would grind it all to a halt. the article said voting would have to be extended past 2 hours, and by doing that you no longer get an accurate vote because most fans have lost interest in the first 60 minutes of voting. it is already known that power voters dominate that last hour, so maybe a better solution is to keep it how it stands, but shorten the voting time to 1 hour. as i said, i got through 10 times in first 10 minutes the week i voted. the week i voted was the week they broke the records. it was the week after jen got the boot. so if that was the busiest week of voting and i got through 10 times in 10 minutes (including getting through on FIRST try), then we don't need 2 hours to vote. i would be interested to see what the breakdown was after 60 minutes versus 120 minutes.

last year i voted the last 3 weeks for 205. i got through 3 times in 5 minutes those weeks as well. because of my larger investment this year i increased to 10 times. i WILL be voting next 2 weeks btw. i took last week off from voting because of complacency and my horse was bottom 2 again. fortunately there are only 2 votes left so complacency should not be an issue again for this season.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this assumes there will be 20 million or so calls getting through. How many calls do we expect once viewers realize only 1 vote will count?

[GWB]

[ QUOTE ]
ONLY answer is an electoral college system that the viewers would be happy with. this would be a hard sell tho.



[/ QUOTE ]

An Excellent idea!

The Electoral College has been Bery Bery Goot to me.


http://www.bigdork.org/images/03/images/BigSmilie.gif

[eggzz]

I havent yet read the rest of this post, so I'm sure someone else has mentioned this, but if not, you clearly need to

VOTE FOR THE PERSON YOU WANT TO GET BOOTED

Wouldn't this solve everything? Hawaii would have been perplexed then, they may have had high call volume, but I don't think they would have easily been able to spread out enough calls to the other three contestants in two hours.

[Yeknom58]

It being the final 4 I don't think the hawaii vote had as much impact, if any, as the sympathy vote. If something like 35 million people voted then the few million votes from hawaii probably did nothing. Now what probably did a boatload was jasmine crying due to the villians (simon) comments. People love to hate simon. Also, since he's such a cocky bastard, people love to see him get things wrong. So with that in mind I bet millions of people voted for jasmine to spite simon.

The only change in voting I would make is limit the number of votes from one phone number to whatever number is humanly possible. Like 400 or whatever. I think the computer voters are throwing off the competition, not the "hawaii vote".

There are 2 other things people are forgetting in all this fuss. 1. Jasmine is one of the few people of Filipino/asian decent on television so I'm sure she's getting a large amount of votes from the west coast/new york asians. 2. She's probably the bets looking person left of the show. I mean you don't really even have to like asians. Fantasia is sort of...just plain ugly, dianna is a fatty, and latoya is actually attractive but she dresses like a mom. This means jasmine is getting a large amount of the geek vote. And the geeks are using the computers to speed vote.

[blackaces13]

[ QUOTE ]
He certainly is not worth that much money based on his contribution to the show.


[/ QUOTE ]

Umm, I don't know what show you've been watching but he IS the show.

PS. I can't belive I replied to an American Idol post. /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[ChristinaB]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He certainly is not worth that much money based on his contribution to the show.


[/ QUOTE ]

Umm, I don't know what show you've been watching but he IS the show.



[/ QUOTE ]
Are you saying that if he were not there, all the performers on the show would become untalented?

Didn't Ed McMahan do a show similar to this?

[ChristinaB]

[ QUOTE ]
The Electoral College has been Bery Bery Goot to me.



[/ QUOTE ]
Is this a racial slur?

And in a thread about racism.

Of course, from a Republican I guess it isn't too surprising.

[GrannyMae]

pic properties = http://www.bigdork.org...

The Electoral College has been Bery Bery Goot to me.

ya think ???

http://bestanimations.com/Humans/Clown-01.gif

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
I havent yet read the rest of this post, so I'm sure someone else has mentioned this, but if not, you clearly need to

VOTE FOR THE PERSON YOU WANT TO GET BOOTED

Wouldn't this solve everything? Hawaii would have been perplexed then, they may have had high call volume, but I don't think they would have easily been able to spread out enough calls to the other three contestants in two hours.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can see it now:

Seacrest: "And if you absolutely hated Jasmine, vote 1-800-IDOLS-03. Remember, call now if you HATED her!"

[GrannyMae]

VOTE FOR THE PERSON YOU WANT TO GET BOOTED

Wouldn't this solve everything?
Hawaii would have been perplexed then

and so am i.

you will have to flesh this out a bit for me. you are saying that if the 15 million or so that did NOT vote for jasmine, voted for jasmine, jasmine would have been gone?

total votes cast by the way were a bit over 20 million, not 35 million as another poster suggested. 28 million was the record.

also, because hawaii is in its very own unique time zone, they are not competing for connections like the rest of the country. this is reported by AT&amp;T. what that means is less busy signals for them.

say bye bye to diana this week if jasmine performs well (or simon opens his trap again)

http://smilies.sofrayt.com/%5E/p/phone.gif

[GWB]

[ QUOTE ]
pic properties = http://www.bigdork.org...



[/ QUOTE ]
Hey, I just did an image search.

If I inadvertantly used your web site's image, I apologize. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

W

[GrannyMae]

busted


http://users.pandora.be/eforum/emoticons4u/crazy/1267.gif

[blackaces13]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you saying that if he were not there, all the performers on the show would become untalented?


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm saying that if he were not there, all the Neilson ratings of the show would become unremarkable.

No name talent doesn't sell commercial time in primetime. A rude, to the point, hearltess, smug, sort of gay guy with a British accent does in this case.

[gabyyyyy]

How is it racism when the majority of the contestants picked in the beginning were black?

Sometimes I wonder about the press.

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
How is it racism when the majority of the contestants picked in the beginning were black?

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you retarded?


Black:

Fantasia
LaToya
Jennifer
George

White:

Leah
John
JonPeter
Diana
Amy
Matt


Hawaiian:

Camille
Jasmine



[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes I wonder about the press.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure they would wonder about you, too, if you mattered.

[GrannyMae]

I'm sure they would wonder about you, too, if you mattered.

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[jdl22]

If we're talking about races neither Jasmine nor Camille are Hawaiian.