Look, I like TV, obviously. I'm all for being entertained and diverted and for forgetting about reality for a while. But some folks are crazy. Like the nutty chick on MySpace who is a bit too involved with American Idol:

We have no problems with Sanjaya personally, he seems like a very personable and charming young man. However, he does NOT belong on American Idol. The judges faltered with their decision to place him in the 24, and American Idol voters have done even worse by keeping him on.

So until the day that Sanjya is no longer American Idol, I will be going on a hunger strike. This means I will refuse to eat anything until American Idol voters wise up, and stop voting Sanjya through each week.

Of course, it's entirely possible that "J" -- as the nutty chick calls herself -- is as full of crap as, you know, American Idol itself is, and is not starving herself over a rigged game show. That seems like the only tenable way to interpret J's antics, in fact, particularly when you consider that there's another group of fans headquartered at VoteForTheWorst.com that organizes viewers into deliberately subverting the aims of the show's producers to create a minor sideshow atmosphere by casting contestants who are awful in the first place, when surely there are plenty of singers with real talent who could be appearing. The VFTW folks attempt to keep these terrible contestants around in order to create a major sideshow atmosphere:

American Idol is not about singing at all, it's about making good reality TV and enjoying the cheesy, guilty pleasure of watching bad singing. We agree that a fish out of water is entertaining, and we want to acknowledge this fact by encouraging people to make an even funnier show by helping the amusing antagonists stick around. VFTW sees keeping these contestants around as a golden opportunity to make a funnier show.

There's not much subversion at all in that, actually -- it all becomes part of the circus. It's the Colosseum crowd not just turning out to see Christians get eaten by lions but actually helping the Roman soldiers throw the Christians into the arena ... and it's hard to see how that hasn't been part of the intention of "reality" shows like American Idol from the beginning. What I find truly disturbing is that so many people are "entertained" by the public humiliation on display on a show like American Idol ... and I'm not looking forward to finding out how far the audience can take its own enthusiastic particpation. Whether one viewer is actually starving herself or merely finds it funny to joke about it, I doubt we've reached the end of the line.

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