Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Better To Let Them Think You Are
What’s that saying? Better to stay quiet and let someone think you’re a fool than open your mouth and confirm it...something like that anyway.
So it seems some people are up in arms about how harsh the judges are on AI this year. I do admit watching the show because I love a good voice....when an uknown can belt out a tune and give you goose bumps....that’s just amazing. And I like to watch the auditions not necessarily to see how badly some of the wanna bes sing, but because I like to see the auditions of the good ones.
I will admit, nonetheless, that I do rather enjoy all the smack talking that some people do before and after their audition. Someone wrote this somewhere, can’t remember where but it has been my thought as well since the whole show began: We are seeing the results of that whole garbage in telling kids that they are good in everything they do. This nation has become so obsessed in making kids feel good about themselves all the time that we use purple markers to correct papers, everyone gets to join the team and we lie to our kids about their abilities. That’s just not a good idea. Kids are good at certain things and we should urge them to continue what they’re good at but be truthful when they aren’t good at something. If your kid sings well, urge them to follow it. But if your kid does not sing well, you really should be honest with them about it and find what they ARE good at. Self esteem doesn’t come from lying to people and telling them that they are good at everything they try. Self esteem comes from knowing that you are good at some things, bad at some things and accepting that. Self esteem is knowing your strengths and your weaknesses and knowing that you are a worthy person because of them.
It is a little sad to watch people get up there, after being told by “friends and family” that they are brilliant singers, just suck so horrendously bad. That part isn’t really all that fun. What IS fun is watching people make complete asses out of themselves with their words.
My favorite from last night was this chick who talked about her clothing. “Style is important to me”, she said. “I like to look sexy.....it expresses my confidentiality.”
My. Her confidentiality. I don’t even want to address the deeper meaning in the rest of that statement.....I just can’t get past her “confidentiality”. Did she mean, perhaps, that how she dresses shows her confidence? I’m going to take a stab here and say, she went to public school, right?
Kids...if you don’t know the word, find another one. This making it up as we go business that has been going on for the past decade has really got to stop. It’s making us all look like idiots.
Confidentiality. I’m going to add that to the list of “Words we make up because we have no idea what the hell we’re talking about”.
