Saturday 8 September 2012


Lack of EQ Factor in X Factor?


“The X Factor” is a broadcasted singing competition where viewers vote for their favorites and each week, a contestant gets eliminated.

A young contestant, Astro, fell in the bottom two based on votes and had to perform again to compete with another to stay in the competition. However, he refused to perform in a fit of anger. Witness the dispute between Astro and Simon Cowell (one of the judges) at 3:00 here: 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYY4zyiRwq8&feature=related


Cowell reprimanded Astro for his poor attitude, but achieved little success of getting through to the boy. Astro's body language showed signs of blatant disregard, in turn generating huge waves of boos from the studio audience.  By the end, he was in tears.

Being flawed in managing emotions, Astro cracked under pressure and acted without reflection. His reactions to comments showed that he did not take criticism well. He also failed to consider the impression he would establish with everyone watching.

He might have been unwilling to accept that his performance could be improved and lost motivation to remain effective in a less than ideal situation. Perhaps he lacked self-confidence and needed affirmation through popularity or maybe he was so proud that elimination seemed unbearable leading to self-bred fear that prevented him from stepping up to a challenge.

Worth mentioning is Astro’s background of a rough childhood, suggesting a social aspect to the reason for his actions. Perhaps that was how society taught him to react when hurt, plagued by pessimism and oblivious to the choice to be in control. He failed to recognize that his actions impacted others that he was interacting with.

With the situation escalated as such, what do you think Astro should have done to resolve the conflict between himself and Cowell?

EDITED

8 comments:

  1. Hi Renick,

    Thanks for this post. I have often seen such drama on reality television. And I happen to be form the school of thought that believes it is all staged for TRP ratings. I am quite unsure how this shows history spans out though!

    For the sake of discussion lets say its all true emotions! In a scene like this where performance in front of a huge audience is involved stage awareness is necessary. One tends to feed off from how the crowd responds to you. Only very experienced performers/strong willed personas can manage to over power the crowd's reception and deliver what they came to deliver!

    I for one think it is great that he even stood on stage and did what he did. Many of us find it daunting to be under spot light. At such a young age he needs to be lauded for his courage!

    Apart form that, I feel your english is amazing! I think you managed to convey your message pretty clearly :) Hope I helped the discussion.

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  2. Hi Dhanya, thanks for your comment, I agree that the drama was probably encouraged/staged from the side of the producers and judges but not too sure about the contestant because he really got slammed by the media after that. Well he stayed on for another week actually but got really unpopular after the incident and was eventually booted out.
    It is true too that stage awareness is necessary, with cds becoming obsolete, I guess current artists need to take opportunity of live performances to convince and interact with the people who are potential sources of income to give them a motivation to purchase rather than get their music for free. In such a profession you just have to know how to work up a crowd and take cues from them about your effectiveness.
    I agree that it must have been nerve wrecking to be in his shoes and that he was really brave, but don’t you think he might have been a tiny bit too courageous, verging on being cocky?
    Thanks for the compliment! I appreciate it 

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  3. Renick

    As what Dhanya said, your English is amazing. It has been a while that I need to pause to think of the underlying meanings while reading. Recently, I am watching a competition on TV: The Voice of China. Judging each candidate from their performance to their outfit is one thing I enjoy very much with my friends. My favorite candidate was being defeated last week by another one which I really not fond of. Anger built up my mind.

    Nevertheless, I still enjoy watching it and I will not stop watching until the very end. That is what the TV producer would like the audience to experience. The more controversial it is, it is more attractive. Therefore , you can not eliminate the possibility that Astro's action was scripted by the producer.

    If it is not scripted before, I guess the only thing he could do is to give an explanation to his action, to apologize to his fans.

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    1. Hi Zhuang Wei, thank you for your compliment, but I must admit that if I made you pause for any reason, it does not suggest that my English is better than yours but rather I have failed on my part to effectively communicate to you. Having said that though, if you feel that I can help you in anyway please do not hesitate to ask.
      I love the voice by the way, definitely more than the X factor as the judges, being actual artists, are more competent in their comments. Never really thought about their outfits though, just Christina Aguilera's, I shall attempt that next time.
      Yep, it's pretty annoying to watch your favourites get kicked off, I actually stopped watching the X factor after they kicked this girl called Drew who was awesome. I would watch the Voice all the way to the end though.
      So you share Dhanya's sentiment that it was staged, that's 2 to 1 for now. I just somehow feel that when something like this gets staged, I would be aware of it and find it really lame, but maybe I'm wrong.
      Thank you for your conclusion, it's really useful despite my initial poor phrasing of the question. That was in fact what he did subsequently according to an interview.

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  4. Renick, you really captured my interest at the start of this post. I was intrigued by your potential use of a situation in this reality TV program to respond to this assignment. And even though your language use baffled me a bit (see below), I still had hope, envisioning the conflict between Astro and Cowell, and imagining that you would ask us readers to explain what Astro should have done to resolve the conflict between himself and the damning key judge.

    You do a good job of discussing Astro's behavior and the possible motivation. But then you seem to go off on the tangent in your posing of the relevant question, and without a clear and succinct formulation, we readers might lose the thread.

    Here are a few other issues:

    1) a feat of anger >>> a fit of anger

    2) Cowell reprimanded him as he refused to budge, constantly rolling his eyes and keeping his arms crossed, generating boos from the audience. By the end, he was in tears.
    >>> ambiguity because of the use of too many pronouns >>> Who was rolling his eyes? Whose arms were folded? Who generated boos?

    Cowell reprimanded Astro as he refused to budge...(complete the sentence)

    I'm sorry, buddy, since while I appreciate your effort, the final question could be reconfigured---

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    1. Hi Brad,I have evaluated my post based on both comments and actually felt that both were useful in pointing out significant ignorance on my part. As I read the post again I realized the frustration I put readers through in causing confusion by creating an imaginary conflict involving myself when it was not needed. What's worse is that I posed leading questions that did not permit commenters to establish their own freedom and creativity, basically making it a one way interaction. The take away I really got from this is the concept of "less is more"; I was trying too hard to impress by manipulating readers to regard my actual role of third person to that of first.
      With that, I shall do my best to reconfigure it accordingly. I appreciate your honest opinion.

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  5. Hi Renick!

    I don't think that you are being judgemental. I think that it is quite unprofessional of him to have his emotions in the way of performing. If he were the one to be voted out, it would have made a very bad lasting impression. I have not been following The X Factor, and considering the video link you sent and his background, I think that he should not have reacted the way he did. Even though he is a young teenager, he should still be aware that he is being watched and judged by people (not only in the studio, but also by those watching tv). He is still old enough to know that his popularity is based on how he performs and his actions while on tv. In this situation, it is quite hard to give a good solution. However, I feel that perhaps after the incident, he should have apologised sincerely to his fans (who may have a different perception of him after how he reacted) and sang in tribute for them. Would that then change your opinion of him?

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  6. Hi Tasha,
    Thank you for your comment and stating your agreement with me. It was indeed a waste because he did get kicked out after another week and he is still known as the "one with an attitude" all over youtube.
    Nice of you to point out that the interaction involved many others including home viewers.
    Wow! you were spot on! that's exactly what he did the following week, he wrote a rap for his fans, though I doubt I would have voted for him still.
    Thanks again for such an accurate input!

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