If you haven’t heard about Glee, here’s the basic gist: it’s a show about a high school glee club that is essentially done in the style of a musical, with musical performances interjected in between the narrative material. It’s become a huge phenomenon now, with some 2 million digital song sales, and 13.7 million viewers for its Season 2 premiere. Even so, those stats aren’t the reason I’m claiming Glee to be the true American Idol.
The biggest news recently is that Glee is looking for it’s next cast members, and it’s foregoing the traditional casting call route. Rather, it’s following in the footsteps of online voting competitions, and asking potential applicants to upload a monologue and audition performance, which the general public can vote on with “Gold Stars.” With the power to influence the outcome from the get-go (unlike American Idol, which is judged in its initial stages), the public is truly determining the end result, the “American Idol(s).”
Sure, the American Idol show may have previously been the closest thing Americans previously had to in terms of having an actual hand in determining their next pop culture icon, but today, we now have an online casting model from Glee, similar to other online voting models such as Chase Community Giving or Pepsi Refresh, a trend that is sure to grow bigger. The ability of the web to create an ever-larger pool of candidates, coupled with the power to harness the opinions of the public, is a phenomenon that will definitely continue making waves.
And one last thing: Vote for my college classmate Jon Tzou to be on Glee! Listen to his rendition of “Lean on Me” below, and give him a gold star!
