Susan Boyle, revisited
So after her runner-up finish in Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle has been admitted to a hospital for “exhaustion”—the British tabloids are reporting some heartbreaking details, and even if the specifics aren’t true (you never know with the tabloids), the nervous breakdown probably is. As a senior doctor at Boyle’s clinic notes, sudden fame is not without its dangers, and it’s an open question whether the reality-TV shows are prepared to address this and deal with its implications by providing adequate support networks/guardrails.
Actually, I’d say it’s more of a settled question: they’re not. None of us are, really. Same reason this story is way less popular than the First Susan Boyle Saga. As of this writing, it’s not in the Twitter heavy-rotation. . . and why should it be? We’ve turned the Internet into the equivalent of one big junior high school, where popularity is everything, and all that matters is how many “friends” you have and how many cameras are pointed your way. It’s part of our fairy-tale view of life. . we believe in princesses, but if those princesses get chased by paparazzi into concrete walls, then we just go ahead and damn the photographers instead of wondering who the hell was looking at those photos. More than fifteen centuries ago, the former Roman emperor Diocletian refused to come out of retirement, saying to his erstwhile imperial colleague, “if only you could see the cabbages I grow with my own hands in my garden, you wouldn’t ask this of me.” Rare it is that a public figure finds such peace.
Tags: susan boyle
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
I feel for Susan Boyle. The downside of fame is not only the fierce glare of publicity but that once your name is public property, a lot of people feel entitled to speak disparagingly and publicly about you– your looks, your talent, whatever they feel like saying. Twitter was as full of people pulling for her to lose as it was people pulling for her to win.
In India’s ancient past, there was a long history of older kings giving up their thrones, their possessions, everything and wandering the country seeking enlightenment. I guess with great power came great headaches and even heartaches.
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 am
I feel for Susan Boyle. The downside of fame is not only the fierce glare of publicity but that once your name is public property, a lot of people feel entitled to speak disparagingly and publicly about you– your looks, your talent, whatever they feel like saying. Twitter was as full of people pulling for Susan Boyle to lose as it was people pulling for her to win.
In India’s ancient past, there was a long history of older kings giving up their thrones, their possessions, everything and wandering the country seeking enlightenment. I guess with great power came great headaches and even heartaches.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
I hadn’t seen any of this Dave. It’s a shame. And really, you have to wonder how many people who have the level of glaring attention Boyle had thrust on her really can’t handle it.
I hope she works it out.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
To my knowledge Britain’s Got Talent is an all volunteer army. Sign up if you like, but complaints about how nasty war is aren’t appropriate. If she’d won would she be bitching? God damn freak show anyway. The whole production. And we should be ashamed for crowding into the coliseum to watch it. We’re fucked as a society. Fiddling away like Nero.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:18 am
brian we’re not all fucked…..just a great lot of us.
the lot that buys into the bullshit.