IDOL JEST

Dick Pountain/Thu 18 March 2004/6:44 pm//Idealog 116

Despite the recent little setback in Kuwait, Reality TV in the shape of Big Brother/Pop Idol formats still looks set to conquer most of the planet. 75% of the slots on my Freeview box seem to be filled by woolly-hatted, track-suited youths gabbing around a kitchen table night and day - which is irritating enough - but what really worries me is that Reality TV is a symptom of a growing contempt for old-fashioned notions of skill. And there is guilt mingled with that worry, because I'm pretty sure it's advances in IT that have created this state of affairs.

Perhaps Reality shows really do just represent the unstoppable march of democracy and the demise of deference - everyone wants to participate in what was the province of professional actors and musicians. On good days I even manage to believe that - there is indeed something vaguely healthy about young people having the brass-necked confidence to be seen singing on national TV when they can't even hit a note (it's a bit like young tiger cubs biting each others' ears). On the bad days though I spy a deep change of mind-set lurking beneath this 'up-for-it', one that scares me witless.

It's starting to feel as though two utterly incompatible models of accomplishment now co-exist, the newer of which bodes no good at all for the future, especially of the IT industry. Max Weber and the rest of us old farts adhere to that Protestant ethic which holds people not to be equal but rather comparable - some sing, dance, or write C++ code better than others, but nothing is frozen and by honing your skill you can work your way along a continuous spectrum of talent.

The new model looks at first sight more egalitarian, because it allows anyone to have a go and be cheered on, but deeper analysis reveals that this free-for-all happens on the lower of two planes which are separated by a vast chasm. The upper plane is populated by superstars - the Afflecks and Cruises, Beyonces and J-Los, the Beckhams and Jordans (Michael that is), the Marco Pierres and Jamie Os, the Jobs and the Gates. It's a scenario right out of Greek mythology, with the Gods up on Mount Olympus and the mortals down below watching the sheep. And like the ancient Greeks we hold religious ceremonies in which mortals are permitted to mimic the gods to emphasise the enormity of the gap, rather than to close it. Miracles occasionally happen (winning Pop Idol) that whisk the lucky few across the gap straight to Parnassus (going on Jonathon Ross) if not all the way to Olympus (the Oscars). It's a return to magical thinking, part of the same process as the Lottery, the hope of being elevated without effort.

The old continuum model ideally involves neither arrogance nor false modesty: you can and must continually compare yourself with the best practitioners in your field, assess yourself realistically and apply effort where you detect deficiencies.  This model survives today in science and engineering, in classical rather than popular music, and interestingly enough, in sport - among the players rather than the promoters or spectators - where attitude alone can't cover for lack of skill. But it's under constant threat from the Olympian model which encourages egotism and corner-cutting. Presentation becomes almost everything and attitude rather than skill is the parameter that gets compared. The real entertainment value of Pop Idol is that sadistic glee we experience whenever a contestant displays an ego so much larger than their talent that we can see it but they can't (one of the most primitive but effective forms of comedy).

Those skills that are still required can be bought in by the yard and applied like wallpaper. I recently bought myself a little Zoom MRT beat-box, and apart from being knocked out by the quality of its drum sounds I was flabbergasted to discover that its automatic quantization function means you don't actually need a sense of rhythm to program it. And you can buy red, blue or purple boxes that adjust your singing voice into tune and even slap Everly Brothers harmonies on top of it, so why bother to learn to sing in tune? 

This is just an update of the argument that raged in the 1970s about whether to allow pupils to use electronic calculators in class. The fogeys back then said that it would leave them with no real feel for numbers, but that all worked out OK didn't it? Er, actually no. Nowadays almost no kids want to take maths and the government is having to offer free flats in Dockland and a knighthood to attract new maths teachers (and still without any takers). Ditto for physics and chemistry. The market appears to be deciding that maths is no longer a useful skill in the 21st century, which will be very bad news indeed for the IT industry in 10 years time when both numeracy and literacy go into free fall. Reality TV shows don't merely preach that there's no need to work hard to become a celebrity - their unspoken flip-side is that actually working too hard at anything is boring and uncool. When I were a lad, stand-up comedians used the proverbial 'travelling salesman' as the butt of humour, but nowadays he's being replaced by the 'IT consultant' as universal object of scorn. Now here's my idea for a show: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison are stuck in the jungle and made to eat bugs...