Intro
Vote For the Worst is by now a tradition in American Idol. The website, founded during Season 3 of the show, attempts to promote a villain: a contestant who is widely hated, but makes it through many stages of the contest despite this. This is, of course, what a villain is—if Lex Luthor were an ineffective bumbling idiot who immediately fails in all his schemes, he wouldn’t be a villain, would he? No, a villain or foil has to be effective in addition to bad. “Worst” is a misnomer; VFTW is supposed to pick the contestant who is overperforming. That is, the contestant gets a disproportionate amount of the vote compared to what the quality of the performance should have garnered.
But does VFTW really do this effectively? Their selection process seems to be a blend of editorial control and forum posters preference. They have been known to switch contestants even when their pick wasn’t eliminated, presumably because of buyer’s remorse after seeing the next performance. The site usually picks around 6 “worst” contestants per season, and the reason for switching is often that their pick was eliminated. Some seasons, though, have seen as many as 9 picks. These statistics of themselves don’t imply anything except that perhaps the history is a bit checkered, and that maybe the site on balance does on ok job. Continue reading