The American Idol auditions remind me of research I saw a few years ago that found that people often thought they were good in areas in which they were not. (Not a unique finding). The researchers noted that the reason was that, usually, the same qualities that are needed to do something well are also the qualities needed to judge whether a task was done well. Eg., in the case of American Idol, if someone is tone deaf. (Obviously this is not an absolute rule. A person could be not very good at sports, but be a good coach, including a good judge of how good a player is). In fact, people who are very good at something often did not value their gift because it came so easy to them, that it didn't seem anything special. When I asked someone at the start of the current A. Idol season if they were going to watch the audition show that night, they said no, they didn't think it was funny to see people being made unhappy. In general, I myself feel that way. But I think the reason I react differently to A. Idol is that the producers choose to show the people who are obviously narcissistic, and react with the typical narcissistic rage, and insisting that they are great. If they showed a lot of nice people who were just tone deaf, and were crushed by not getting into the show, that would not be funny. The singing is so pitiful, it is hilarious. And I'm not as nice a person as my co-worker. I kind of wish I were, except that since there are people who will take advantage of others with no qualms, we need people who will oppose them, which is the category I feel I am in. I would prefer to live in a world where everybody was nice, but that is not the way it is.