An official appology

This is my official apology for all you Star Academy fans. For years i despised your messages of "Please vote of Ahmed/Moahmed". I thought you were shallow people with no lives, i thought your time should be invested elsewhere, and thought you were completely crazy for watching stupid reality TV. I did not get the obsession - the text messages - the fan sites - the constant conversations by the water coolers - and the way it dominated our big family gathering last month.
I passed judgment and i am sorry.

Today, i am officially one of you guys. Although i'm still not quite on the Star Academy boat, but on another boat that has a little bit more talent, that has no arabic songs that are all about love and has no face veiled parents coming on stage (sorry, but if i want to watch darth Vader I’ll watch Star Wars instead - at least it's a classic)

As my Thursday night was in desperate need for some quiet-night-in entertainment, I decided for laughs i would follow American Idol. It put me in the singing mood, and gave me good laughs (thanks to Norman Gentle). And then things started turning around after Michael Jackson week. The kids were good. I started having favorites and liking them. Started looking forward to what they do, and soon enough i was hooked.
I had no idea how AI worked, i had never watched it before - and i didn't realize it was running for 8 long seasons. And i knew that most of the people coming out usually achieve only mediocre success except for Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson.

Soon i became the obnoxious one telling everyone to vote. And last nights result show has turned my head around.
And it was at this point i started realizing that Star Academy fans and not shallow and stupid (and no, i'm not defending them now that i am one of them). They are people who connect with other random-Joes (or mohameds in our case) and who like seeing how one person’s life can be turned upside down over night. And it's entertaining, so why not?