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“I'm the Next American Idol”: Cooling Out, Accounts, and Perseverance at Reality Talent Show Auditions
Author(s) -
Wei Junhow
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1002/symb.206
Subject(s) - meritocracy , metaphor , meaning (existential) , aesthetics , ideology , sociology , epistemology , social psychology , psychology , politics , art , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics
Drawing on fieldwork at American Idol auditions, I describe how contestants come to accept their fate after being cut from the competition. I revisit Goffman's metaphor of “cooling the mark out,” especially the cooling out strategy of offering people another chance to qualify for roles at which they failed. Contestants' desires to audition and audition again after failure are driven by meritocratic ideals. They develop accounts in line with these ideals to explain how despite being rejected they are talented and can still excel in the future. This study contributes to literature on “cooling out” by highlighting how people draw on larger systems of meaning—ideologies supporting meritocratic values in the case of Idol contestants—when making sense of their failures.