Generation X

Try as you might, avoiding the X-factor is near enough impossible. Its comparative to being indoctrinated into a religion that you don't believe in. Have our brains been reduced to a soft sludge so marketing fat cats can roll the paste into a large assembly line of expensive, meaty burgers?

To be honest X-factor owes some of its dominance to the alternative options we are faced with. BBC is still churning out cheap, gloomy gore-fest Casualty which amazingly comes up with a million and one ways to inflict great pain on the body. It may also be providing an influential platform for films like Saw and Final Destination. Channel Four are treating us with the condescending bore fest, Kirstie and Phil's Perfect Christmas. An uninformative detailing of how to throw an adult Xmas party. Strange for 8 o'clock viewing as I assume Kirstie and Phil whip out the rubber clamps and strap ons. Channel Five give us their usual showing of an American investigative drama which is a massively unoriginal take on an overdone genre.

The saddest thing about X-factor is watching the sheer desperation sprawled across the faces of various pop wannabes. They harp on about their dreams and how they aspire to spend a career in the music world. The contestants have failed to realise what their future holds, and im not telling them from my crystal ball, I am looking back to the previous participants histories. I've seen a large skip outside Luton which contains the gormless caricatures of some former X-factor contestants. They were mercilessly pounded by the media corporations which controlled them and once they were deemed unprofitable and drained of all usefulness, Cowell and co tossed them into a waste disposal unit.

Sometimes I feel a little harsh though. Some of these people can sing and have a small puddle of talent but ultimately its not them that angers me, its the whole package. In reality who wins the X-factor no longer matters, as long as the people keep voting and the fans keep listening then the shows will keep coming. Once the ecstasy of learning who has just won has been reached then people are already looking to next years show. Behind the scenes the mass production team are already planning to sweep up and down the country to pitch up tent for the X-factor freak show in a town near you.