Are any of the X Factor contestants genuine?

After a hectic day of a gym visit, buying some household goods and cleaning my flat (I know how to live!) I find myself yet again on the sofa tuning in to the X Factor. It’s one of those programs I always feel slightly ashamed of watching, but I can’t help myself watching it.

As you’ve probably read in the papers, this year though the viewing figures have dropped. People can’t decide why, is it because Simon and Cheryl are gone? Is the talent not there? Are people bored of the show format? Or do more people have a life now and are actually going out on a Saturday night instead of staying in being boring like me?

Watching the program tonight I think I might have an idea why. Many, if not most, of the contestants just don’t seem believable to me. You’ve got Frankie ‘jack the lad’ Cocozza (how much have they tried to build that reputation?), Kitty – the Lady Gaga wannabe, Janet the pure, quiet little Irish girl, I won’t go on.

Everyone knows the X Factor always says they are looking for something new and different and then they reproduce some manufactured act which fits their predictable mould every time. This year it seems this is even more evident. Most of the singers in the competition to me are not being their true selves and are giving answers they’ve been told to give. They are singing songs they aren’t comfortable with and they’ve had makeovers into characters which they don’t suit them and aren’t true to them.

Now I know that when we see film stars and music acts we aren’t necessarily seeing the true them, but at least the acts that are already famous are believable.

The show is always centred on the judges and becomes a popularity contest, but this year again seems worse. Just watching Kelly Rowland tell people off for having opinions if they dare to disagree with her and Louis Walsh and Gary Barlow bicker, it just makes the show even more of a mockery. As for Alexandra Burke last week, don’t even get me started…

You have a young boy who can’t sing and was staying in the competition based on his fake image the program has tried to create. People start to admit this and then it turns into an argument between the judges to divert away from that fact. At first I was pleased to have Gary Barlow as a judge, someone who would know what they were speaking about and came from the industry and had success. However, I’m starting to think the show might be damaging for his reputation, if anything. Defending a contestant who clearly can’t sing and having petty squabbles with other team members, isn’t the best portrayal of him I’ve seen.

I won’t lie though, after nosing out my window at the local fireworks banging and sparkling outside, I will be tuning into ITV2 for the Xtra Factor to check out the fireworks on screen…