ANALYZING THE FORGOTTEN WGs OF IDOL IN EPOCH 3

So, as we've already established in Epoch 3, we've had a ton of WGWGs win. But what about the remaining WGs that were cast by the wayside? It might be constructive to see what brought the eliminations of these WGs, to see if there could be "strategic" casting of WGs in the future. Since this first occurred in Epoch 3, we'll analyze the ones found in Epoch 3. We'll only focus on the ones who got eliminated outside of the top five, because if they're in the top five, clearly the audience favors them.

THE LIFE OF IDOL FLOPS AND FILLER: PRETTY BLEAK STUFF

Dear Jeremy Rosado, Shannon Magrane, Erika Van Pelt, Heejun Han, Deandre Brackensick, and any of the major flops in AI11 (likely), this is what you'll be facing, and perhaps news agencies will eventually be getting quotes from you in the future, about life after Idol:

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN RYAN, JIMMY AND NIGEL, REGARDING POTENTIAL WINNERS

May 11, Friday 5:00 AM

Nigel and Ryan walk into Jimmy Iovine's Interscope office to discuss who should be the winner of the show.

*Jimmy: Alright, so we have an important issue to discuss. Who the hell I'm going to have to market as the winner of this show. Nigel, can you tell who's been leading the votes all this time?

THE CONCEPT OF THE SPRINGBOARD AND THE SHIELD

THE CONCEPT OF THE SPRINGBOARD AND THE SHIELD

*Editor's note: I wrote this all the way back on March 2nd. This was before the top 13 started, and right after the semifinals results which happened February 28th. If you read below, that means I predicted the results fairly accurately using this principle--only Elise seems to be way overrated and Hollie was underrated. One could argue Hollie's long stay means that Jessica has a fairly strong shield protecting her, so she might actually win this.

This probably belongs more to the "Grassy Knoll" Thread more than anything, but I'm too lazy to bump it up, and the spoilers page is my friend. So here it goes:

I've noticed that TPTB have pimped, or at least, allowed a few of the same sort contestants into the top 13.

Don't get me wrong--this always happens--but I think they realize that a lot of their shock eliminations come from when the contestant doesn't have any buffer, or when the contestant was the weakest link among the buffer. I don't believe in the idea being the only type of one thing would allow you to suck up all the votes--the last time that happened was AI4's Carrie Underwood--she had a super weak shield that didn't last long (Lindsey Cardinale) but still triumphed despite being the sole rep and being shield-less much of the way. As history shows, shocks and winners occur through the concept of springboards and shields.