But did he win?

On Thursday night me and the wife went and saw puddles pity party, puddles the clown is a entertainer who sings and essentially does a pantomime type of show. it is excellent and well worth the money. it was interesting as I assumed wrongly that most of the show goers would be like myself (hipster asshats) but I was pleasantly surprised that most of the crowd appeared to be normal people, this confused me for a minute but then I was reminded by my dear wife that he also was a contestant on Americas got talent, this pulled a interesting idea into existence: did he win?

 
To understand why I suddenly had this realization you must know about media marketed persuasion. This lens was reveled to me through Scott Adams blog (which I suggest everyone should read) which explains his perspectives and lenses of observation. The persuasion lens is mostly about what action will have the strongest desired result with out very much consideration as to the normalcy or perceived nature of the action. with this lens in place I came to a sudden and interesting idea which was that maybe puddles should have dropped out of Americas got talent.
To understand why you Have to look at exactly what the purpose is for Americas got talent which I will now refer to as AGT because typing it out sucks. So, the purpose of AGT is to sell advertising during a televised nationwide talent show this works because the people who compete are hoping to gain recognition or win a prize. Puddles was the former, he was after the recognition. That being said the nature of a contest is to find the winner, there is only one. One person out of all the others is elevated by the contest its self, all the others although they have a moment in the spot light the spot light is ultimately controlled by the contest. The runners up are remembered briefly but once you are not under that spotlight it becomes a lot harder to be noticed. I understood that puddles was on of the three finalists in AGT, this is a position which most contestants would be excited to find themselves, that close to the end. But this closer to the truth as you only have two possibilities in this situation on is you keep winning and moving forward the other is that you lose. Both of these choices are out of your hands, that is the problem. You don’t have control. Your goal is out of your hands. maybe they like you but maybe not but you don’t have a guarantee.

This is why I believe he should have dropped out, at this stage puddles had clearly established that he was different, interesting and as one of three finalists it is obvious that he has talent. He is in the spot light his goal is being achieved currently but if he left in a dramatic fashion he would both elevate himself above all the other contestants by signaling that he doesn’t need the contest. which would have the effect of removing him from a deathly anchoring point. An anchoring point is basically the largest thing that people associate you with, this association is very important as it is a hierarchical system of memory. Those who have won AGT have had a level of celebrity but they always fall short as the true game of polished industry artist versus scrappy contest winner is clearly decided by who you know or who picks you up (Bieber is the obvious example here) .

the way I would have suggested puddles to take to maximize his publicity, would have been to after being formally recognized as one of the last three, would have been to in my next performance to sing “pressure” by Queen or “the winner” by Abba. Then I would have advised him to feed the hosting network an excuse; claiming that either the stress of the contest or the wish to not stand in the way of the other contestants dreams to win caused him to withdraw. I would also have advised him to do this publicly on the show, in the same character and manner as his regular demeanor would dictate. By doing this he would both elevate himself above the show to a different level of celebrity, he would keep his narrative as there wouldn’t be a bookend to his celebrity like the end of a show, which only a few have transcended. His non-speaking character would also be perfect for this as it could be all pantomime and theatrics which would keep the Network happy at this new revelation. Until they realized that they’re spotlight had been high jacked. I would have advised puddles to have something big to throw out online and on social media like a new song possibly “the greatest” by Sia and a list of tour dates with buyable tickets. This would enable him to hang on to the spot light for much longer than just the mere life span of the contest. and like I stated, a bookending like a televised talent contest really doesn’t keep you in the spot light as the contest moves on, but if you were to pull a stunt like this you would have elevated yourself and created curiosity around your brand and your future instead of hitting the wall of a seasonal show.

This begs the question: did he win?

Zac