Black Z Eddie wrote:
You're reading into it toooooooooooooo much.  So far, a young girl, a dude, and a group have won the golden buzzer.

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/e … zzer-2018/

And, if you're not a fan, then, why do you watch it?

It ain't the golden buzzer.  The pattern is that cute very young girls are winning the whole thing:
   2016:  Grace Vanderwaal, 12  (Her audition start at 1:57)
   2017:  Darcy Lynne (ventriloquist), also 12 (Her AGT audition performance).
   2018:  This girl is old (13).

I don't watch AGT at all, but I do stumble across the YouTube videos every once in a while.  I have a friend who has two kids who took to theater, and whenever either is in a play, my friend takes me to see him or her.  The girl was the oldest, and when she got started with musicals, she had a vocal range of about a half an octave, but there was something endearing about these young people trying their best and putting aside any stage fright to give it a go.  So, yes, I'm a sucker for kids performing, and these AGT kids performed exceedingly well.  This last girl performed with more power than many of the full time professionals I know.

Grace, now 14, on Stephen Colbert's show.  She's come a long way.
My favorite AGT Darcy Lynne performance.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
It ain't the golden buzzer.  The pattern is that cute very young girls are winning the whole thing:
.

The one time they got it wrong was season 5.
Michael Grimm won over Jackie Evancho.

While Michael Grimm is a good performer, he has a hard time filling a small lounge at any given off the strip Las Vegas casino whereas Jackie Evancho has been consistently selling out stadiums and concert halls all over the world.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
.....
Grace, now 14, on Stephen Colbert's show.  She's come a long way.[/u].

I watched the one of Grace on Stephen Colbert's show and all I can say is "What's up with the poor lighting on that show!"  Their band performances stink for lighting.  If they are using LED's, it demonstrates how poor and focused they are as the eyes are often dead and void of catch-lights as if they have no "Follow spot tech" working or no fill-lights on their cameras at all.

Another one off his show that sucked for lighting and demonstrates they really need a follow-spot lighting tech on board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j7z_oPTvJM

Compared to the lighting production on the west coast Jimmy Kimmel show, Colbert's sucks!  Better union lighting on the west coast perhaps.

Back to AGT...

Looknsee Photography wrote:
[...] I am a cynic & a skeptic,[...].

I have no idea what is true, and what is hype these days.

I am not a fan of the game shows, contests etc etc and dont follow any of them... so I have no basis for criticism, other than they dont suit  ---me---.

But I have had a growing unease about the entire industry and child talent of any kind.

I have no idea if the stories I have heard about little girls and over-demanding Mom's on the pageant circuit are true or not. Knowing how screwed up some people can be, I find at least some of the negativity credible. You run into articles like the one at this Penn State web site, and you have to at least think about it...
(  https://sites.psu.edu/childbeautypageants/  )

So I have ZERO trouble thinking that these young kids on these "talent shows" might very well be subjected to the same intense unhealthy pressures...

All that stuff kinda piles up for me... it makes it hard to really enjoy these young kids performing-- I always wonder/worry that they are actually being forced to be their parents paycheck.... and being robbed of what little joy childhood can bring these days.

rfordphotos wrote:

I have no idea what is true, and what is hype these days.

I am not a fan of the game shows, contests etc etc and dont follow any of them... so I have no basis for criticism, other than they dont suit  ---me---.

But I have had a growing unease about the entire industry and child talent of any kind.

I have no idea if the stories I have heard about little girls and over-demanding Mom's on the pageant circuit are true or not. Knowing how screwed up some people can be, I find at least some of the negativity credible. You run into articles like the one at this Penn State web site, and you have to at least think about it...
(  https://sites.psu.edu/childbeautypageants/  )

So I have ZERO trouble thinking that these young kids on these "talent shows" might very well be subjected to the same intense unhealthy pressures...

All that stuff kinda piles up for me... it makes it hard to really enjoy these young kids performing-- I always wonder/worry that they are actually being forced to be their parents paycheck.... and being robbed of what little joy childhood can bring these days.

I think things can go bad quickly with kids like Leann Rimes.  On the other hand Miranda Lambert seems to have a good head on her shoulders.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
Yeah, I kinda think winning AGT could be a curse for some of these young girls.  Take Grace Vanderwaal as an example.  She's a talented singer and a talented songwriter, but her songs are all about adolescent girls' angst and about being bullied.  Once she won, she had to be taken out of school & become home schooled / private tutoring.  She's clearly getting coached with her music.  She clearly has learned a lot, has worked on her presentation & production values.  But she's becoming more & more isolated.  She probably will never experience a "normal" childhood ever again.
[...]
So, that's a dilemma for a parent -- you want to encourage your children to be all they can be, and you want your children to achieve all the success they want, but be careful what you wish for...

absolutely.

In an ideal world, we could encourage kids without instilling unrealistic goals, or pressuring them into being something they arent interested in being. But between the unrealistic expectations of parents, and the unreal pressure of modern social media on young kids, I dont know if its possible any longer.

I read today one of the young stars of "Stranger Things" --Millie Bobby Brown-- had been forced to quit Twitter because of bullying and trolling her account... Simply by being "noticed" she became a target. That sucks.

rfordphotos wrote:
I read today one of the young stars of "Stranger Things" --Millie Bobby Brown-- had been forced to quit Twitter because of bullying and trolling her account... Simply by being "noticed" she became a target. That sucks.

On the other (also sucky) hand, many "new" "stars" are encouraged to gather a following on social media.  You can't win.  The only way not to lose is to refuse to play the game.  These kids have exceptional talent, but becoming a public figure and/or a full time professional performer at 12 or 13 or so -- that just might not be best for them.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
I'm not a fan of America's Got Talent (or any other show that turns performance into a competition), but it seems that for the past couple of years, AGT has been won by very cute, very young, and very precocious girls.  I think the past two winners were both 12 when they won.

Here's the audition of a 13 year old's surprising performance.  I'll comment latter.

Perhaps you are unaware but America's Got Talent is 100% fake. The winner, along with all the fate of all the other contestants on that show is chosen LONG before the final episode is shot. Honestly, the show has as much basis in reality as Gilligan's Island.

SayCheeZ!  wrote:
I'm a big fan of AGT,

My wife and I used to be big fans of the show and I love the fact that you see a variety of unique acts on it but after the second or third season they switched to a new directorial style and the show is just unwatchable now. If an act is on stage for 2 minutes you MAYBE get to see 30 seconds of the actual performance. The rest are random cuts to the audience, the judges, the back stage, the performer's parents in the audience, back to the judges, back to the performance, back to the audience, back to the idiot emcee du jour, back to the audience, back to the performance (from 4 different cameras in 6 seconds), back to the audience, back to the judges, etc. etc. etc. It's like they bought 28 different cameras and they feel obligated to use each and every one of them when someone is performing. It's the worst edited show I've ever seen. It would be really nice if you could actually just watch the performers perform, but no. It's why we tuned out of the show years ago. That, and the fact that the show is 100% fake, which leads me to:

albeit there's a few things that don't really make it seem to be a fair and square competition.

For instance, they make it seem as though the competitors are almost all amateurs and part of the prize is to have their own show on the Las Vegas strip.

The show is fake. 100% of it. There is no such thing as a competition when all the winners and losers are told who is going to win and who is going to lose before filming takes place. Being here in Vegas, you obviously have clued in on many of the acts that have been on AGT from Vegas, who had regular shows around town and yes, they were all paid to go on the show for a set number of appearances and get cut at a certain point. Their entire performances were staged as to their level of advancement. Two acts that immediately come to mind are the Pendragons and Kevin Barnes. The Pendragons were regulars in Vegas for over a decade. They headlined at Caesars Palace for years and were regulars in the Magical Empire. They were also on national shows such as The Worlds Greatest Magicians. They had fallen off the radar for a while so AGT picked them up. They were in Season 3 of the show. They did a whole bio on the two of them and everything. They performed their famous version of Houdini's Metamorphosis (sorry, I know a lot about magic...paid my way through college performing it here in Vegas) which, as far as I know, still holds the worlds record for being the fastest version of the trick. The judges loved them and they were passed on to the next round. Back then, after they had all the winners of Round 1, they randomly eliminated 1/3 of them, keeping only 2/3 of the winners to move on to the next round. The Pendragons didn't make the cut. Why? Because they were paid $10,000 to just do one performance, and that's exactly what they did. They weren't paid to compete, they were paid to go on the show and get cut.

Pretty much the same story for Kevin James, who had a regular show over the Greek Isles hotel for years. He also has a studio warehouse in Vegas where he builds lots of props and illusions for magicians. He was the one who made the famous Snowstorm illusion for David Copperfield, that was featured in one of his shows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUVFC8ozUE

Years later, I was brokering a deal to get one of these from Kevin to another person, a hypnotist, who wanted a more portable version. I was over at Kevin's workshop (off Valley View, behind the Rio hotel) and I was greeted by a lower body amputee who took me to the back room where I met with Kevin. I saw the prototype of what would be an illusion he did on AGT when he made it to the semi-finals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxXfGHMwzjw

So yes, I saw exactly the design of the entire prop and performance of this illusion while it was still in development. It was very clever. But yeah, Kevin was a shill also.

There are others too that I know were fakes on the show too but it would take me forever to regale the stories. The bottom line is, the show is fiction.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
I'm not a fan of America's Got Talent (or any other show that turns performance into a competition), but it seems that for the past couple of years, AGT has been won by very cute, very young, and very precocious girls.  I think the past two winners were both 12 when they won.

Here's the audition of a 13 year old's surprising performance.  I'll comment latter.

Shot By Adam wrote:
Perhaps you are unaware but America's Got Talent is 100% fake. The winner, along with all the fate of all the other contestants on that show is chosen LONG before the final episode is shot. Honestly, the show has as much basis in reality as Gilligan's Island.

Of course it's fake.  It's no coincidence that 12 y.o. pretty white girls have won the past few years -- after all, who do you think their audience is?  I also don't understand why the golden buzzer makes contestants cry (and no, no need to explain it to me).  And I'm suspicious of "back stories" about how these performers are shy or nervous.

But OTOH, there's no denying that at some point, these little 12 y.o. girls walk out on stage alone, in front of critical judges & (I'm guessing) 700-800 people in the audience, with lights & cameras pointing at them, and they have to perform.  And there's no denying that these girls have some talent.

I don't know if we'll continue to see the ventriloquist, Darcy Lynne, any more, but Grace Vanderwaal has released a couple of albums, some music videos, and is making the circuit of talk shows.  She has grown a lot and will likely continue to grow.

But as far as talent goes, this 13 y.o. Courtney Hadwin already has gobs.  There are YouTube videos of her when she was 11, and she had excellent control over her voice (singing slower songs).  And few people (of any age) today who can channel Janis Joplin like she did in her AGT audition.  Watch it again & look how quick the audience got to their feet.  That's real talent.  (Actually, not -- the audience probably stood because a stage manager told them to).

But I get a bad feeling when an adolescent girl (maybe not through puberty) singing adult love songs.

Shot By Adam wrote:
... you MAYBE get to see 30 seconds of the actual performance. The rest are random cuts to the audience, the judges, the back stage, the performer's parents in the audience, back to the judges, back to the performance, back to the audience, back to the idiot emcee du jour, back to the audience, back to the performance (from 4 different cameras in 6 seconds), back to the audience, back to the judges, etc. etc. etc. It's like they bought 28 different cameras and they feel obligated to use each and every one of them when someone is performing. It's the worst edited show I've ever seen.

Ahhh, that's the "Magic" of AGT!  They do the work of 28 cameras with only about 8.
(The shows I was at had two main camera, 2 each flying on a jib, one or two handheld by guys running around on stage or slightly off stage and maybe a couple more that I forgot about)

Before the show starts, a wrangler comes out to warm up the audience.  The audience is then told to stand up and cheer (and told to do it a few more times), then they're told to stand up and 'boo' (and told to do it a few more times), then they're told to chant something  (and told to do it a few more times)... etc, etc, etc.  All of the cameras are aimed at the audience during this time.

During the intermission it's all repeated again.

Towards the end of the auditions, it's done for the last time, however the audience is instructed to do or say things that pretty much have to do with the acts that auditioned.  For instance, lets say a girl named Chelsea performed the 4th audition of the night.  The wrangler would have the audience yell "Chelsea, Chelsea" over and over again during the last round of audience filming.

It's all edited together, so the cuts that your seeing of audience members cheering for a particular contestant was most likely shot when the contestant wasn't even there.

SayCheeZ!  wrote:
Ahhh, that's the "Magic" of AGT!  They do the work of 28 cameras with only about 8.

The problem is they feel obligated to use the shot from those 8 cameras over a 10 second period of time. It's the worst "live" show editing I've ever seen. I don't know why they edit that show the way the do but it's been my experience that any time you have to edit something like that it's because you're hiding insecurities in your production. Same thing goes for movies, when they use shaky cam so much that you can't figure out what's happening during an action scene it's because the Director of the film is bad at directing action scenes and they need all that nauseating editing to cover the faults of the director not knowing what they are doing. I just assumed though with so many people complaining about this over the years, AGT would have gone away with this. Obviously not.

Shot By Adam wrote:
[I don't know why they edit that show the way the do but it's been my experience that any time you have to edit something like that it's because you're hiding insecurities in your production.

Well, to be fair, there is a big, big difference between post production editing & "live" editing / camera switches.  In post production, you can look at the various choices from all cameras for any given moment, and then choose the best one.  In "live" "editing", you switch the camera view between the available cameras, trying to predict which one will yield the best view.  "Live" editing is cheaper & faster, and therefore more popular, but sometimes you miss important stuff. 

And to be honest, I did get a kick seeing folks reactions to this girl once she started singing.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
"Live" editing is cheaper & faster, and therefore more popular, but sometimes you miss important stuff. 
.

AGT edits in post... moreso the last few years than previously.
It used to be that each weekly episode was all from the same city.
Now they mix all of the audition locations together in each weekly episode as evidenced by the judges wardrobe.

Hell, anymore I wouldn't doubt if the audience reaction shot that you see for the singer in Dallas was one of the posed shots during the auditions in New York.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
I'm not a fan of America's Got Talent (or any other show that turns performance into a competition), but it seems that for the past couple of years, AGT has been won by very cute, very young, and very precocious girls.  I think the past two winners were both 12 when they won.

Here's the audition of a 13 year old's surprising performance.

Okay, I'm obsessed with this young girl.  Here's a behind-the-scenes video from AGT on this performer.  Some thoughts:
...  AGT is adept at manipulating us, and they are not necessarily honest.
...  That being said, I do believe she's socially awkward & painfully shy.  There are a lot of shots with her
     hugging her father's arm or leaning against him or resting her head on his shoulder, ...
...  Which all makes her performance all that more compelling -- she's a different person when singing.
...  It was surprising to me that at her "registration" in the morning, she was wearing the same clothes
     as when she performed.  No costume changes, no make up, just "come as you are".
...  Indeed, her performance didn't exactly have significant production values.  Static lighting.  Was her
     musical accompaniment pre-recorded, or was there a "live" trio there.
...  Makes me wonder:  There must be an AGT assembly line, moving acts on & off the stage quickly.  How
     many acts can they see?  They might allot 10 minutes or less per act?  So, maybe 15 -20 acts seen
     per recording?
...  She really did flub her lyrics there, but she covered well.  Also, one could say that with regards to the
     song's original lyrics, that song might not be an appropriate choice for a 13 y.o. girl.  But man, did she
     make everybody's jaw drop!

And I gotta say that I like her The Voice UK Kids performances better -- more production values.

So, I'm in love & looking forward to seeing more performances from her.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
Of course it's fake.  It's no coincidence that 12 y.o. pretty white girls have won the past few years -- after all, who do you think their audience is?

Really?

Looknsee Photography wrote:
Still obsessed with this talented young lady.  Here's her performance from last nights AGT.  The things I've noticed....
...  She seems taller (but that could be her wardrobe),
...  Her body seems to be budding, becoming a young woman,
...  I think she gets better every time I see her.

Whatcha think?

I think her schtick is cringey and would only work as a gimmick within the confines of talent show.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
Of course it's fake.  It's no coincidence that 12 y.o. pretty white girls have won the past few years -- after all, who do you think their audience is?

What Fun Productions wrote:
Really?

I can kind of see Lookie's point.

Several years ago there was only one way to vote, and that was by phone, and the amount of times a person can vote was pretty limited.  Now there's several ways to vote... online, text, phone... and I think the limit is 10 votes per method.

I don't know of any grown adults that can text or even manipulate an app very quickly, nor would they have any patience to do so 30 times but anyone under age 25 can spit out that amount of texts within seconds... hence the younger skew.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
Of course it's fake.  It's no coincidence that 12 y.o. pretty white girls have won the past few years -- after all, who do you think their audience is?

What Fun Productions wrote:
Really?

SayCheeZ!  wrote:
I can kind of see Lookie's point.

Several years ago there was only one way to vote, and that was by phone, and the amount of times a person can vote was pretty limited.  Now there's several ways to vote... online, text, phone... and I think the limit is 10 votes per method.

I don't know of any grown adults that can text or even manipulate an app very quickly, nor would they have any patience to do so 30 times but anyone under age 25 can spit out that amount of texts within seconds... hence the younger skew.

I just figure that the votes get "tabulated" in a back room by the show's producers who have a vested interest in who wins.  It's not like there's any oversight or monitoring.  What's to stop them from reporting whatever results they want to?

Then again, my gal here reportedly received >200,000,000 views of her audition on YouTube.  I don't know how they can fake that.

As I'm not a fan of the show, I'm surprised to learn how popular it is worldwide.

Tony From Syracuse wrote:
I think her schtick is cringey and would only work as a gimmick within the confines of talent show.

I can get that, but she sings the kind of music that I remember fondly, and she does it very well.  (I would like a little better enunciation, but that's a quibble).  She has a powerful voice and a surprising presence (especially since she's so shy without music).

P.S.  A big lot of people cringed when Janis Joplin sang, too.

SayCheeZ!  wrote:
I'm a big fan of AGT, albeit there's a few things that don't really make it seem to be a fair and square competition.

I hate to break it to you guys but there is no competition on that show. The winners and losers are chosen long before taping begins. The show is fake. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news on that.

Looknsee Photography wrote:
I just figure that the votes get "tabulated" in a back room by the show's producers who have a vested interest in who wins.  It's not like there's any oversight or monitoring.  What's to stop them from reporting whatever results they want to?

The whole voting thing is non-existent. The outcome is scripted. Having known many people who have been on the show, one of which who went to the semi-finals one year, they all had the same story; that they were told exactly how and when they were going to get cut from the show and they got a paycheck because of it. Like virtually all "reality shows", this one has no basis in reality either.