The intense and sometimes blind worship some have had for Adam Lambert left them completely unprepared for the final results of American Idol 2009. 

After all, the show’s judges including Simon Cowell, Katy Perry’s cape, and Entertainment Weekly had all told them his winning was a foregone conclusion.  So they all tuned in expecting to see a coronation, and saw a coup instead.

Adam Lambert and Kris Allen

In an outcome as shocking as Truman defeating Dewey in 1948, or Foreman taking down Frazier in 1973, Kris Allen won the title over the Idol-in-All-But-Name. 

Immediately thereafter message boards like this one at CNN filled up with anger and hate.  When the scale of an unexpected result is as big as this one seemed, people assume there must be some equally big conspiracy behind it.  They might argue Adam was denied his rightful claim to the title by dewy-eyed pre-teen girls with redial, or tone-deaf cougars, but many seem to focus on perceived anti-gay bias.  As with most conspiracies, the truth is probably much simpler. 

As viewers of the show know, each week fans vote to keep their favorites in contention and the contestant with the fewest votes is eliminated.  All season both Kris and Adam avoided being at risk of elimination;  each week but one.  Three weeks earlier Kris was in the Bottom 3, but Adam was in the Bottom 2.  That was the first indication that Kris’ voters were stronger than Adam’s. 

Last week, when 80 million votes were cast and Danny Gokey was eliminated to make Kris and Adam the finalists, viewers were told that fewer than 1 million votes separated them.  Although we don’t know who was ahead of whom, it was the second indication that Kris had a strong voting bloc.

This week there were 20 million more votes cast and one fewer contestants.  Those votes had to go somewhere.  It appears that Kris was the beneficiary, but why?

It’s clear from the posts on message boards that Adam’s fans confused passion for popularity.  That’s a distinction worth remembering on a show designed to identify a pop star. 

Adam’s stage presence, vocal range, uniqueness, and to be honest, openness about his sexuality, won him many fans.  Some might dare call it idolatry.  So passionate were they that they could barely countenance the idea that anyone else saw it differently.

Popular music is popular precisely because it has the broadest appeal.  Perhaps Adam’s stage presence was seen as theatrics.  Perhaps his glam rock was just too narrow and specific a genre to find wider appeal. 

Adam’s Army dismissed Kris as bland and ordinary, but perhaps his more restrained presence made him more relatable to more of the audience.  Perhaps they credited him with singing while also playing piano and guitar.  In the Olympics they call that “degree of difficulty” and score accordingly.

Rather than acknowledge that an audience of millions had perfectly valid musical reasons for choosing Kris over Adam, some simply chalk it up to bigotry.  One comment poster seemed to hit all the talking points when writing, “I guess we can thank those hatefilled (sic), intolerant, homophobic Christians for this injustice.”

The justifiably disappointed glass-half-empty crowd should remember that the first openly gay American Idol contestant was  consistently rewarded with millions of votes week after week.  If his loss in the final week could be attributed to bigotry, what explains his surviving the previous 10 weeks when 11 others were eliminated? 

Whether because of his sexuality or in spite of it, Adam was accepted by millions of viewers as talented and worthy.  His losing in the final does nothing to diminish that. 

With Season 8 concluded, one hopes reason replaces passion, and that those that resort to such arguments will temper their disappointment.