Susan Boyle or SuBo?

Speed is not so much a product of our culture as our culture is a product of speed. ¹

Everything happened fast. The British TV Show Britain’s Got Talent was talked all over the world during the last month and a half. This achievement was due to Susan Boyle, a Scottish singer who surprised the globe in this contest searching for talent - as the organizers portray it.

Only a few hours after her audition, Hollywood film stars Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were already complementing her on Twitter. A few days on, the video of her performance was seen more than 10 million times, reaching 150 million views in an extremely short period of time. After five weeks, Susan had become a global celebrity.

During this process of fast-stardom, for convenience - or perhaps not - the name of this participant was transformed into the brand SuBo. Searching on the internet for SuBo, we can easily (rapidly?) have access to more information related to Susan and to the show she is participating. This form of branding is widely used in many areas. In the music business for example, it is possible to mention the case of Jennifer Lopez (JLo), applying a logo to her activity and exploring the market with merchandising, perfumes and clothes. Shortening a name is an obvious tactic to speed every process of marketing a brand.

As for SuBo, interviews started to multiply, together with photos, rumors, defamation, provocation and the exploration of her image. Image is always the central element of any ultra-fast trip towards fame. During this meteoric journey, it wasn’t Susan’s voice - in reality - that created this accelerated circus around her. What generated all this admiration was the dissonance between sound and image. As author Margaret Wertheim mentioned on Design Observer (strangely using SuBo as some kind of epitome for middle-aged woman’s affirmation), it is the fact that the experience overcomes the viewer’s expectations that makes this video so seductive.

To the creators of the show, what matters the most is to maximize the product and to explore the cinematic experience and the illusion.

The show happens in very little time, with the clock ticking fast. It’s show business, say the juries of the contest. The singer said many times that she wanted to give up, that she couldn’t take it any more, but ended up being convinced otherwise by the producers and creators of the show.

When the competition ended, Susan ended up in second place, in what it was a big disappointment for her fans and especially for herself, due to the extreme pressure of fast victory. On this moment of deceleration, Susan blocked and suffered a nervous breakdown, being transported to a clinic in order to rest.

These reality shows are not made to slow down, but to consume - and consumption is grounded on speed: more consumption. Many articles have been written on this subject, mainly regarding Big Brother and about ex-participants that enter in mental depression or even through a life of crime after the shows end. These programs are not concerned with progressive transitions, but with quick jumps, with teleportation. Every time a supersonic journey is created by a world of fast imagery and Hollywoodesque culture, slowing down seems not to be an option, running the risk of collapse.

On the same day Britain’s Got Talent 2009 closed its curtains, the company Talkback Thames, responsible for the show, posted a press release on the official website with the title “Wishing Susan a speedy recovery“. After this post, another one followed: “Apply now to perform on series 4!”.

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Millar, Jeremy/ Schwarz, Michiel, Speed - Visions of an Accelerated Age, London, The Photographer’s Gallery and Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1998, pp. 16