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 that surprised the globe in this contest searching for talent.

Only a few hours after her audition, some Hollywood stars (Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher) were already complementing her on Twitter. A few days on, the video of her performance was seen more that 10 million times, reaching now 150 million views. After 5 weeks, Susan had become a world celebrity.

By convenience - or perhaps not - the name of this singer was transformed into the brand SuBo. If we search on the internet for SuBo, we can easily (rapidly?) have access to more information related to Susan. This form of branding is widely used in the music business, where amidst many, it is possible to mention the example of Jennifer Lopez (JLo), applying a logo to her activity and exploring the market with merchandising, perfumes and clothes.

As for SuBo, the interviews started to multiply, together with photos, rumours, defamation, provocation and the exploration of her image. Always, the image as central element of any ultra-fast journey towards fame. In reality, it wasn’t Susan’s voice 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 (also using SuBo’s image), it is the fact that the experience overcomes our 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, the illusion and expectation.

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 was in second place, in what it was a big disappointment for her fans and 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 to rest.

These reality shows are not made to slow down, but to consume. 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. These shows are not worried with progressive transitions, but with quick jumps, with teleportation. Every time a supersonic journey is created by a world of fast imagery and Hollywood culture, slowing down seems not to be an option, running the risk of collapse.

On the same day Britain’s Got Talent 2009 reached the end, the company Talkback Thames 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