The rise of social media usage — and all of the sub-cultural occurrences, practices, and influences that have arisen out of its omnipresence— has seemingly helped to make our species less adept at being more human in real life.
People who are attractive, competent, and accomplished. Sometimes, people who appear accomplished, attractive, competent, etc. on their Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat posts are a big letdown in reality. People are even choosing to use their Bitmojis or iPhone avatars for their online presence. Alter Ego Judges argue that this isn’t necessarily a negative thing.
Who are the judges of Fox’s “Alter Ego”?
Spoiler alert: The show’s premise is a singing contest. You are probably asking yourself this question. “Why in the heck would we need another one of these shows? Let me guess, everyone has a sob story about how they overcame their fear of potato chips [or insert personal struggle here] in order to stand tall in front of an audience and live out their dreams?”
But this series functions differently. This is because the judges Alanis Morrissette, Grimes, or Nick Lachey are unable to see the performers auditioning. Well, they don’t see the actual performers.
Instead, judges will be able to see an avatar created by the competitors as they audition.
This layer of artifice may sound like something a Kardashian would pull off, you know, without injecting bits of this and that into various parts of their bodies in order to look great in a well-lit selfie, but it actually seems like to be an amalgamation of popular premises as of late. The first that comes to mind is The Masked Singer, and maybe even some of the recent success that Doja Cat’s been accomplishing with her complete ownership of an e-girl aesthetic.
But one of the show’s own judges, Nick Lachey, was involved with one of the most popular dating reality series in recent history: Love is Blind, in which he and his wife Vanessa helped to conduct an experiment to see if people could really fall in love and build long-lasting relationships with each other after committing to getting married without even seeing what the other person looks like.
With artists being able to “hide” behind an avatar, they can focus solely on their music and not worry about how they’re going to look. It could help both the judges of the show and viewers at home gain exposure to artists who otherwise may not be able to perform on a stage and battle the thought of everyone looking at them.
Grimes stated that the show’s unique format could potentially help contestants experimenting with gender fluidity, something she touched on while she participated in a recent photoshoot: “Actually, just yesterday I did a photo shoot where I dressed up as a man and I don’t even do that much.”
She continued, “I was like, man, I should do this more. It just feels good and in the show, I feel like people were doing that, just sort of being like, I’m going to try this.
Alter Ego debuts on Wednesday, September 22, 2021, on FOX at 9 p.m. EST.