Everyone’s talking about Susan Boyle

I first heard of her in the break room at my job – Glenn Beck on Fox News was talking about her appearance on “Britain’s got Talent”.  The next time I saw her name was when it appeared on Twitter in more than one “OMG! You have to watch this youtube video with Susan Boyle!”.  Then, first thing this morning when I check my email – I have in my inbox an email from Marc Cenedella, the founder and CEO of TheLadders, raving about never letting the cynics tell you ‘no’ using Susan Boyle’s story as the example.

So what’s the deal with Susan Boyle?  Her claim to fame is that she is a great singer that has never been discovered.  I’m sure there are thousands of people with that story – American Idol, America’s got Talent, Britain’s got Talent all prove it.  The big difference with Susan is that she is older (47 years old) than most that get a shot on these shows and that she is homely.  Back home we called that “hard to look at”.

If she were 27 and attractive, this would be just another story of someone getting a break on a reality TV show.  Don’t get me wrong – she sang very well in the youtube clip I saw (google it yourself, I don’t have the link handy!).  She was good enough to have Simon look like a school girl in love while he listened to her – which is impressive.  But what’s got everyone buzzing is that we are so shallow that we never expected an older (not old, just older), homely (not ugly, just not attractive) woman to be able to sing well.  Everyone is excited about Susan Boyle because everyone was too shallow to see past her face.

Much Ado About Nothing – if you asked me… but you didn’t.