Stereotypes of Clay and His Fans--Then and Now

This time around three years ago I would’ve been thrilled to have a blog like this to record my thoughts about Clay Aiken. I knew some big articles and interviews were forthcoming, and I hadn’t been impressed with what I’d seen thus far, so I decided to write my own. Now, post Elle, post Rolling Stone, post Entertainment Weekly, post Time, I look forward to the print features I anticipate will be appearing soon as the new album promotion rolls out. I know now that I couldn’t possibly write anything remotely as interesting as those articles were.

While we’re waiting for these, I want to take a look back--not only for nostalgia's sake, but also because as great as those features were, they did not fully dispel some misconceptions that people had, and some still have about Clay. In the fall of 2003 I had three major concerns.

1) I wanted people to know that Clay is a handsome and sexually attractive man–that his AI-created image was false. Clay’s geek to chic makeover was quite effective, but it was also emasculating. Before AI Clay wasn’t a fey theatre boi, he was a geek--a college student who was tied to his laptop. During the summer after AI, he grew from boy to man. He gained in confidence, he learned to move. He has phenomenal stage presence. He has charmed politicians, upstaged Jay Leno, and bedazzled the goddess of older Clay fans everywhere, Diane Sawyer. He is witty, genuine, entertaining.

And--damn!--he photographs well. The man Simon Cowell called ugly is a photographer's dream. I wanted people to know that Clay’s a chameleon--he has a thousand different faces. He can go from looking like a teen to looking like a man in seconds, and a myriad emotions can play unguardedly across his face in just a few moments.

I wanted people to know that Clay could sing a lot more than just ballads, that he is funny and entertaining--funnier than most working comedians--that he's mesmerizing to watch and listen to, and a totally effortless live performer.

2) I thought people had missed the point of Clay’s place in the television landscape that year, and in television history. 2003 was arguably the peak year for reality TV. Survivor, Extreme Makeover, the Amazing Race, and MTV’s the Real World were favorites, and American Idol was an upstart that had just entered the scene a season before.

To my mind, Clay is the ultimate reality show winner (even though he didn’t win). He played American Idol like it was Survivor--analyzing and reacting to a wide variety of cues to make himself the most competitive contestant. He changed his appearance dramatically, as they did on Extreme Makeover, but without needing surgical help--just by his changing hair style, clothing, stance. Reality shows reveal a lot about their participants: Clay showed that he is personable, easy to get along with, a leader, and that he has strength of character. He is clean-cut, but quirky enough to be interesting--most of his fans knew by then that he is neither saint nor saintly. In the sense that the goal of all of these shows is to win big money, change one’s life, and/or be a great media success, Clay is the ultimate reality show winner of our time. It’s not a question of winning American Idol or any reality show--it’s what you can accomplish given that exposure, that opportunity. Quick! Name a non-Idol reality show winner or participant who has sustained a public presence since the show ended or who is widely recognized for his or her accomplishments since winning.

3) I wanted people to know about the people, mostly women, who are Clay’s fans--that we are intelligent, diverse, “cool” people. I wanted them to know that I’d never met so many women who are so adept in computer technology. Some of his fans work in tech industries, and others taught themselves and learned from generous fellow fans all kinds of wonderful skills: photoshop/blends, web design, photography, audio and video recording, DVD burning, montage making, file storage and archiving, live cell streaming, and so forth. The Clay fandom is a girl-geek’s paradise.

I wanted people to know about the charitable efforts of Clay and his fans. A couple of good blogs have been written about this recently: In the Beginning.....Look What Love Has Done and There Was a Man.

I wanted people to know that we are professors, lawyers, housewives, artists, students, rocket scientists, truck drivers, male and female, all ages. That we are generous, organized, and focused on making positive changes in the world.

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Three years later, with Clay’s third album on the horizon, some of these stereotypes have been dispelled, but for many, thanks mainly to crass comedians, they are stronger and more distorted than ever. Hopefully, with his coming press for the new album, further steps like the surprise AI5 appearance will be taken to change that.

So, as we wait for yet another album and its attendance publicity, and, hopefully, for more stereotype-breaking moments, here’s an essay I wrote back in 2003 just before Measure of a Man came out. I framed it as a letter to TV Guide (though I never sent it). (Little did I know then that he would make the cover–not then, but three times so far.) It addressed some of those stereotypes that concerned me then, and still concern me now.

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10/1/2003

If the folks at TV Guide are not already planning to put Clay Aiken on next week’s (Oct. 11-17) cover, you should be: He appears on Jay Leno (NBC) October 13, Good Morning America (ABC) October 15, the Early Show (CBS) October 17, and the View (ABC) October 17. He was featured last week on a Primetime Special (ABC), and sang at the Miss America pageant September 20. Aiken has been nominated for an American Music Award as best male pop vocalist, without having ever released a commercial album. More copies of his platinum single, “This is the Night,” (with "Bridge Over Troubled Water") were sold in the first week than of Elton John’s 1997 “Candle in the Wind” tribute single to England’s Lady Diana, the next highest contender.

Many of the estimated 24 million people who watched the American Idol finale last May have not seen Aiken since the flurry of post-show interviews ended. Even some in the music business who ought to be better informed are not aware of the fact that Aiken is on his way to a stellar career. Those of us who have had the good fortune to see a lot of him since last May would like to prepare you for some surprises.

1. Clay Aiken’s new album, “Measure of a Man,” is about to be released on October 14, but this is not his first album. Aiken recorded several “demo” albums long before the American Idol show. The “demos” are low-budget, local productions to be sure, made for himself, friends, and family rather than to shop out to record labels, but the quality of his voice makes everything else irrelevant. Tracks include standards like “Unchained Melody” and “My Girl,” pop hits like Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover,” country tunes such as “I Know How the River Feels,” “Not Supposed to Love You Anymore,” and “Look What Love Has Done,” as well as several Contemporary Christian songs. The best of these to me, and I am not normally a country fan, are the country tunes. This is less surprising when you know that he sang with a country band and in country music showcases back in the Raleigh area as a teenager. Whatever he sings, Aiken’s voice is divine. There are more than a few, I among them, who say his music has spoiled them for any other singer. His phrasing, his vocal power, the clarity and depth of his tone and emotion are that impressive.

Over the months since the AI finale, tracks from these demo albums have become widely available, on eBay and as free downloads from numerous sites on the internet. The few remaining originals sell for hundreds of dollars. All of Aiken’s AI performances were made available for free download by Fox. With a wealth of material to choose from, every self-respecting Clay fan has customized at least two or three different CD’s for her or his personal listening pleasure, and burned CD’s for others as well. Does this mean no one will buy his new album? On the contrary, his fans have dedicated themselves to the cause of making it go platinum in the first week of sales. If ever there were testimony to the value of free downloads in promoting the success of a recording artist, these homemade Clay Aiken tracks are it.

The “Measure of a Man” album to be released on October 14th is completely new material. Not an oldie is to be found on it (although older fans are still hoping for a bonus track of “Solitaire”). Despite his substantial baby-boomer fan base and his reputation as a crooner on Idol, RCA has decided to market Aiken as a “pop star.” After all, they might respond to our arched eyebrows, he is only 24 years old. The result is an ambitious, boundary-crossing production that aims to please teenagers and their parents alike.

2. The next item does not begin with a surprise, at least to those who voted for Clay. The AI finalists’ summer tour entertained in 40 venues throughout the country; they sold a lot of tickets, it was an excellent show, and Clay Aiken was the undisputed star. He proved himself to be a natural in an MC role, and in radio and television interviews all over the country he charmed everyone he talked to. The highlight of the show was Aiken’s performance of his new single, “Invisible,” recently released for radio play. Here’s the surprise–Clay CAN dance. He came into his own on this tour, and he was devastatingly seductive. Women screamed and threw panties, and a new term was invented--the Thud (the sound of a fan hitting the floor). Free fan videos of the concerts circulated wildly on the internet. Tribute montages were created, odes were written to every part of his body. Once geeky Clay Aiken is now a sex symbol, and without baring anything more than his forearms. Contemplate that, MTV!

3. Perhaps the biggest surprise to some who have not seem him lately will be my assertion that, second only to his voice, the popular appeal of Clay Aiken lies in his physical beauty. “I’m not a model, that’s for sure,” he said about one of the first times he was photographed for a magazine. But since then he has been photographed endlessly, and if you’re in the celebrity photography business, you already know that he is a dream to shoot. He is a kaleidoscope of personalities. His facets are so many and so varied that one can scarcely believe all are the same person. Some people who saw Clay on American Idol regarded him as giggly and effeminate, and he can be that, but he can also be unmistakably masculine. People who meet him for the first time say they are struck by how tall he is (6' 1"), and, as the photographs have revealed, he’s no smoothed-skinned girly-man. He has moved from the wispy gamin look of the July Rolling Stone cover to the September Entertainment Weekly cover portrait in stubble, t-shirt, and sunglasses. A feature article in the October Elle was accompanied by a photograph of Clay in a tux that caused the Thud heard round the world. The writer, Allison Glock, is an obvious and unashamed victim of Aiken’s charms. She begins thusly: “Clay Aiken smells like fresh laundry. It’s the first thing you notice about him–that he’s well-scrubbed, radiant in his cleanliness, a walking, freckled dryer sheet. The second thing you notice are his lips, which are plump and ripe and shell pink. Much has been made about his hair–the whole flatironed, geek-hipster, red nest of it all, but little, too little, has been made of his lips....”

4. While Aiken’s transformation from geek to gorgeous may be a surprise to some, it will be less of a surprise, at least to AI fans, that Clay speaks in public easily and well. He is charismatic and quick-witted, and these days he radiates self-confidence. Labeled the “thinking woman’s idol” by Diane Sawyer, and "the fantasy fodder of sophisticated women everywhere" by Glock, Aiken was as impressive delivering a speech on education this summer in Washington, D.C., or helping Mayor Bloomberg open the new Wachovia bank on Wall Street, as he is as a singer.

A topic as frequent among his fans as his good looks or his voice is his character. Aiken demonstrated admirable selflessness when Ruben was named the American Idol, and he has refused to engage in controversy over the vote. During the concert tour, he graciously and enthusiastically introduced Ruben every night as “your American idol.” He has displayed humility and genuine concern for others countless times in countless ways. He’s the kind of pop idol you want your kids to admire. While launching his new album this fall, he is also completing his college degree in special education, hoping to graduate in December. Many of his fans are parents of children with special needs, and a host of stories have circulated about Clay’s easy, thoughtful manner with these kids at fan gatherings before and after the concerts, and about the kids’ reaction to him and even to his recorded voice.

This summer Aiken created the Bubel-Aiken Foundation to support inclusion of children with special needs into mainstream programs like the Y and children’s camps. His fans raised $42,000 in less than a week to donate to the Foundation on the occasion of his return home for the Raleigh, NC, concert, spearheaded by a group who named themselves after one of his demos, Look What Love Has Done. Additional checks poured in at every AI concert this summer. For those of you who may have missed his performance at the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon on Labor Day, Clay sang in the time slot traditionally held by Frank Sinatra, and Jerry Lewis made the comparison explicit in his introduction. Fans raised over $30,000 for the MDA. A number of other charitable projects have been initiated by Clay’s admirers.

Neither Aiken nor his fans are wanna-be saints. Aiken has a snarky wit, for instance, and can be abrupt at times; he admits he is “not as innocent as he seems,” but even his faults can seem endearing to those who have been captivated by the total package that is Clay Aiken. He is a man with a huge heart and a playful nature whose caring for others shines through in everything he does.

5. By now it should be no surprise that an avid fan base for Aiken has developed, largely on the internet. These fans freely share gigabytes of photos, audio and video files from concerts; they have created hundreds of internet sites; message boards with thousands of members hang on his every breath, analyze his haircuts, his eating habits, his music, and his sexual attractiveness. While some of what you may find on these sites is unexceptional, and sometimes even off-putting, Aiken has attracted many supporters of great wit, intellect, and humor. After the AI concert tour began, odes to Aiken’s sexual appeal proliferated: The Weapons of Mass Seduction thread, which evolved into a message board; the Lecherous Broads for Clay Aiken website, known for its BEVR’s (Broad’s Eye View Reports of the concerts)–the LBFCA got their own picture in Rolling Stone. It’s by no means all about sex appeal; there is a bounty of websites and message boards with a depth and variety of offerings that should prove attractive to anyone who wants to catch up on all that’s been missed as this new phase of Clay Aiken’s career begins.

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