Just What The F*ck Is Happening On ‘The Voice’?

Back in March of 2014, NBC’s hit competition reality show, “The Voice” was put on blast for allegedly rigging the votes. At the time I had never even seen the show. But a few nights ago in a stoned and tired daze, and wanting to save episodes of shows that I actually cared about for when I was a little bit more coherent; Hulu recommended The Voice. I put it on and half-watched – half on my phone. I wasn’t even a third of the way through the episode when I realized this show was still rigged. But not by the votes.

The episode I randomly selected was during, “The Knockout Round” where two members of the same team compete against each other and the coach of said team makes the final cut (after acting like it’s the hardest decision they’ve ever made… obviously).

But I have a strong, unwavering feeling that the decision of who gets to stay in the competition starts long before that.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and propose that the producers pick which contestant will be the most interesting, and deem them the winners long before the contestants even know what songs they’re going to perform.

They then give the contestants an option of which songs they’d like to perform. Making the contestants think they have at least a little bit of control.

With two contestants competing against each other, there are two lists. The first list is presented to contestant number one, the one destined to lose because they’re not pretty enough, funny enough, or don’t have an emotional enough background. The list is only compiled of songs that simply can’t compete with the other contestant’s choice of songs.

The winner’s list is made up of songs that show the contestants true abilities such as range, pitch, etc. A song that sets that particular person up for success and the other, up for failure. Think of it like a dance, one person has better, more technical choreography that shows off more of that performer’s ability.

It’s completely unfortunate to the performers, especially if they end up realizing that they were bamboozled. However the contract they signed to allow them to be on the show prevents them from suing, tweeting, or even writing an article and having it published on Thought Catalog.

This was blatantly obvious to me: blazed out of my mind, tired, tension headache, ready to turn in. How is this not causing uproar amongst actually fans of this show?