Being somebody – the X Factor generation - posted on Wordpress blog on November 15, 2010

X Factor always causes controversy – we seem to live in a world where people are happy to put themselves on shows like this to open themselves up to scrutiny. The latest series has probably caused the biggest storm, whether this is media hype or a symptom of a worrying nationwide hype that is becoming a defining element of our country.
But in the midst of all this hype a teenage girl this week said something that was incredibly worrying, and awfully sad, in my opinion.
After her appearance at a film premiere this week, 17-year-old Cher Lloyd said: “This is the most important I’ve ever felt in my life, I feel like a somebody now.”
This quote comes in stark contrast to an unbelievable experience I had myself this weekend – I had the great privilege to visit Camp Bastion in Afghanistan and met some of the people who are fighting for our country. Whether or not you agree with the war in Afghanistan, no doubts can ever be held over the commitment and professionalism of our armed forces. I met soldiers, sailors and airmen who are living in incredibly difficult conditions, many have lost friends and comrades in horrible ways, yet still get up every day to do an extremely important job, often with very little recognition.
We don’t know who they are or what they do, and they rarely get a well done or round of applause from the British public, yet they carry on. Why is this? Because it is about more than that.
In Camp Bastion’s remembrance service, Padre Andrew Lloyd told the 2,500 men: ”This is service, this is commitment, not just passing vacuous celebrity but the reason you walk tall alongside your forebears and across the generations to come.”
And isn’t he right – aren’t these the qualities we should be recognising in people?
How sad, then, that a teenage girl with her life ahead of her only feels like a “somebody” after receiving public adulation thanks to a reality TV show. What have we come to that walking a red carpet, being blinded by camera flashes, and hearing people screaming her name, is what makes somebody feel that they are doing something, or are somebody, worthwhile? How tragic if this is what the next generation see as being somebody!
Thank goodness our soldiers, many of them not much older than her, see being somebody as far more than that. Thank goodness they don’t need our screams and adoration to carry on what they are doing so well. Hopefully all is not lost!