So, How Was Kara? The Internet Responds

noah | January 14, 2009 11:30 am

The one aspect of last night’s American Idol season premiere that wasn’t coated in nostalgia for last January was Kara DioGuardi, the former Ashlee Simpson Show bit player who made her debut behind the judges’ table in Phoenix. DioGuardi proved to be Cowell-like in her ability to be acerbic, mocking a pink cowboy-hatted hopeful who was there to meet her and attempting to have a sing-off with Katrina Darrell, a.k.a. that girl who wore the bikini. I, personally, welcomed the presence of a female judge who didn’t have to tell every XX-chromosomed contender that they looked pretty or had nice hair before critiquing the actual meat of their performance, but others disagreed!

New York Post critic Linda Stasi wasn’t impressed with DioGuardi, though she did let us all know that the new judge’s name translated to “Beloved God Watches.” (Rupert?) The whole piece of Stasi’s, really, could be summed up by one infographic:

Sometimes, charticles do work!

Speaking of charticles, the folks at Vulture busted out Excel once again to note that DioGuardi wore too much makeup, and also that she never wrote a song for MC Skat Kat. (At least, not that we know of.) And Richard of our ex-sibling blog Gawker were similarly unimpressed, wishing for “a lady judge who not only seemed competent to judge, as Ms. DioGuardi sort of does (at least more so than Paula), but who was also of stable mind and character.” All I’m going to say is that when a mediocre person who happens to be “hot” by standards of beauty that only measure how much bare, overtanned, un-stretch-marked beauty is bare then gets a free pass for her lack of talent? That’s kind of a maddening thing.

But of course, the real judge-of-the-judge should be the former contestant, who’s been through this before. Take it away, David Archuleta!

“Spunky.” Oh, Archie. I miss you! How did this happen?