Lee DeWyze is trending this week. Remember him? Really. Really?

Lee DeWyze is trending this week. Remember him? Really. Really?

  Lee DeWyze is trending this week. Remember him? Really. Really? Lee DeWyze was last year's winner of American Idol. No kidding. Huh. What. When?

Fame is so fleeting. Cyberspace was abuzz this week with the fallout from last year's American Idol winner either not being invited to take part in the big Wednesday Finale or being asked at the last-minute, and refusing, depending on the source.

DeWhodat was there alright and quite square, according to many sources, including zap2it, reporting Dewyze twitter feeds -- how 2011 -- saying he "was not asked to be involved in the finale. It wasn't until about 2 minutes before they announced that Nigel (Lythgoe, executive producer) had approached me and asked if he could 'borrow' me for a second. I didn't feel a last second jump on stage was right. It was Scotty (McCreery)'s moment."

One year after being No. 1 with a bullet star of America's top-rated TV show, DeWyze already is a where-is-he-now type story. Did he actually release any music last year. Dunno. Where did he tour - New York, Chicago, Los Angeles? Nope, Malaysia.

The DeWyze DeWhodat story raises so many issues on so many levels about American culture and society though. Despite reality show popularity, nobody remembers 99 percent of the cast members as soon as the shows end. Even the winner of the most popular reality game show in America, circa. 2010 is almost unrecognizable a year later, a cyber of an afterthought.

Since this is the case, might not a reasonable person argue reality shows are evil and part of the reason for a general decline in cultural values and social achievement. The reality shows promote narcissism and instant gratification in lieu of principles such as hard work and talent that once were important in America.

Wouldn't America be better off without these abominations, and Americans be better off with, say Shakespeare plays, more cultural, educational and nature programming or other real, non-reality programming.

Lee DeWyze and America's demise

Who is choosing all these reality shows anyway? News flash: Corporate flunkies with no true connection with really real people, and not the Real Wives franchise of their imaginary kind. (Guess the network yes-people greenlight these shows because they are cheap to produce, but at what cost to society and even America's future.)

It also goes to the Idol experience. The namby-pamby non-criticism of judges Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy ??? instead of Simon Cowell's over-the-top honesty meant the voting public had no clue how to vote. So, the best talent went weeks before two country western mediocrities competed for the top spot.

Even DeWyze on his twitter feed figured he needed to do some reminding. The feed proclaims: "American Idol Season 9 Winner!" just to let people know. The twitter feed had 92,717 followers this week, nor exactly mind-numbing figures on a social media outlet where celebrities routinely get hundreds of thousand of followers.

If DeWyze is so easily forgotten, where does that leave country cornball Scott McCreery. Never was Idol's artificial promotion machine so obvious as the propping up of this kid as some sort of heart-throb, usually surrounding him with several clueless teenage girls. Come on man. And since when did American Idol become American Country Idol?

The real question amidst the whatever happened to Lee DeWyze American Idol finale confusion isn't what happened to American Idol, but what happened to America. What do you think?