I watched the American Idol finale the other night and it got me thinking about culture.

When the winner was announced, the runner-up was immediately banished from shot, while the winner was bathed in glory, lights and thousands of those streamer things that must be a nightmare to clean up.

He sang his winning song, while she hung out with all the other losers on the sideline.

And while I was anxiously fidgeting on the couch wondering when someone was going to step in and ensure that the runner up was made aware that she was STILL a winner for turning up, I realised she was totally cool with the situation.

I know we mock ourselves as a country for our lack of competition and drive to win, of our attitude that participation is key and the trophy is a ‘nice to have’ but not really THAT important… But for the first time I wondered if actually that is a FUNDAMENTAL aspect of our culture, and we have twisted ourselves into such a knot about it, we’re the ones with issues about winning and losing.

I imagine the runner up in American Idol will pick herself up, wait about a minute for the bruises to heal, then run off and find a more lucrative record contract. Losing is a part of life, not really worth worrying about, the next win is around the corner.

In New Zealand, what would she do? Run crying home and give up? Would we create this awkward scene where she got a little bit of the limelight in fear that she would end up with lifelong issues from losing? Have we made losing such a big bad monster that we’ve blown it out of all proportion?

Maybe American Idol is not the best place to create theories on culture – but given NZ Idol never really took off (I suspect due to another cultural element of ‘hating on everyone from NZ who is famous in NZ’), it just made me wonder…