Why We Love to Hate Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell's job is to be hated. And he's very good at his job. Not to hate him would be an insult to his profession, so by hating Cowell, you are actually showing him that he's doing a good job.

Good Vs. Evil

Most successful television shows, movies or stories are founded on one certain premise - the age old struggle of good verses evil. Simon Cowell, as the quintessential bad guy on "American Idol", represents evil. The good guys are all of the contestants who have to submit to the scathing lashes of Cowell's sarcasm. To get anything resembling compliment from Cowell is a major feat worthy of a superhero.

Simon Cowell does the best he can to come across as being rude, snotty and egocentric. Whether he is like this in real life is unknown, but his persona is a Master Super Critic. But in interviews and publicity for "American Idol" or "Pop Idol", he is unfailingly offensive with his perfect hair and permanent bored expression.

Surviving "AI"

If you are forced to watch an Idol episode for whatever reason, you become quickly buried under the weight of positivism. The contestants are thrilled to be there, their friends and family claim this is the happiest moment of their lives and host Ryan Seacrest smiles at everything. There's applause galore and smiles and everything seems happy and bright for the contestants.

This gets awful cloying for those of us who can't sing a note and would gladly eat our own eyeballs in order to exchange our lives with those of us who can. In this atmosphere, when we are extremely depressed about our lot in life, Simon Cowell is then asked for his opinion. This opinion is usually in stark contrast to the gleefulness of Randy Jackson and the incomprehensible remarks from Paula Abdul. Perhaps what we really hate is that we can't sing or don't have nice hair or a British accent, but we can still judge. And so we judge to hate.

What's His Motivation?

Although he might bring some much needed comic relief to the show, we still hate Simon Cowell. He looks as if his parents have forced him to do the show as a punishment of some sort. If he really cared about bettering the music industry around the world, he definitely wouldn't be in "American Idol" or "Pop Idol."

He seems to only be in it for the money. That hypocrisy - whether feigned or actual - makes Simon Cowell one of the most hated people in modern media, even more than shock jock Howard Stern and the Geiko Gecko combined. Since it is socially acceptable to hate Simon Cowell, many people freely do so.

Since Simon Cowell has announced that he is leaving "American Idol" in 2010, his replacement needs to be as detestable in order to create the good guy-bad guy friction needed in popular entertainment programmes.