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It does seem odd to me that after all these years MLB and the NFL are “getting tough” on performance-enhancing drugs. But what’s even more odd to me is that performance enhancement is not limited to athletics any more than “cheating” is; yet sports (for the moment) are the prime target. And Richard Sherman, in spite of not having been officially “caught,” has been one of the issue’s poster children.

But heck… academia, entertainment, modeling, celebrity, commercialism—just about anything that can put people in the spotlight demands outperforming the opponent.

But what drives the cheating? It’s not just about performance, but what the performance brings: money and recognition. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire and all those heavy-hitting steroid users would very likely have been less enticed by steroids if they hadn’t known that the world was watching them, and in a way that fed their bank accounts. Likewise, other entertainers might be less likely to get nipped and tucked if they didn’t think the entire nation were counting their wrinkles and age spots.

But whose fault is that?

There is no such thing as an un-worshiped idol. On the contrary; an idol, by definition, must be worshiped. Thus the responsibility of idol-making is in the hands of the worshipers, not the worshiped. It’s the old Psychology 101 “Positive Reinforcement” scenario: if you reward what people do with something they want (money, fame, notoriety, etc.) they are more likely to repeat that behavior. So if we keep paying $125 a pop for the “good seats” at billion dollar stadiums so that Sherman and Kaepernick can get their egos stroked and their wallets padded, who’s to blame them for repeating the behavior that got them into that spotlight… whatever that behavior was?

Sure, greed and money are problems. But I think it goes a step further than that: we, the audience—the idol-makers—are buying the tickets, renting the videos, listening to the CDs, watching the sitcoms, buying the action figures for our kids, reading the books… WE, the ones who complain about over-the-top salaries and “spoiled” sports stars, are telling them that this is what we like, this is what we want to see, this is who we’d rather be. So how can we blame them? It’s the ultimate double standard: we resent what you have and what you stand for, but we will still allow you to entertain us. What is up with that?

American Idol remains the supreme example of this national mindset: an entire perennial television franchise dedicated to the creation of the next pop music idol. Yet SOMEONE is watching, because the ratings remain sky-high. SOMEONE is watching baseball and basketball and football, and buying the logo-laden paraphernalia. SOMEONE will be paying twenty bucks a pop to see the latest Star Wars movie. SOMEONE is paying people to become idols, then accusing them of unsavory methods of achieving such status.

SOMEONE is all of us… and, to a great extent, we have created the “monsters.”

Copyright © Teri Pollock