Young Imam may "look" like American Idol--but it's not. Don't confuse the two--they're very different!

A testament to the diversity of consumer tastes and profound cultural differences.

If you've seen American Idol on television you know the routine--young contestants try-out to make the cut, to see if they can win the designation of "American Idol" and go on to performing contracts and record deals--fortune and lives of being a celebrity.  In the U.S. the program--even if you haven't seen it you've heard of it...it's a huge hit.  

Well, in Kuala Lumpur they've got something that sort of seems the same--at least at first blush--but goes in a very different direction:  a televised search for the nation's most eligible young religious leader!  America has "Idol," Britain has the "The X Factor," and Malaysia now has the "Young Imam."  

At the start of each cycle, ten young men dressed in suits compete by singing and performing certain tasks, all in the hopes of staying to be a finalist and then the chosen one from all the rest.  The top winner doesn't get to tour, or a record, or even a contract; instead, he--yes it would only be a he--receives a full scholarship to the al-Madinah University in Saudi Arabia, an opportunity to lead prayers at a Kuala Lumpur mosque and an expense-paid trip to Mecca to take part in the Haj pilgrimage.  

Malaysia is one of the world's most progressive Muslim nations, so this phenomenon points a very reasonable, albeit very different, glimpse at how consumer, entertainment, and cultural differences are expressed.  That this focus on religious practices parallels what we take for granted in a very secular venue, speaks to the need to cultivate an appreciation for what amount to enormously divergent cultural and social perspectives that co-exist in the world today--and what they point to in terms of secular versus religious, serious versus flippant, and the variation in values each cluster of people hold dear in terms of how they spend their time, diversions, and energies.  

Just because they have American fast food, it doesn't mean they're like us. 

Sometimes it's a marketing professor's challenge to convey to a classroom of students what the meaning and implications of "culture" are--in terms of how we collectively see ourselves and how we see others--and they us.  This story provides a perfect example of what "culture" is as well as what it is capable of in terms of manifesting very different epxressions with respect to entertainment products, marketing, social values, consumption, and celebrity.  

Hence, the program concept, the potential entertainment value, and broadcast technology are all very similar, "American Idol" and "Young Imam." However, what looks much the "same" at first is, in reality, very, very--profoundly so--different in the end.  

You can read more of the details in James Hookway's article "Young Iman is the show creating all the buzz in Malaysis" in today's Wall Street Journal. 
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