Clay Aiken: the man, the mystery

I've been thinking about Clay Aiken a lot lately.

It started when my gay boyfriend over at Page Six Six Six (okay, we've never actually met, but in my mind he's my gay boyfriend) broke the story that Clay has sex with male prostitutes. What surprised me about the whole thing was not that Clay is allegedly having sex with men, or even that he's paying for it. What surprised me was the hostile reaction from the very rabid, very large, pro-Clay community.

Then last night on Scrubs, my attention was momentarily taken away from my ex-boyfriend Zach Braff (dumped for Jason Bateman) by audience members shrieking in a wild frenzy of delight at Clay's guest appearance.

Then I began to wonder about these Clay Aiken fans. Who are they? I don't know any. Are they female? Pre-teen? Mid-Western retirees? I don't know why I suddenly have an overwhelming need to know who these staunch defenders of a this non-threatening, doofy crooner are, but I do.

First stop – the Official Clay Aiken website. I stopped by the message boards to see who watched Scrubs, and what they thought. Turned out everybody watched it, and they all thought Clay was amazing. I admit, I was underwhelmed. The Clay fans? Some of them cried. Some of them screamed. Some of them melted. They seem to be teen and pre-teen girls, some tuning in just to see Clay and others already Scrubs devotees who got a little something extra last night.

An About.com poll shows that the largest group of Clay fans are in the 21-30 years old demographic. Or, you know, me and my peers. I have several friends who tune in to American Idol religiously, hell, I even voted for Nikki a few times during the first season in the five minutes or so where we actually thought she was good, which was about five minutes after we stopped believing Ryan Starr was good. That said, no one has said to me, "You know who I liked? I liked that Clay Aiken fellow." I Just. Don't. Get. It. If anyone would care to enlighten me, I'd be forever in your debt.