She dreamed a dream and boy, did we make her pay for it.

Poor Susan Boyle.

She's just this woman, you know? Just this middle aged lady who lives in a little Scottish town with her cat who happens to have a killer set of pipes on her. And she went on a television show and at first people were snotty to her because she, well, she looked like a crazy cat lady, not a West End diva, and they basically mocked her to her face and wondered what the hell she was doing there and what sort of laughable "talent" she was about to display. And then, those first notes of "I Dreamed a Dream" soared across the room and well, she shut them up pretty quick.

And the entire world watched her shut them up, over and over and over. And it was just as much about Average Jane rubbing it in the faces of the people who laughed at her as it was about her killer pipes. Everyone watched it. Everyone talked about it. Everyone saw it on the internet, on TV, on the Today show. Everyone saw Susan Boyle everywhere.

Susan Boyle didn't court this attention. She just went and sang a song. But within a week, she couldn't do so much as walk down the street without the media stalking her. She got her hair styled - like any woman would before the biggest event of her life - and the media pounced, accusing her of "selling out". Soon she couldn't even stay in her own home.

The fact that she was so amazing, the fact that so many did love her, turned into her albatross.

Soon, inevitably, the critics came out to play. Saying she wasn't all that. That she was overhyped, overexposed, they were sick of her already, that they wish to god she'd just go away.

Perhaps most amazingly, even "real" artists started in on her, with Lily Allen calling her "so overrated" and saying "i thought her timing was off, no control, and i don’t think she has an amazing voice."

She's a 48 year old unemployed spinster who sings karaoke for fun. And Lily Allen felt it was her place to tell her she wasn't perfect?

She dared miss a note in her semifinal performance and the world got nasty. Newspaper headlines screamed that she was cracking up, losing her mind, not really the nice little spinster we all thought she was. They accused her of having snarked nastily about other finalists in the show, of swearing and huffing, of being unladylike. It's no wonder the poor woman's been admitted to the Priory.

She's just a woman.

Just a lady with a dream and thought she'd try out for a talent show.

Not a horrible baby killer. Not an evildoer. Just a nice little lady from a nice little town with a nice little voice. And we had to make her pay for it.

We did this. We took a perfectly normal woman's dream and turned it into her own personal hell. She's just an everyday woman like you or me. Why did we destroy her?

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
As they turn your dreams to shame....

The tigers came for Susan Boyle and shamelessly tore her apart. And we should all be ashamed for having let it happen.