What does 'who seemed to take delight in being as cruel as possible' mean?

[Maggie]

Hi,guys

Here,I have some questions about the paragraph below. Please help me,and thanks in advance.

[Attila]

Hi Maggie,

1. viewers share the lives of 'real' people(albeit briefly) means

Viewers can see how real people live but only for a short time of period.
Viewers can see only a part of their (real people) life.

2. hopeful pop stars were publicly humiliated by judges who seemed to take delight in being as cruel as possible. means

The judges enjoyed to say very bad things about the popstars.
It was an enjoyment for the judges to humble the popstars.

The popstars didn't do anything wrong and they didn't regret what they did.
They gave their best even if some of them don't have a good singing voice.

[Diverhank]

Hi Maggie,
You are absolutely right about the "culture" part. I take it that you haven't seen the TV show "American Idol" where you are in Taiwan? This is basically a talent show where real, ordinary people have a chance to perform (mostly sing) on TV. In this article, "hopeful pop stars" describes these ordinary people --"hopeful" is the key word.

The hopeful people's successes are judged largely by the TV audience but the show does have 3 judges who are really mediocre performers themselves. These 3 judges, especially a guy named Simon Cowell, make it a point to be very demeaning to the contestants, strangely much to the delight of the audience. Hope this clears things up a bit .