Is it just me or is anyone else's pageant brain on serious overload at the moment?
After more or less two years of nothing happening thanks to the dreaded C word, it feels like every pageant fan's dreams are coming true in these last few months of 2021.
On the international stage we're having EVERY Big 5 pageant (except International ironically): Earth though virtual is well under way, and Universe, World and Grand are close behind.
Miss USA is coming up and over in the UK the Finals of both Galaxy and Intercontinental are within the next couple of weeks.
And if you ever want to know whether there's lots happening in pageant land, all you need to do is keep a look out for one thing.
HOTPICKS.
Now, it's a free world and everyone's entitled to their own opinion blah blah blah.
But for me, when I first became aware of the phenomenon of hotpicks and how the majority of them are conducted, I couldn't help but wonder how it must feel to NEVER be named in any of them.
I know from first-hand accounts that some girls (who've gone on to win some VERY big crowns) have been badly affected by constantly being 'hotpick overlooked' and it's not hard to see why.
If you're slaving your guts out night and day to do your best at a pageant and no-one seems to be noticing it can be disheartening. It's even worse when you seem to be getting overlooked for someone who doesn't appear to be doing any work but just so happens to be extremely photogenic (I know you know what I mean).
And as someone who's always said that the pageant industry needs to put the welfare of its contestants first above everything else, I can't in good conscience get behind something that is demonstrably harmful to at least a proportion of the pageant community.
On the other hand pageant bloggers and vloggers have EVERY right to do hotpicks and to do them in the way that best suits them. It is a free world after all and as pageant fans they have the right to voice their support for their favourites.
So where does the problem lie?
Well, let's look at another competitive sport. Let's go with tennis because that's the one I know best.
In tennis, are there sites and channels that have their hotpicks to win?
Yep.
In tennis, can you bet actual MONEY on the outcome of the match?
Yep.
In tennis, does the mainstream media constantly discuss who's the favourite to win and why?
Yep.
So then surely it's OK to do the same in pageantry right?
Not quite.
You see there's a very subtle yet important difference in pageant hotpicks vs hotpicks in tennis. And that difference is this:
In tennis, the athletes don't SHARE the hotpicks. And most of them completely IGNORE the media, especially when it comes to any discussion about themselves.
If you tag Roger Federer as favourite to win in your post or story, do you really think he's going to share it?
If you tag your four favourites to make the semi-finals, or the eight to make the quarter-finals... how many of them do you think are going to even see it let alone share it?
You see the issue here is that there seems to be a weird symbiotic relationship between pageant hotpicks and the pageant queens themselves. All a pageant blogger needs to do to be shared on a pageant queen's social media is to tag them as a hotpick, and there's a good chance that some, if not ALL of the queens will share that hotpick. Some may even thank the pageant blogger or go so far as to boast about making it as a hotpick.
Picture this scenario. Bloggers and vloggers continue to make their hotpicks exactly as they always have.
But pageant queens don't look at any of them.
Instead they put the blinders on, keep their heads down and don't lose their focus worrying about what some random stranger on the internet thinks about them.
What would happen to pageant hotpicks then?
Actually, I think they'd continue exactly as they have before. And that's a good thing, because it's one of the ways in which pageant fans can share their excitement and passion for the industry.
But if pageant queens stopped sharing every single pageant hotpick they were featured in, maybe, just MAYBE, everyone would be better off and we could concentrate more on the BUSINESS of being a queen and a bit less on being POPULAR.
Now, where this whole idea comes unhinged is if the ultimate winner of a pageant is in ANY WAY influenced by who's gotten the most media and social media coverage. And whilst I've not yet seen a pageant that explicitly states social media popularity as a judging criteria (with the exception of special awards or fast tracks), you've got to think it plays a role somewhere, even if it is only on a subconscious level.
But then to my mind this begs the question of what matters more in pageantry... style or substance?
And the simple fact is that many pageant hotpicks (not all) are based on an extremely perfunctory and shallow knowledge of the contestants. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to suggest that many hotpicks are based on nothing more than a pageant headshot and a pageant bio.
And again, there's nothing wrong with that. Pageant fans should be allowed to discuss and speculate as they wish.
But if there's even the HINT of a suggestion that appearing in the most pageant hotpicks might place scoring pressure on the pageant or its judges, then I think that right there is the heart of a VERY prickly and ethically tricky issue.
And that's why my only other advocacy in this industry (apart from placing the welfare of its contestants first) is TRANSPARENCY.
Transparency on scores, on judging criteria, on the whole nine yards.
Because I promise you, having anything less than complete transparency when it comes to the scoring of pageants benefits only one type of person - the type of person who wants to be able to USE that lack of transparency to manipulate results according to their own agenda.
So... what's YOUR take on pageant hotpicks? Like em, hate em or leave em?
And what's YOUR take on having completely transparency in pageant scoring? Would it be a good thing or a bad thing?
Comment below with your thoughts. Would love to hear them!
Adrian.