Why Beauty Pageants and the Model Search are here to stay.

It is assumable that neither the Beauty Pageant or Model Search will ever wane in popularity. More than two billion of us watch them on television and the internet every year. The various titles, faces and purveyors may change but the pageant has and will always be here. Contestants gain many personal, community and social rewards that make pageants worthwhile. The same can be said for the Model Search as it provides an obvious way to find particular types of people who are interested in modeling.

Since beauty standards differentiate by latitude and longitude, there is no way that a classic "Beauty Pageant", "Model Search" or "Modeling Contest" with limited entries from selected areas who are then judged by selected individuals could properly identify "The Ultimate Beauty Queen" or next "Top Model". The closest you can get for a true result would be to select the contestant or model who had the most votes. This is still insufficient as votes can be "bought and paid for one way or another" and this method does not take into account the highest average rating on a scale. Obviously the solution here is to use both the number of votes and a rating scale.

Our society is judgmental by nature and therefore has adapted to voting. Governments, legal systems and most other civil mechanisms are controlled by voting since this is the easiest way to find out what the general consensus is. Taking a vote makes it easy to “give the people what they want”. Today, with the advent of social networking and the popularization of the mass poll by advertising juggernauts like American Idol™ and America's Next Top Model™, it has now become common to determine difficult things by conducting a public vote over the Internet. Actually, it has become the preferred way to determine choices like…”Who is the winner?” The concept has caught on so well that we may even vote online during sanctioned government elections in some places. Face it, Beauty Contest or Democratic Election; a vote is a vote.

Most of us will normally vote based on personal opinion until we encounter some type of directive. Guidelines like “we are looking for a fit model with an attractive and healthy body type that is appealing to western marketing standards for beauty as defined by x model magazine, x beauty related show or x advertiser”, …etc ad infinitum...; constitute directives.

The internet is the most powerful and widest spread communication mechanism to come about since radio technology was invented over a century ago. The internet will eventually replace all types of communications and media delivery systems, other than radio. While this change may take generations, it is inevitable. Television, Telephone, Print and the like have little chance at ever re-gaining market share since they involve too much logistical overhead including the cost associated.

The concepts involved with an Internet / Online Beauty Pageant and Model Search are not new and have been around since the early 90’s when several websites like 'Miss Net' were placed online. The problem back then was that there were very few people "online" (logged on to the Internet). Society itself now also exist "online" with some experts placing internet usage around Thirty-Three (33%) percent of the global population or roughly 2 Billion individuals. In the future, Internet usage will rise and nearly everyone will be “online” nearly all the time but this is at least 10 years away. The internet is also a very efficient way to search for something or someone, including a top model or ultimate beauty queen.

The online Beauty Pageant and Model Search offers the most exposure available, to the most people, across the widest area while comparatively costing the least and requiring the smallest amount of commitment and effort. In addition to all of this, Beauty Contest, Model Searches and Modeling Competitions share very similar attributes and controls.

While the information given previously is of no great complication, you briefly need to take into account the  evolution of the various sub-cultures that are now associated with some individual beauty pageants. Miss America is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization that emphasizes the scholarships winners receive and tends to choose winners with high scores in the interview, intelligence and “platform” (community service and public speaking) categories. The Miss Universe pageant system (owned by Donald Trump and includes the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA beauty pageants), focuses on "western" (American) standards of beauty and a swimsuit competition, ultimately tending to choose winners who are “sexy.” Additional pageants which fit the “glamour” culture of beauty contests include Miss World and Mrs. America (a beauty pageant for married women). Internet Beauty Pageants like The Ultimate Beauty Queen™ attract more technology savvy internet model types and self promoters. These people are the majority today in the beauty pageant and modeling industry with the number of self starters growing by the second. Again this can be partly attributed to the number of benefits versus cost or effort attributable to the internet beauty pageant and online model search. At last count there were over 1600 model search listings of note online and more than 200 real beauty pageants. Obviously, both the model search and beauty pageant are permanently fused into internet society.

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