I have been told I’m a team leader. I have been told that I am a social butterfly and a friend maker. I have been told that my glass is always half full. So why, oh why, do I despise the overly enthusiastic so very much?

I’ve noticed this about myself since elementary school. I just can’t be THAT excited ALL of the time. But some people can be.

You know the type…

She shows up to class early on the first day and sits in the front row. She asks irrelevant questions and smiles as if she’s just won Miss America. She screeches when she sees a little dog on the street and most sentences are prefaced by the phrase:

“Ohhhhhhh Myyyyyyyyy Goddddddd!!”.

She’s chipper. And more or less, she’s a good person. I mean, these kinds of people have never really crossed me, per se. They don’t steal, they don’t hit old ladies, nor do they instigate drama. The only thing I suppose they do wrong is….well…drive me f*cking nuts.

I’m not an antisocial creep. I’m not an unhappy person. In fact, I’m pretty happy go lucky! So why do these overly enthusiastic people me make want to kick and scream?

And is anyone else out there with me?

So another Miss America pageant has come and gone without anyone really noticing.

Maybe it’s because we have other fantastic outlets to judge people, such as, say, Rock of Love, I Love New York, and the classic and oh-so-classy Flavor of Love (I’m detecting a “love” theme here, VH1).

Unpredictability is what sells, any idiot can see that. So in order to boost ratings, TLC made its own reality show about this year’s Miss America contestents, Miss America: Reality Check, which shows us that shockingly, some of these girls aren’t so bright.

I mean, that’s surprising, right? A not smart hot girl. Wow. And isn’t it just a little humorous that they can’t even bother to be creative with a title to try and pull viewers?

Reality Check is a little too formulaic for the typical American audience. We get it already. 50 Barbies prance around in eveningwear and bikinis, trying to show us that their baton-twirling or vocal stylings can change the world. They get narrowed down, the 4 prettiest, blondest Southern girls stay on and Texas always wins. Those of us who live in the North ponder what our lives could have been had we been born to drawl and drink sweet tea, and then quickly remember that it’s kind of like a foreign country and snap out of it.

This year’s winner was Miss Michigan, Kristen Haglund. That’s really the only thing I heard and remotely cared about. Finally, some good representation from the mitten… or is it? Read More »

Why on earth anyone watches beauty pageants other than to tune in and pray that the contestants fall on their asses is beyond me.

But to actually be in a beauty pageant? Nooo, but thank you.

The NYTimes reports that these contests are much more superficial than you think, and that’s not saying a whole lot. It turns out that many of these girls are duped into thinking they’re gonna win a ton of money and scholarships of some sort, but they never reap the educational or financial benefits.

Ashley Wood, a pissed-off ex Miss USA who never got the money she actually won, said,

“You are talking about an organization that is promoting itself as the largest scholarship provider for women in the world….When contestants try to collect their funds, they encounter one obstacle after another.”

These problems have something to do with all of the local and state pageants that are scattered around the country being tied under the national pageants, and apparently, local pageant winners hardly ever collect - the states could take these local pageants to court, but they have limited control over them in the first place, and to even do that would cost more than what these girls are actually owed.

One girl was even told after winning a pageant that instead of the scholarship she was promised, she could just take home some gowns!! Are you kidding me? Read More »