Beauty Pageants

[GeneChing]

World’s First AI Pageant To Judge Winner On Beauty And Social Media Clout
Leslie Katz
Contributor
I write about the intersection of art, science and technology.

Apr 15, 2024,05:12pm EDT

Popular AI-generated influencer Emily Pellegrini, a Miss AI judge, is uniquely qualified for the ... [+]WORLD AI CREATOR AWARDS
Models and influencers crafted from artificial intelligence can now jockey for the title “Miss AI.” Yup, the world’s first AI beauty pageant has arrived to crown faux humans for their pixelated perfection.

AI-generated contestants will be judged on their looks and polish, but they’ll also be gauged on the technical skill that went into creating them, and also appraised for their online pull.

“AI creators’ social clout will be assessed based on their engagement numbers with fans, rate of growth of audience and utilization of other platforms such as Instagram,” according to the World AI Creator Awards. Miss AI marks the program’s inaugural contest, with others to come focusing on fashion, diversity and computer-generated men. Fanvue, a subscription-based platform that hosts virtual models, some of whom offer adult content, is a WAICA partner.

Miss AI (well, the creator behind Miss AI) will win a $5,000 cash prize, promotion on the Fanvue platform and PR support worth more than $5,000. The runner-up and third place winner will also snag prizes. The virtual victors will be announced on May 10, with an online awards ceremony set to take place later in the month.


AI-generated humans like Lexi Schmidt, who's on Fanvue, now have their very own beauty pageant. WORLD AI CREATOR AWARDS
The competition opened online to entrants on Sunday as AI influencers increasingly grab attention and paying gigs. One, named Alba Renai, recently announced she’d been hired to host a weekly special segment on the Spanish version of Survivor. She’s not the only employed AI-generated influencer, either.

Aitana Lopez, one of four Miss AI judges, can pull in more than $11,000 a month representing brands. The AI-generated Spanish model and influencer has upward of 300,000 Instagram followers, many of whom shower her with adoring comments. She’s joined on the judging panel by another AI-generated model, Emily Pellegrini, who has more than 250,000 followers on Instagram and has caught the attention of sports stars and billionaires who want to date her.

Two judges on the panel, however, can include arteries and veins on their resumes. They’re Andrew Bloch, an entrepreneur and PR adviser, and Sally-Ann Fawcett, a beauty pageant historian and author of the book Misdemeanours: Beauty Queen Scandals.

“It’s been a fast learning curve expanding my knowledge on AI creators, and it’s quite incredible what is possible,” Fawcett said in a statement.

The World AI Creator Awards said entrants “must be 100 percent AI-generated,” though there aren’t any restrictions on the tools used. “Miss AI welcomes creations produced from any type of generator, whether it’s DeepAI, Midjourney or your own tool,” the rules read. The competition said it expects thousands of entries.

But How To Judge Fake Beauty?

Beauty pageants have drawn criticism for promoting unrealistic beauty standards, and most AI influencers don’t do anything to expand narrow cultural ideas about what’s deemed attractive. Both AI-generated contest judges, for example, are young women with dewy skin, high cheekbones, full lips, big breasts and the kind of bodies that suggest they have a personal trainer on call 24/7.

The Miss AI pageant, however, is more about recognizing artistry than reinforcing cultural standards of beauty, a spokesperson for the WAICA insists.

“This isn't about beauty in the stereotypical sense,” the spokesperson said in an email. “It's about championing artistic creative talent and the beauty of creators’ work. Just like traditional pageantry, there's even a question contestants are asked to answer: ‘If you had one dream to make the world a better place, what would it be?’”

Given that Miss AI candidates only exist in a world of bytes, their answers won’t come from personal experience. They’ll come from prompts.


Miss AI launches almost 200 years after the world’s first real life beauty pageant took place. WORLD AI CREATOR AWARDS


Leslie Katz
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I'm a journalist with particular expertise in the arts, popular science, health, religion and spirituality. As the former culture editor at news and technology website CNET, I led a team that tracked movies, TV shows, online trends and science—from space and robotics to climate, AI and archaeology. My byline has also appeared in publications including The New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle and J, the Jewish News of Northern California. When I’m not wrangling words, I’m probably gardening, yoga-ing or staring down a chess board, trying to trap an enemy queen.

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Beauty-Pageants

[GeneChing]

Miss USA and Miss Teen USA resign days apart, casting a spotlight on the organization

MAY 9, 202411:04 AM ET
By Rachel Treisman


Miss Teen USA, UmaSofia Srivastava, left, and Miss USA, Noelia Voigt pictured at a New York Fashion Week event in February. They both announced their resignations this week.
Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Supermodels Unlimited
The 2023 Miss USA and Miss Teen USA relinquished their crowns within days of each other this week, leaving their parent organization without its two biggest titleholders — and under mounting scrutiny.

Their departures are the latest in a string of recent controversies at the Miss USA and Miss Universe organizations and have prompted a slew of state titleholders to publicly pressure the pageant for more transparency.

Miss USA Noelia Voigt announced her resignation in an Instagram post on Monday, citing "the importance of making decisions that feel best for you and your mental health."

The 24-year-old became the first Venezuelan-American woman to win Miss USA in September 2023, representing Utah. In her resignation statement, she expressed her gratitude for the connections and platform from over seven years of competing in pageants and urged others to "never compromise your physical and mental well-being."

"Deep down I know that this is just the beginning of a new chapter for me, and my hope is that I continue to inspire others to remain steadfast, prioritize your mental health, advocate for yourself and others by using your voice, and never be afraid of what the future holds, even if it feels uncertain," Voigt wrote.

Eagle-eyed followers noted in the comments section that the first letters of the first 11 sentences of her statement spell out "I AM SILENCED" (the remaining three spell "HIP").

Concerns and criticisms compounded in the days that followed, especially after Miss Teen USA UmaSofia Srivastava, 17, announced her resignation in a similarly-formatted Instagram post on Wednesday.

Srivastava, of New Jersey, was also crowned in September 2023 — and said her resignation comes after "months of grappling with this decision."

"I will always look back on my time as Miss NJ Teen USA fondly, and the experience of representing my state as a first generation, Mexican-Indian American at the national level was fulfilling in itself," she wrote. "After careful consideration, I've decided to resign as I find that my personal values no longer fully align with the direction of the organization."

She didn't elaborate, but added to the intrigue by opening her statement with this quote attributed to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: "There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth."

Srivastava said she looks forward to finishing 11th grade and applying to college, as well as continuing her collaborations with education- and literacy-focused nonprofits and promoting her multilingual children's book about acceptance, calling that work "my TRUE purpose."

Voigt was among the many people to leave positive comments on her post, writing in part, "So proud of you my angel."

The organization has not responded to NPR's requests for comment.

But the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Instagram accounts each acknowledged their titleholders' departures, in near-identical posts, thanking them for their service and wishing them the best.

"The well-being of our titleholders is a top priority, and we understand her need to prioritize herself at this time," wrote the Miss USA account of Voigt. "We are currently reviewing plans for the transition of responsibilities to a successor, and we will soon announce the crowning of the new Miss USA."

The 2024 edition of the Miss USA pageant is scheduled to take place in early August.

A Miss USA employee had resigned days earlier, slamming "workplace toxicity"

Voigt and Srivastava aren't the only recent departures from Miss USA.

Former social media director Claudia Michelle first announced her resignation over the weekend, in an Instagram post that accused the organization of mistreating all three of them.

"Being offered your dream job and seeing that it was anything but is so disheartening," wrote Michelle.

Michelle said she felt compelled to speak out because "this is a women's empowerment organization," noting she had not signed an NDA.

She said she wasn't allowed to bring anyone else onto her social media team of one — something "absolutely necessary" for a "brand of this caliber" — and that she worked without financial compensation for her first two months on the job.

She went on to say that she witnessed "a decline in [Voigt's] mental health since we first met" and "the disrespect toward [Srivastava] and her family," opining that the teen titleholder didn't get enough attention on social media.

"I've first hand seen Noelia and Uma be unable to share about their personal advocacies on social media and be threatened by [Miss Universe Organization] 'social media rules and guidelines' that I still have yet to see," Michelle wrote. "I feel the way current management speaks about their titleholders is unprofessional and inappropriate; I disavow workplace toxicity and bullying of any kind."

The organization told USA Today in a statement that it is "troubled to hear the false accusations made by a former Miss USA employee."

"Miss USA is committed to fostering a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment, and we take these allegations seriously," it added. "Indeed, we have and will continue to prioritize the well-being of all individuals involved with Miss USA."

After a rocky few years, titleholders are calling for "full transparency" from the organization

The Miss USA Organization has had a turbulent few years, as Business Insider reported.

In early 2022, Cheslie Kryst, the 2019 Miss USA winner, died by suicide. Later that fall, days after R'Bonney Gabriel was crowned Miss USA, other contestants publicly accused organizers of rigging the competition in her favor.

The Miss Universe Organization responded by suspending Miss USA President Crystle Stewart and launching a third-party investigation into the allegations.

Around that time, news emerged that Stewart's husband, Max Sebrechts, had stepped down from his role as Miss USA vice president earlier that year after multiple 2021 pageant contestants accused him of sexual harassment.

In January 2023, Gabriel won the Miss Universe title, becoming the first American to do so in a decade and relinquishing her Miss USA crown to runner-up Morgan Romero of North Carolina.

In August, the Miss Universe Organization said the investigation had found the allegations of rigging to be false, but was parting ways with Stewart nonetheless. Current Miss USA President and CEO Laylah Rose was announced as her replacement that same day.

Critiques of Miss USA resurfaced since the titleholders' resignations this week.

Several 2023 state titleholders have shared a joint statement on social media, saying the majority of the Miss USA class of 2023 supports Voigt's decision to resign and asking the Miss USA Organization to release her from the confidentiality clause of her contract in perpetuity "so that she is free to speak on her experiences and time as Miss USA."

The statement, which began circulating on Wednesday, requests a response within 24 hours.

"Our goal is to give Noelia her voice back," they wrote. "We are asking for full transparency for contestants in the class of 2024 and beyond."

Well this is a bad look for the pageants...

[GeneChing]

Inside the bombshell scandal that prompted two Miss USAs to step down
Allegations of a “toxic work environment” have once again tarnished the pageant’s reputation.
By Constance Grady@constancegrady May 10, 2024, 4:50pm EDT

Miss USA Noelia Voigt attends the 72nd Miss Universe Competition on November 15, 2023, in San Salvador, El Salvador. Hector Vivas/Getty Images

Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater.
Over the course of a week, Miss USA Noelia Voigt and Miss Teen USA UmaSofia Srivastava both relinquished their titles, marking an unprecedented period of turbulence in the pageant’s history. Since Miss USA was established in 1952, no title holder has ever before voluntarily stepped down. Now, two of them have resigned, a mere three months before their reigns end. It’s a moment that’s raising major questions about the pageant’s increasingly troubled image.

In her resignation letter, portions of which leaked to the press, 24-year-old Voigt describes a “toxic work environment” within the Miss USA Organization that has badly affected her physical and mental health. She adds that she is now in treatment for anxiety and that she’s experienced “heart palpitations, full body shakes, loss of appetite, unintentional weight loss, loss of sleep, loss of hair, and more.”

Voigt kept things less explicit, however, in her public announcement, which took the form of a cryptic Instagram post published days before. “Deep down I know that this is just the beginning of a new chapter for me, and my hope is that I continue to inspire others to remain steadfast, prioritize your mental health, advocate for yourself and others by using your voice, and never be afraid of what the future holds, even if it feels uncertain,” Voigt wrote.

Seventeen-year-old UmaSofia Srivastava posted her own note to Instagram, saying, “My personal values no longer fully align with the direction of the organization.”

The unsettling implication sent fans scrambling for more information — as did the revelation that Voigt’s post might have contained a secret message. The capital letters of the first 11 sentences in her statement spell out the words “I AM SILENCED,” leading observers to speculate that there’s a lot Voigt would like to say if not for a nondisclosure agreement — including, perhaps, the statements she made in her leaked resignation letter.

“People are under these ironclad NDAs at the moment,” says pageant coach and 2018 Miss Montana USA Dani Walker in a phone call to Vox. Walker, who makes YouTube videos about the internal politics of the pageant world and is friendly with the titleholders, says that she’s been contacted by multiple inside sources who have information she can’t publish online because of those NDAs. “I do, however, know that there are people working in the background trying to find loopholes that are going to allow these people to speak out, to really give everybody the full picture,” she says.

The Miss USA Organization responded to Voigt and Srivastava’s resignations on Instagram by saying that it considered the well-being of its titleholders a “top priority” and that it would be announcing a successor soon but did not answer allegations of a toxic workplace. The organization did not respond to a request for comment from Vox. Meanwhile, many of the state titleholders who competed alongside Voigt in the 2023 Miss USA pageant have released statements of their own standing behind Voigt and calling on the organization to release her from her NDA, “so that she is free to speak on her experiences.”

The Miss USA pageant has been dogged by controversy over the past few years, from the notoriety of former owner Donald Trump to the release of the ****ing New York Times-produced documentary How to Fix a Pageant last September. For those enmeshed in the pageant world, Voigt’s and Srivastava’s consecutive resignations come as less of a shock and more as confirmation of what they have long suspected: Something is going very wrong inside the Miss USA Organization.

The Miss USA resignations are happening amid toxic workplace allegations
This month’s first resignation from the Miss USA Organization didn’t come from Voigt or Srivastava. It came from social media director Claudia Michelle, who stepped down from her post on May 3. In a candid Instagram post, Michelle made multiple allegations of mistreatment in the workplace. One of them was that unnamed others at the organization used the official social media accounts behind her back, deleting negative comments and blocking critics. That allegation was corroborated by Walker, who was one of the blocked parties, and said in a YouTube video that she spoke with Michelle about it.

Michelle also wrote that Srivastava and her family had been treated with disrespect. “I feel the way current management speaks about their titleholders is unprofessional and inappropriate; I disavow workplace toxicity and bullying of any kind,” Michelle wrote.

The three women all quit within a week of each other: Michelle on Friday, followed by Voigt on Monday and Srivastava on Wednesday. According to the New York Post, they agreed to quit together and coordinated their resignation announcements.

Michelle declined to provide details about the workplace toxicity and bullying she says she witnessed, but many of those affiliated with the Miss USA pageants have publicly speculated about mistreatment by organization president Laylah Rose.

“Laylah Rose leads by fear and has scared or threatened them into silence,” wrote 1994 Miss Oregon USA Denise White in the comments of Voigt’s post, also alleging the use of NDAs.

“When people ask me how we got here, I have no good answer — except that Laylah did say that she wanted to make history,” Walker said on YouTube, in a response to the news of Srivastava’s resignation.

Thom Brodeur, Voigt’s pageant coach, also criticized Rose’s leadership of the Miss USA Organization in a phone call with Vox. “She’s now on her fourth [management] team in a year, and she has an unprecedented two national title holder resignations,” he said. “This never happened in the 72-year history of this organization. They’re both gone. So somewhere, at some point, somebody has to look at the leader and go, ‘Gosh, there’s an awful lot of smoke. How come there’s a fire in your house?’ There’s something going on here that isn’t working, and it can’t be all of those other people.”

Voigt’s resignation letter, obtained by NBC, describes Rose as cold and threatening. In the letter, Voigt says Rose threatened to take away Voigt’s salary for minor issues that were never clearly communicated to her. Voigt alleges that when she was scheduled to throw the opening pitch at a baseball game, Rose said she hoped Voigt would be hit in the face by a ball.

In a statement to NBC, Rose said that “the well-being of all individuals associated with Miss USA is my top priority.”

“All along, my personal goal as the head of this organization has been to inspire women to always create new dreams, have the courage to explore it all, and continue to preserve integrity along the way. I hold myself to these same high standards and I take these allegations seriously,” she said.

Brodeur says that the leaked excerpts from the resignation letter match his understanding of Voigt’s relationship with Rose. He adds that he had the original letter read to him and that the full letter is seven pages long. “The stuff that NBC captured is literally the scratching of the surface,” he says. “It goes deeper and it goes a little darker.”

continued next post

[GeneChing]

While Srivastava’s resignation letter has not been made public, evidence suggests she was not spared Rose’s wrath either. According to an anonymous source who spoke to the New York Post, Rose treated Srivastava so badly that Srivastava’s parents refused to let her speak directly to their daughter.

In a series of YouTube videos made before the resignations, Walker also alleges that Rose was forbidden to speak to Srivastava directly. Walker adds that she noticed what appeared to be a bizarre form of revenge from the organization in the aftermath. Its official social media accounts began to post congratulations to the pageant runners-up who outscored the official titleholders in various events during the pageant months earlier.

“It’s a really subtle jab to say, ‘Hey, by the way, yes you won the pageant, but you didn’t win Interview. And you didn’t win Evening Gown,’” said Walker in her video. “These are subtle jabs at these titleholders on a really public platform. It’s inappropriate.”

The Post’s source alleges that the organization heavily policed the behavior of titleholders. “Noelia wakes up every day on pins and needles because of harassing emails [from pageant organizers]: ‘Don’t do this,’ ‘Don’t do that,’ ‘Take that post down,’ ‘Unlike that post.’ ‘You can’t speak to anybody, remember your NDA, you can’t go here unless we confirm,’” the source said. The source also alleged that Rose posted to social media under Voigt’s and Srivastava’s names without their approval.

According to both the New York Post’s source and comments made by Voigt on social media, the organization also failed to provide Voigt with the apartment in Manhattan or Los Angeles that is traditionally a part of Miss USA’s compensation package. Five months into her reign, they arranged for her to live in Florida instead.

Walker notes in her videos that under Rose’s leadership, Miss USA has not been appearing at prestigious events like New York Fashion Week or the Kentucky Derby, as is typical. Instead, she’s been making comparatively small-time appearances for pageant sponsors like Supermodels Unlimited. “She literally went about an entire month without appearances,” Walker said in her video. “I’ve never heard of this happening.”

In a phone call with Vox, Walker explained that access to those kinds of events is one of the major draws of being Miss USA. “Miss America is known primarily for their scholarships,” Walker said. If Miss America is a students competition, Miss USA is a competition for a career woman: “They’re provided salary and access to prestigious events.”

The most ****ing claims about Rose appear in both the Post’s account and Voigt’s leaked resignation letter. The story goes that when Voigt attended a Christmas parade for the organization last year, she was harassed by a man who was riding in a car with her. When Voigt complained to Rose, according to the resignation letter, Rose responded, “We cannot prevent people saying things to you at public appearances, it is, unfortunately, part of the role you’re in as a public figure.” Two people who Voigt confided in about the incident confirmed the story to Vox.

Rose is a relatively new addition to the Miss USA Organization, joining as president in 2023 after working as a fashion designer. Controversy, however, is not new to Miss USA.

Miss USA’s sleazy history
For many Americans, Miss USA is probably best known for being the beauty pageant Donald Trump used to own (the one that’s not Miss America). Trump’s role in the pageant became part of the news cycle during his 2016 campaign for president, when former contestants alleged that he used to walk backstage to ogle them while they were undressed.

Trump was forced to sell the Miss Universe franchise (Miss USA’s parent organization) due to legal complications after he made a series of racist comments about undocumented immigrants during his first campaign event in 2015. He sold it in 2016 to talent agency WME-IMG, but the new ownership came with its own problems. WME-IMG sold the franchise in 2022 to Thailand-based JKN Global Group, and one year later, JKN filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, in 2022, contestants claimed that then-president Crystle Stewart had rigged the competition for the eventual winner. But the allegations under Stewart’s reign didn’t end there. In a series of TikToks, 2022 Miss Montana USA Heather O’Keefe listed her grievances. She and her fellow contestants were confined to a resort for the week of the competition with barely any access to the outdoors, O’Keefe claimed. The organization forced them to pay for all of their own expenses, including the T-shirts they were required to wear on camera.

In 2023, FX released the New York Times-produced documentary How to Fix a Pageant. The documentary centered on the alleged cheating scandal of 2022, but it also made more explosive claims. Former contestants featured in the documentary claimed Max Sebrechts, at the time vice president of Miss USA and married to Stewart, sexually harassed them. Sebrechts stepped down shortly after the news broke. Stewart also resigned in 2022, and was replaced by Rose.

In our current cultural moment, when beauty pageants are frequently considered passé, the official line from the people who love them is that pageants exist to empower women. “We are more than just a pageant,” says the “about” page on the Miss USA website. “We are a community of empowered women who are committed to making a difference in the world.”

“Pageants are one of the very rare and few places where we teach young women life skills,” says Walker. “Most important is poise, confidence, the ability to interview and speak on stage. Those life skills are very applicable and transferable to many things that you want to do in life outside of pageantry. That is the point. That is why we exist. Sure, the crowns and the sashes, they’re fun. But that’s not the point of what we’re doing here. We’re actually creating a platform that is taking young women to the next level.”

For critics like Walker and Brodeur, empowerment is the sticking point here. “Step down,” says Brodeur, rhetorically addressing Rose, “because you have now shown yourself ill-equipped to run this organization. You are not a woman that empowers other women.”

According to Rose’s critics, the Miss USA Organization has betrayed one of its fundamental promises. Instead of giving young women the confidence to build bigger lives for themselves, the organization has instead asked its young contestants to pour enormous amounts of time and money into perfecting their appearance for a corporate structure that harasses them, exploits them, and then instructs them not to complain.

“Our titleholders work very hard,” says Walker. “They deserve respect and they deserve to feel like they’re working in a safe space and that this title is worth all of that effort.”

Otherwise, who exactly is Miss USA empowering?

“Pageants are one of the very rare and few places where we teach young women life skills,”?