Beauty pageants are strange things because they never made any sense to me. I was probably around six when I started paying attention to beauty pageants because the commercials on television made them seem like a Big Deal. The only parts I really liked were the opening numbers when the young women would prance around in skimpy, outrageous costumes. After that, it was downhill and I went to bed early. I never stayed to watch the final three showdown until a couple years later, but by that time, my interest had waned so much that I'd rather go to sleep anyway.
But because I couldn't stay all the way to the end of the show, I took up jotting down the mysterious scores that appeared on the screen during every competition. Perhaps if I stared at the numbers long enough, I would discern who would win. I was too lazy to pull out the calculator to tabulate the numbers though.
I no longer watch beauty pageants. My viewing habits are not really due to feminism and political correctness, but they are influenced by age. Most contestants are younger than I am. Any contestants my age are probably considered old hags. None of the contestants show maturity or experience--not that I expect any--but these young women are shown as the pinnacle of womanhood when I have hardly started my life at all. However, what annoyed me the most was the abuse of numbers. How can you quantify something unquantifiable?
The crave for ratings have spilled into the internet from hot-or-not sites to post ratings on progressive weblogs. This isn't surprising, but what is startling (and humbling) is how easily I could be sucked into such things. When this blog was newer, I submitted it to several review sites as well as to directories that had rate options. Now that I look back on it with a mixture of amusement and disgust, I realize that I craved attention and approval--and in some ways, the reviewers (even the cranky ones) obliged. The people inputting votes in the weblog directories weren't so kind, and that hurt.
Aren't we all to some degree approval and attention seeking? Don't we all wish to be important to the world? Someone stated once that one person is not important unless this person was going to bring about world peace or find a cure for cancer and if the person wasn't going to do any of these things, he or she might as well not be born at all. I don't believe that statement--not because that world peace and curing cancer cannot be solved by a single person--but because there are connections to everything and everyone and taking out even an unassuming garbage person from thirty years ago will screw up what we know today.
Yet I'm not immune to those mysterious numbers, despite this self-analysis. Occasionally I still check those blog directories and feel disappointed when someone gives me yet another zero. But I take comfort that the score only reflects someone's opinion (and that someone even bothered to waste their time even submitting a vote) and not my absolute value.
