Cardboard Cutouts to Replace Contestants in New, Alternative Beauty Pageant
CHICAGO— Visionary Mark Knockoff has recently invented the newest, hottest form of beauty pageants: Cardboard Pageants. Rather than following the traditional route of having conventionally attractive men and women show off their bodies, Cardboard Pageants primarily focus on their diverse design skills to create a cardboard cutout of what they consider “beautiful” means, whether it be a realistic depiction of a person, or a weird little shape with a whole lot of eyes. The new pageant is designed to challenge traditional notions of beauty, like the norm around not being made of cardboard.
According to Knockoff, this moves beauty pageants away from lowering self-esteem of their losing participants and from continuously establishing “beauty” on physical forms; according to an anonymous survey of 5 beauty pageant participants, losing in the first round had significantly lowered their confidence. This would never happen in the Cardboard Pageant, as the cutouts would be rolled out on self-routing robots and the participants would not have to appear on-stage unless it is to receive their prize.
The changes would not affect beauty pageants’ traditional goal of spreading love, beauty, and confidence to those around them. The Cardboard Pageant’s rules state that a contestant’s cutout could receive three extra points if they add a red Valentine’s heart onto it.
Furthermore, in order to preserve beauty pageants’ traditional Q&A portion, the contestants must program the cutout’s ability to draw a card, as well as listen and respond to the question on the card through Artificial Intelligence. Sample questions include, “What is consciousness?,” “What is the meaning of life?,” and “Would you kill a real human person if asked to?” This will ensure that the contestants are very familiar with technology and that this competition will not only focus on beauty, but also on brains.
The Cardboard Pageant will truly progress our society. Knockoff and his team are very hopeful for the future of pageants.
Andrea Zhou — a self-proclaimed hot chocolate fanatic — is one of our beloved staff writers as well as a deputy copy editor. She has written and edited a number of articles for The Shady Dealer, and aspires to finish college with over a hundred articles under her name.
