Miss South Carolina Answers a Question …

• Cammie
  August 28th, 2007 at 2:00 am

  I want her real name so I know who to look out for in the future. I definately don’t want this woman doing much more than serving me a hamburger in my future.

  We need her name so we know who to avoid in the future.

• Cammie
  August 28th, 2007 at 2:02 am

  Here’s her name: Lauren Elizabeth Lytle [Update 8/29/07: It's another Lauren: Lauren Caitlin Upton - Edited by Alex]
  DO NOT LET THIS WOMAN PERFORM BRAIN SURGERY ON YOU - please see the video for expected results.

• Mar
  August 28th, 2007 at 2:15 am

  Hahaha. This reminds me of the Miss Spain 2001 pageant. The Russian ambassador was a member of the jury and he asked Miss Melilla, one of the contestants, what she knew about his country. She paused, asked him to repeat the question and then answered: “I know it’s a country full of wonderful people, there have been a lot of political changes, and not much else.”

  If you speak Spanish and care to watch the video, it’s at (cut and paste in your browser):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luNYK_WUDao

  Definitely, they don’t pick these girls on the basis of their IQ! I think asking them any questions at all only highlights the hipocrisy of beauty pageants.

• Loverat
  August 28th, 2007 at 2:43 am

  Wow - she will make a fantastic politician one day!

• Mr Pudifoot
  August 28th, 2007 at 3:21 am

  I wish her answer was “probably because 20% of americans are under 10 years old”. XD

• SenorMysterioso
  August 28th, 2007 at 3:22 am

  When I first saw this I laughed(oh silly stereotypically dumb beauty queen) but now I just feel bad for her, she got nervous and rambled and now her embarrassing moment is a viral video - makes me glad I got my embarrassing moments out of the way before youtube existed

  Im pretty sure this was miss teen usa pageant and she’s only a 17 year old girl

• Willo the Wisp
  August 28th, 2007 at 4:07 am

  Poor woman. How embarrassing. But why even ask a question like that in a competition that is solely judged on how pretty the contenstants are? What difference does it make?

• Mar
  August 28th, 2007 at 4:11 am

  …that’s exactly the point, SenorMysterioso. She’s only a rambling 17 year old. She may be beautiful and have some dancing or acting talent. And if beauty pageants didn’t pretend they have some sort of social agenda or that brains are really necessary to win, they’d be a lot more honest. What really angers me about them is a) how they try to disguise the fact they are but a cattle market and b) how they would like to portray contestants as a model (in beauty and wisdom) to all women.

• Miss Cellania
  August 28th, 2007 at 4:54 am

  Her name is of Lauren Caitlin Upton, and she’s going to be on The Today Show this morning. Don’t worry about her.. six million YouTube views is way more publicity than the winner of the pageant is getting!

• musca
  August 28th, 2007 at 5:24 am

  Well even though I feel sorry for her brain, at least I admire her confidence. She answered the question as if she knew what she was talking about

• Mar
  August 28th, 2007 at 5:44 am

  I just showed this to a friend, and she said that maybe more teenagers could answer a question on why some American kids need help finding their country or why Spanish ones don’t know the first thing about Russia if they didn’t waste their time trying to become beauty princesses…

• sara
  August 28th, 2007 at 5:49 am

  such as…

• Cyberziggy
  August 28th, 2007 at 7:11 am

  Age is not the reason for such a pathetic answer. It has more to do with our education system coupled with today’s culture. Paris Hilton for example, is a good bit older, and you can be certain that her answer would have been every bit as vacuous.

• ted
  August 28th, 2007 at 7:17 am

  OK, she was nervous, thinking her way through how to answer a question, and lost her way through a collection of politically correct cliches.

  It’s a tough question to answer on the spot and not make it sound like you’re criticizing your country.

• Fazia
  August 28th, 2007 at 7:57 am

  ohmigod!

• john
  August 28th, 2007 at 8:02 am

  Our country needs some criticism.

• Vorpal
  August 28th, 2007 at 9:35 am

  Did she have a nose job? Is that allowed for the pageant?

• Elphaba
  August 28th, 2007 at 9:41 am

  I laughed at first too, but then I felt sorry for her. I’d be really nervous too! Its like she had all the right components of a good answer (or at least the same kind of answer all the other contestant give): Iraq, children, poverty, hope for the future, education, etc. but just couldnt put them together right!

• Simon
  August 28th, 2007 at 10:26 am

  Boy, is she pretty!!! As long as she keeps her mouth shut!

  Seriously now: I attented my senior HS year in Chautauqua, NY (Chautauqua Central School). Previously, I studied in Brazil. With that alone, I was able to graduate with honours, to win awards in math, US history and economics, etc.

  School in US is so easy, compared to the rest of the world.

• farty
  August 28th, 2007 at 10:42 am

  i dont care, she’s gorgeous

• ardyjay
  August 28th, 2007 at 10:51 am

  The sad thing is their is nothing wrong with her brain that an education wouldn’t cure. She is typical of what your government wants of it’s people- dumb enough to vote Republican!

• Sid Morrison
  August 28th, 2007 at 11:32 am

  ardyjay- I completely agree with your first sentence. Many young people are ignorant because we permit them to be that way.

  Your 2nd sentence is groundless, though. The fact of the matter is that the *overwhelming* majority of teachers and administrators in U.S. government school system are Democrats and the 2 largest teachers’ unions (the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, combining for 4.5 million members) have been major financial supporters of the Democratic Party and its candidates for decades. Nobody disputes that, so implying that the government schools try to indoctrinate young people into Republican policy is frankly absurd.

  You used the phrase “your government” — I’m curious… Where it is that you live where it is thought that U.S. government schools are pro-Republican?

• Becki
  August 28th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

  you go Sid!
  Did you take up Alex’s offer yet and start authoring blog posts here?

• Sid Morrison
  August 28th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

  oh, I never traded details with him on that one…. I would probably have to be less caustic and more even-handed. Thanks for the support, though 7:^)

  a PS for my posting #22: Please don’t get the idea that I’m an apologist for Republican policy — I can find plenty of faults with that as well (usually involving spending too much $). If you read what I babble about carefully, I’m usually fairly libertarian.

• Becki
  August 28th, 2007 at 2:23 pm

  Sid - I could probably do an occasional interesting post myself. The thing is that I suspect you comment here on topics where they seem to have lost sight of the Neato part of Neatorama and stir up contentious issues. I wouldn’t post anything like that myself and would only want to write entries about actual neat stuff.

• matt
  August 28th, 2007 at 9:39 pm

  WHAT.. THE FUNK?!?

• Ed
  August 28th, 2007 at 10:57 pm

  Good job on Mario’s part, that’s poise.

• Collector
  August 29th, 2007 at 1:10 am

  She can candidate for president of USA

• Winter-Hendrik
  August 29th, 2007 at 1:36 am

  What the? What does South Africa have to do with this?
  All this time I didn’t even think that most Americans knew about us. Kidding.

• JOwens
  August 29th, 2007 at 10:25 am

  Please help me clear my niece’s name. She is currently Miss South Carolina Outstanding Teen and her first name happens to be Lauren as well. She’s getting a lot of negative feedback regarding the “other” Miss SC Teen USA which is not affiliated with the Miss America Organization - there is a BIG difference. You should grab her on-stage interview question where she recently competed in the Miss America Outstanding Teen and aced her question. The Teen USA pageant is based more on beauty (leave it to Donald Trump) where America Teen is based on academics, COMMUNITY SERVICE, public speaking, mentoring etc. It is horrible that these Miss America Teens work so hard for their states and now all pageants and all title holders are seeing one clip from this Miss Teen USA pageant. My niece had the highest GPA (4.6) of all contestants and received a scholarship at the Miss America Outstanding Teen pageant a few weeks ago. America Organization gives scholarships to teenagers and it isn’t about the grand prizes awarded. Please help my niece, Lauren Lytle - Miss South Carolina Outstanding Teen clear her name and let people know that she’s not the same person as Miss South Carolina USA Teen! Everyone is getting this confused and it is negative publicity for my niece.

• Angela
  August 30th, 2007 at 9:56 am

  People like Sid Morrison make me want to stop reading Neatorama altogether. Seriously Sid, if you are going to keep putting up comments like that I suggest you try NYTimes.com or http://news.bbc.co.uk/. People come to this website to take a break from their stressful day, not to get involved in a controversial debate or get headaches from reading your passive-aggressive political ramblings.

• akashayi
  August 30th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

  I don’t understand why people glorify beautiful women that are as idiotic as this, (e.g. Paris Hilton). I think America must be experiencing reverse social darwinism, dead set on destroying our gene pool until humans are no longer capable of survival.

• Sid Morrison
  August 30th, 2007 at 9:44 pm

  Angela - loosen the bone a little… I was just responding to the nonsense posted by #21, the basic premise of which (government schools indoctrinate pupils to vote Republican) could not be further from the truth. Call me active defensive if you must, but please not the contrapositive. Cheers!

• Grans
  August 31st, 2007 at 11:37 am

  She will be Secretary of State in Bush’s 7th term.
  Wait…you’ll see.

• Igor
  September 1st, 2007 at 1:36 am

  you know, i think she gave a pretty good answer….to the extent that it accurately portrayed exactly what led to the 20% of children in the US to not be able to find their own country on the map…she didn’t SAY the answer, she SHOWED it by conveying the product of it’s source - america’s education.

• Igor
  September 1st, 2007 at 1:38 am

  the product being her intelligence

• Angela
  September 1st, 2007 at 6:14 am

  Sid Morrison, loosen your bones a little bit. Read his comment carefully and you’ll see that he said nothing about government schools indoctrinating pupils to vote Republican. The fact that you were able to reinterpret and rephrase his ad lip comment into an argumentative statement with such, I reluctantly admit, eloquence, shows that you nitpick at people’s every word, screening for anything that might rub you the wrong way. You are opinionated and back your quick judgments with figures you’ve picked up from here and there, but like I said, this is not the website for such. Try BBC or NY Times.

• Will
  October 13th, 2007 at 9:28 pm

  OMG! Nervous? Sure. But aren’t these girls supposed to be poised? It’d be nice if teens would pick up something to read besides People and In Style, or watched something other than MTV. These pageants supposedly showcase the “best of America.” Lord help us…

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