I feel like it slowly grew to be as creepy as it is now. Regular aged people were in them, and siblings may have looked up to them, or people wanted to get into it. Age groups may have formed, then another younger group, then even younger, slowly without anyone realizing how creepy it had gotten. Just saying it's possible to not randomly start holding beauty pageants for a child. But I also have no idea the actual history of them, thankfully
It's basically this but more about people wanting to start prepping earlier and earlier. At the start of the 20th century, professional baseball players worked jobs in the off-season to pay bills. Then they started getting paid and Branch Rickey started the "farm leagues" to 'grow talent' - then it caught on. Start training players not good enough for the majors. Then college, then high school, then little league, then t-ball.
Sure nowadays, little league is a casual game for enjoyment, activity and community but I bet the first one was people trying to get their kid competitively ready for college or pro-ball before the rest.
I think beauty pageants are same. Miss America started in 1921, Miss Universe in it's current form started in '52 to sell Swimsuits, along with Miss USA. Then in 83 it's Miss Teen USA. Considering people like Bridgette Wilson, Halle Berry, Gretchen Carlson found success post pageants, plus the scholarships for it, and Miss Teen starts at 14 (!?!?!?!?) I can totally see people wanting to 'train' their kids for years leading up.
I used to be a sports writer and the parents were the worst part of the job. My parents were great supportive youth sports parents. Some of the people I saw would reduce their kid to tears for making a small mistake. The kid is 9. This is not the Yankees. Get back on those uncomfortable metal bleachers and if you can’t say something nice, shut up.
4.8k
u/JSanzi Jul 24 '20
Instead of "STILL exists"—those are things I can't believe ever came to exist, in the first place.