America’s Next Top Gamer

I have a few guilty pleasures when it comes to television these days. Without embarrassing myself too much, the current regular is America’s Next Top Model.  I’m not going to pretend to know anything about fashion, modelling or photography, but there’s definitely an element of hilarity to extract from the show despite how alien it is.

The judging panel is just… well, it’s bizarre, that’s what it is. J. Alexander wouldn’t look out of place in a JRPG.

Every episode is like a chunk of  Zoolander, except it makes for odd viewing processing the idea that everyone on the show is actually a real human being. Not just for the dreadful moments (“Who is Nelson Mandela?” is a favourite, while the diary entry of a contestant called Emily who wrote, “I might have to share my room with a black girl, eww”, was a particularly disturbing insight), but the faces of the show, it’s hard to believe that they, too, are real.

Jay Manuel looks like a life sized Ken doll. Not just on the odd day, literally, every day, he looks so pristine that he simply has to have been manufactured or computer generated. And I imagine he smiles like this 24 hours a day too.

So the other night, I sat down with my housemates for my fix of ANTM, with a new series underway (it’s worth pointing out the UK seems to sit about one series behind the US), and a whole new collection of weird, wonderful and unbelievable girls vying to be America’s Next Top Model.

As the girls move into an enormous swish house together, so begins the introductions and small talk. Enter Ann, a staggering 6′ 2″ 19 year old student, who is sat outside when another contestant asks her;

“So what’s your ideal kind of man?”

Ann: “A Warlock”

This is, probably, the best answer to a question you could ever expect to see on the show, and obviously upon hearing this answer I’ve been rooting for Ann to go all the way and win, and win she did. Arguably she could be referring to Warlocks in history, or other science fiction and fantasy settings outside of WoW, regrettably the ANTM web site doesn’t specify this, but the recognition from Tyra Banks afterwards is admirable all the same.

“America’s Next Top Model is a competition that celebrates the various types of beauty in women. Watching Ann realize that she is uniquely beautiful standing tall at 6’2” is one of the reasons I make it a point to choose contestants that the audience can relate to. Women should understand that there is no such thing as standard beauty. Ann found her beauty in her height and took all the years of bullying she endured and turned that energy into a strong work ethic that led her to be the winner of America’s Next Top Model.”

I do hope through her success, Ann finds the Warlock she is looking for.