Darling Divas
April 12, 2009 10:33 AM   Subscribe

"Darling Divas" by Colby Katz. [Click on "Multimedia", then click on "Darling Divas". May be NSFW.]
posted by Joe Beese (31 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
"and of course: shopping"
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 10:44 AM on April 12, 2009


Okay, that tanning thing freaks me out.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 10:49 AM on April 12, 2009


Okay, why does this channel, just every so often, not that often mind you, but still, why does this channel TRY TO KILL ME WITH CREEPY DAVID LYNCHIAN HORROR?

What have I ever done to you, Joe Beese? Why this icepick into my skull?
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 10:55 AM on April 12, 2009


Yeah, as an outsider I find the whole kids pageant thing bizarre, creepy, warped and borderline distasteful. It always seems to be far more about the mothers than the kids, which to me is an odd reason to make your kids do something.

Maybe I'm just used to seeing the weird side of a perfectly normal and nice event that kids find fun, but massive quantities of make-up in kids seems wrong unless it's a tiger face or something.
posted by Brockles at 11:02 AM on April 12, 2009


Eww. Ewwww. Ew. Those child pageants really make my ick-o-meter spike. The people involved probably all mean well, and the girls are probably having fun, but the whole thing bugs me at a pretty deep level.

I really liked some of the photographs in the "projects" section, though, especially the "miscellaneous" and "rabbit hunting" collections.
posted by Forktine at 11:04 AM on April 12, 2009


Oh man. those creepy kids are one thing, but you've got to see the "Sugar Nut Squirrel" multimedia piece! The commentary will absolutely relieve any icepick-in-the-skull pain!
posted by orme at 11:17 AM on April 12, 2009


Aww. What adorable little child-analogues.
posted by rusty at 11:28 AM on April 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Wow, these mother's manic drive to win-win-win. To choose such a disturbingly sexualized ritual (the pursuit of manifesting a Barbie-perfect bastardization of feminity in flesh) to invest their time and money in. To make their children the focus of this warped gender roleplaying mindfuckery.

An affront to childhood.

On preview, That Sugar Bush Squirrel nutbar is obviously as fucked in the head as those pageant mothers. But she's screwing with the mind of a squirrel. And I think that's hilarious.
posted by Glee at 11:37 AM on April 12, 2009


If we're going to use children as a commodity, for the purpose of consumption, I think it makes sense that someone would want to establish premium children in order to fetch premium prices. Let's face it, unless we come up with a way to distinguish children, they're all going to fetch the same price. Sure these artificial children will be considered cream of the crop for the time being, but given sufficient time, I think organic babies, while being a much smaller portion of the market, will fetch three or four times the price of those injected with artificial smiles.
posted by furtive at 11:37 AM on April 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


I'm going to just pretend this doesn't exist. I have no other coping mechanism that could work in this case.
posted by strixus at 11:51 AM on April 12, 2009


Terrifying
posted by notreally at 12:00 PM on April 12, 2009


I preferred 'Sugar Bush Squirrel' . Squirrel owner talking about 9/11 "I want to immortalize it in squirrel terms". Why thank you.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 12:04 PM on April 12, 2009


previous sugar bush squirrel thread.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 12:12 PM on April 12, 2009


People can always find something weird to do to their kid. Only shock therapy will solve this. What we really need to do is let this intersect with a post a couple of clicks downstream from here. Let's convince these beauty pageant moms that late, late breastfeeding can produce pageant girls with very rosy cheeks, dazzling white smiles, etc.

Imagine the scene backstage, during "lunch," their Texas tans giving way as they lift their shirts to perfectly white breasts smeared with pancake makeup and rouge, exhorting their little girls to keep pulling so they can be winners. "C'mon, Cindy, harder! You don't want it bad enough!" Moms of third-place daughters only get a copy of Pretty Baby taped to a pint of organic milk on their way out the door.

Nevermind. I'm scrapping the idea because I'm fairly certain that those involved wouldn't notice even a hint of anything strange or over-the-top about it; at least, nothing they couldn't self-justify.
posted by adipocere at 12:27 PM on April 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


"Sugar Bush has made the phrase 'you've been squirrel'd' an international household expression." Huh.
posted by dosterm at 12:29 PM on April 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Photographers of the world: DON'T USE FLASH*! It does not make your site "cool" or "different", and it does not prevent your pictures from being saved and used in ways you do not wish them to be used. All it does is annoy users, make the site difficult to navigate and increase bandwidth and processor load.

And if you absolutely, positively have to use it (because you want to embed film sequences) then, for Pete's sake, don't start the narration or soundtrack over a still image! People will wonder if their flash player got stuck, needs to be updated or has otherwise crashed and you will confuse the hell out of them!

Ahem. Sorry, but that kind of thing makes my blood pressure rise Every. Single. Time.

Oh, and those pageant pics are really, really creepy - I cannot even imagine what kind of look they were going for. I mean, a "normal" adult woman will dress this way and put on make-up to be more attractive; that's not an effect I want to be associated with children.

* Adobe Flashâ„¢, that is. I guess you can still use those artificial lightning thingies.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 12:43 PM on April 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


I've seen plenty of these kinds of photos, and have seen my share of TV about the child pageant world. Every time, I think the same thing: Why are trying to turn your baby into a milf?

It always seems to be far more about the mothers than the kids...^

Oh.
posted by The Deej at 12:48 PM on April 12, 2009


I don't much like this. I prefer the, astonishingly, less sensationalist and less didactic Living Dolls.

I mean, it's not hard to make these people seem horrifying.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:07 PM on April 12, 2009


Sugar Bush Squirrel was a soothing palliative for the pain that resulted from watching half a minute of Darling Divas.

"Making the World a Better Place One Nut at a Time."

You can say that again!
posted by Kattullus at 1:08 PM on April 12, 2009


Photographers of the world: DON'T USE FLASH*! It does not make your site "cool" or "different", and it does not prevent your pictures from being saved [...]

What's the easiest way (besides a screen capture) to grab a photo from a site like that?
posted by pracowity at 1:22 PM on April 12, 2009


"By the time she goes and gets married it's gonna be like The Twilight Zone. Ya know, they might have floatin' dresses or invisible dresses or somethin'"
posted by mindless progress at 1:43 PM on April 12, 2009


What we really need to do is let this intersect with a post a couple of clicks downstream from here.

I was thinking the same thing. Between this and the people defending the breast-feeding of 8-year-olds, it's like fucked-up narcissistic bad-parenting day at MeFi.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:13 PM on April 12, 2009


I might be able to accept the apologist-mother's argument; that, if treated strictly as a hobby and a way for kids to have a good time, the pageant thing can be reasonably benign. But oh my god, the money and the time and the accessories required. I really think someone ought to be able to come up with an alternate "hobby" that provides the same bennies but costs maybe one tenth as much and removes the creepiness factor. And since these people seem to be pretty easily led, selling it to them shouldn't be too tough.
posted by Clay201 at 3:00 PM on April 12, 2009


Obligatory Mr. Show Pre-Natal Beauty Pageant
posted by Dia Nomou Nomo Apethanon at 3:03 PM on April 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


now I need to erase my drive....
posted by HuronBob at 4:49 PM on April 12, 2009


What I found most disturbing (aside from the Southern Swastikas plastered everywhere) was the way all the makeup managed to make the faces of the toddlers look incredibly like the faces of women in their 50's who have had a lot of plastic surgery. It was downright weird to see what looked like not merely adult faces, but old and heavily made up to look young adult faces, on baby bodies. Like a weird photoshop project or something.
posted by sotonohito at 6:21 PM on April 12, 2009


This is child abuse, and ought to be against the law. Half the mothers interviewed said that they started their child in pageants at six months. I'm sorry, but if you can't grasp that no six month old baby should be subjected to this, then Child Services needs to become involved. People really suck sometimes.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:01 PM on April 12, 2009


What's the easiest way (besides a screen capture) to grab a photo from a site like that?


Why besides screen capture?
posted by mr_roboto at 7:04 PM on April 12, 2009


Because that's the obvious but tedious way if you want to grab all of the pictures. How about an easy way to extract and download them all to your disk at once?
posted by pracowity at 9:28 PM on April 12, 2009


Seeing these really adult faces on these little tiny girl bodies reminded me of a scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Believe it or not they have these for boys too. I had a relative who had 'the most adorable boys' who briefly got sucked into this narcissistic money-hole madness.
posted by eye of newt at 9:30 PM on April 12, 2009


A possibly more frightening related youtube video to Living Dolls. "I want my babies to be in pagents... when I have them of course."
posted by fontophilic at 7:57 AM on April 13, 2009


« Older BO knows Bo   |   AmazonFAIL Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments