I am outraged!!! OUTRAGED!!!!!

Well, I certainly didn’t see THIS coming. I thought for sure that Yoanna wasn’t going to make it to the finals, let alone WIN. This is very disappointing.

No, this isn’t Stacey, our in-house reality TV expert, and YES I’m writing about the finals of AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL. I don’t know anything about fashion (besides that it appears to be a secret conspiracy by gay men to make beautiful women look bizarre and unappealing), modeling (I doubt I could even NAME five current supermodels) or anything like that, yet I find this show strangely compelling.

Tonight was the finale, and, as you may have deduced, I was unpleasantly surprised by the results. Yoanna’s strikingly handsome, but she’s also one of those women whose curves disappear if she gets to be too thin, which she is. And I swear I’m not trying to be a sensitive-man bozo when I say that (most times when a guy says “___________ is cute, but she’s way too thin...” to a girl, it usually means “hey baby, give me a blow job”), but with her short hair and non-existant boobs, Yoanna LOOKS LIKE A 12-YEAR OLD BOY. Thing is, I think that when the judges would tell her she hadda “work on her body”, she probably thought that meant “lose more weight”, not “look as though you’ve gone through puberty.” I don’t mean to be catty here, but I simply don’t think she’s ANTM material.

I thought for sure they were gonna pick Shandi. Shandi wouldn’t have been my choice, but they all seemed to be so ape over her that it seemed inevitable. Man, that’s how they getcha. I actually thought that Shandi was the least pretty of the three (I mean, her ears were like the handles on a jug of wine) (jeez, what’s gotten into me? I’m tougher on these poor girls than Janice Dickenson (who, for the record, comes off as simply one of the most IRRITATING humans on the planet on this show - can’t they get some other screeching, menopausal harpy to sit on the panel?)), and she seemed like she had a few years of growing up to do before she could handle this kind of thing. However, although she was in many ways the least appealing to me personally, I could sorta see how someone could envison her as ANTM. I dunno if that makes sense, but that’s what I think. I was also very much hoping for an epilogue in which it was revealed that she dropped her whiny, passive-aggressive dildo of a boyfriend. I mean, jeez, between his stupid-looking “thousand-yard-stare” photo and her laying that one Italian dude, what does she need, a neon sign?

It should be obvious at this point that I was rooting pretty heavily for Mercedes. About four episodes in, I made her my pick to win the whole thing (as opposed to who I thought the PANEL was gonna pick). I dunno, its just like when you see John McCain and you think “THAT’s the guy! THAT is the next President of the United States!” Yeah, I know, look what happened to him. Anyway, I thought Mercedes was probably the prettiest one, all her photos looked good, and, as near as I could figure, the panel’s biggest objection was that she looked “too commercial”, which, I must admit, didn’t make a lot of sense to me (“This girl we hired is simply TOO COMMERCIAL!!! If we use her, why...why...WE MAY SELL TOO MANY JEANS/BOTTLES OF EYELINER/FRUITY-LOOKING SUNGLASSES/ETC.!!!! WE’LL BE RICH BEYOND OUT WILDEST DREAMS!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WHY GOD WHY????????????”). When they threw off Shandi, I thought for sure she was gonna take it. I almost didn’t even bother watching the last half - of COURSE they’re gonna pick Mercedes, why the fuck wouldn’t they?

Shows what I know. So, America, have fun with the emaciated, androgynous (albeit stunningly attractive) Yoanna as your spokesmodel. She woulda been my fourth place pick out of the whole group, but I guess that’s why I’m not on the panel (although, Tyra, if you’re reading, I promise I’d repel FAR fewer viewers than Janice Dickenson. I’m in the book!).