My Audition For America's Next Top Model, Cycle 13

(you can still vote for me on the CW's website here)

So, I didn't get picked. But here's my story....

Thankfully, my best friend was just as excited as I was that this season's Top Model is for girls 5'7 and under, and insisted she come with me to the casting call. I am so grateful she was there! There were 2,000+ girls at this open call....did you get that, 2,000+ auditioned on Saturday!! Holy shit. But think about it, Tyra should do some good with these auditions. Especially in this economy. Can you imagine if she made everyone who was auditioning bring 3 cans of canned food? Or a bag of used clothes? 2,000+ people, what a difference that could make to a homeless shelter... Well, we got there at 8am, 2 hours before the casting began, and there were already 638 girls (plus their entourages) there. I know this because my audition number was 639* (silly me, I thought it was a lucky number. Read more on this at the bottom of the post if interested) But really, what kind of friend gets up at 6:30am after parting the night before to go wait in line for 7 hours? (Yes, that's how long we were there) I'll tell you, a good friend! But we aren't dummies, we brought flats to wear, snacks, and pillows to sit on. Surprisingly, few others did the same. Most girls were wearing their hottest heels, and we all know, they can be the least comfortable. It was honestly the hottest display of shoes I've ever seen! Soo much fun seeing all of the girls outfits, shoes and perfect hair styles! It wasn't until 5 hours into the game, until we made it to the front of the line. I gave my stuff to my BF, and headed inside, thinking it would only be about 30min more. I was wrong. Once inside the hotel, we were corralled into a tiny ballroom sitting in 3 groups of a hundred. In about 45min incriminates, a new batch of girls were pulled from their seats to line up against the wall. The staff would say, "All of your bags, personal items and your number must be in your left hand! You will all walk in silently and stand heel to hell with the girl in front of you. No spaces ladies!" Seemed like some kind of model Auschwitz. Lining us up, hope and fear in these girls eyes, no idea whats on the other side of the door, only to never to been seen again. On top of it all, no one had cell phone service to call their loved ones to tell them it was going to be longer than the 30 min we had all expected (it ended up being 2 hours). Hurry up and wait. Finally my group was lined in, and marched into the small casting room. On one wall was the casting director in all her glory, behind huge studio lights sitting next to the cameraman. (Mind you her being there was a big deal, she only goes to 4 cities, and DC is one of them!) Well, we lined up boob to back, heel to heel, on the 3 remaining walls. No spaces, standing in profile, you couldn't see our bodies. Our things were to be in our left hand so we could drop them in the middle of the room, in a quick and timely fashion. Then it began. We were to step out of line, quickly, say our name, age, height and weight, then step back in line, next girl. THAT was your chance at being America's Next Top model. "katelin, 24, 5'5,105lbs" That's it, plus she wasn't even looking at us, she was flipping through our applications. "ANTM looks for personality, originality, etc...." boast's their website. Bullshit. I'll tell you the truth-the casting director took our 15 page, in depth applications, flipped them over and just starting ripping through the pictures we had attached. That's the bottom line ladies and gentleman. They could have saved mine, and their time, by just walking down the line outside (that looped twice around the block) had us hold up our pictures in front of us, and just grabbed girls like that. Be honest with people. Your personality, and catwalk, doesn't mean shit. Well, it only took about 4 minutes to get through 100 of us regurgitating those 4 fun facts. Then the first cut was made. We had no idea that was all we got to do before the cut. You could see the horror and sadness in girls eyes when they realized we weren't going to get a chance to walk or talking. It went from 100 down to 12. As she was flipping through the applications, I saw her pull my picture. When the numbers were called, mine was one of them. I was ecstatic! "This is it!" I thought, "I've got this, now that I have some breathing room, it's on like Donkey Kong! They'll see my walk, see my tattoos, know I've got more drive and personality that all these girls combined, and I'll be having Mimosa's at Tyra's by Fall fashion week!" Didn't quite happen like that. The first thing they had us do when it was down to 12, was have us tie up our shirts, to show our stomachs. Then one by one the casting director had the camera man close up on our face; have us smile, give a straight face, then the camera man got a full body shot of us. Next girl. That was it. Again, obviously, showcasing our personalities....not. We didn't say a word-smile, serious face, suck it in, next girl. That was it before the final cut, the remaining girls would make call backs. I didn't make the final cut down to 4. I only saw two of the girls that were left. One girl was goth looking with pale skin, dark hair and some sentences tattooed on her back, the other girl I saw was a pretty, plain, brunette 5'3 girl. I was fucking livid. Give me 1 minute to say something! 1 minute, shit, 30 seconds, and I promise you'll remember, and pick me!!$@#!!!! but I don't know, I'm kinda torn. Part of me is really honored that the casting director of the most prestigious modeling show picked me out of 100 girls! That's really cool. But the other part feels robbed. Apparently, wasn't meant to be. I just wonder if it was because of my tattoos.... I hope it was, because I'm out to prove something. Big tattooed, high fashion models will be in trend for females, watch. I'm going to start it. There are already top male models with tons of tattoos (i.e. Tyson Beckford, David Beckem). But it's ok, if they're not ready for it yet, I'll show Tyra- I'm the next big thing. " )


*My favorite Chinese restaurant in Guam was named 369. I remember asking the owner why he named it that, and he told me they are the 3 most lucky numbers in Chinese. When I got 639, I was stoked! Here is the breakdown of each number: The number 6 in Mandarin is pronounced the same as "sleek"and "fluid" and is therefore considered good for business. The number 6 also represents happiness. The number 3 sounds similar to the character for "birth", and is thus considered a lucky number. The number 9 being the greatest of single-digit numbers, was historically associated with the Emperor of China. Also, the number 9 is a homophone of the word for "longlasting." There you go. There's your Chinese lesson for the day too!