Miss Bolivia Contestant Said The Dumbest Thing Ever, Her Rival Said Something Very Smart [MEMES]

Giovana Salazar Quintana aka Miss La Paz entered the annals of beauty pageant fails while competing in the Miss Bolivia pageant. Remember South Carolina Miss Teen USA contestant Caitlin Upton’s flub from 2007 (“I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq,”)? Salazar is now the Latin American Caitlin Upton, after giving a nonsensical answer to a very simple question at a beauty pageant. Lest we perpetuate the stereotype that beauty contestants are idiots, we’ll share a really smart answer from the same competition. For now, here’s what got our attention.

Interviewer : What would you say to people who criticize and don’t agree with beauty pageants?

Miss La Paz (Salazar): Beauty pageants are made for people who like beauty pageants. For example, I like soccer and not basketball. Thank you.

How do you say “oranges to apples” in Andean Spanish? That’s gotta hurt, not only because it was an epic fail, but also because the question was pretty easy. Along with world peace and La Paz traffic, Salazar might have even talked about it before. For some, the flub caused a warm glow of schadenfreude warm your bones. For others, it inspired some pretty funny memes (see below); #missbolvia trended on Twitter in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Few took the time to listen to the next question, asked to Miss Residentes. (It’s unclear who that contestant is in the video but we’re pretty sure that she is Jazmín Duran, a veteran beauty contestant.)

Interviewer: What is your opinion of the marked regionalism that exists in our country, and what solution do you support to solve this issue and unify Bolivia?

We know what she was thinking: “Miss La Paz has to talk about beauty pageants and have to address ‘marked regionalism’” Not fair! It would be a tough question in any country, but in Bolivia it’s particularly complex. That’s because the country is split along cultural and linguistic lines as well: 30 percent of Bolivians are Quechua, 25 percent are Aymara, 30 percent are mixed race and 15 percent are white. Only 60 percent speak Spanish. Unfair? Doesn’t matter. Watch how she crushes it.

Miss Residentes: I think that... the regionalist division that exists is caused by focus and consciousness that we Bolivians have. I think it's time to change our mentality since we live a pluricultural and multiethnic country. And I think that we must realize that the beauty of Bolivia is the diversity of our beloved Bolivia.

Ya, that’s right, “pluricultural!” I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word in conversation in any language (though it’s less formal in Spanish than in English). Of course that’s not what got traction in the meme world. Salazar’s answer “Beauty pageants are made for people who like beauty pageants. For example, I like soccer and not basketball. Thank you,” spawned parodies and memes from Bolivia to Mexico, where #missbolivia was trending on Monday.

"Monday is made for people who like Mondays. For example, I like salmon and not Tuna. Thank you,” tweeted Alejandra Oraa.

"Manu Chao is for people that like Manu Chao, for example, ‘I like the morning, I like you, I like chestnuts, I like you,’” tweeted ____, quoting the surfer-bum artists’ 2001 song “Me gustas tú.”

The parodies even got political, referencing a dispute between Bolivian President Evo Morales and a group of striking miners in Potosi . Morales cancelled a meeting with union leaders. Apparently, union protesters were hurt in a clash with police and a protesting dog named firecracker was among the injured. At some point, the miners threw dinamite at officials. Someone figured out how to squeeze all that into one Miss Bolivia meme.

“Dialog was made for people who like to dialog. For example, I like dynamite but not fireworks.”

[That post was deleted before we could post it, if it pops up somewhere else, let us know]

And another one critical of Morales, whose support is waning among his socialist base: "Conflicts are made for those who like conflicts. For example, I like inagurating soccer fields, but not hospitals."