YES! I knew she would be famous! Miss South Carolina Teen USA 2007, Lauren Caitlin Upton, will appear on Tuesday morning’s Today show on NBC to explain her incredibly humorous and incoherent answer to why 1 in 5 Americans cannot locate the US on a world map.
From People magazine:
Don’t know much about … geography?
Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen USA, whose mangled response to a pageant question has become an Internet sensation, will have a second chance to answer it on Tuesday morning’s Today show.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she told South Carolina’s The State newspaper. “I wasn’t expecting [the question]. I lost my train of thought.”
She added she “completely misunderstood” the question, which she’ll get a second stab at on Today.
The show’s host, Mario Lopez, tells PEOPLE he wanted to help her, but was told that he couldn’t talk to the contestants while they were answering questions.
“It was a very intense moment. It’s live TV. You don’t know what the question is until you get up there. And I believe that she misunderstood it. She went down the wrong road and couldn’t figure out how to get back to the right one,” he says. “I felt really badly for her.”
The beauty contestant’s video on YouTube has received more than 2 million hits thanks to her amazingly off-the-mark answer at Friday night’s pageant, when she was queried about why Americans are so bad at geography.
Specifically, she was asked why one-fifth of Americans can’t find the United States on a map.
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps,” she ventured.
During her meandering response, she also tossed in out-of-the-blue references to “the Iraq” and “Asian countries” and their need for the support of the American educational system in identifying the United States on the map.
Upton is described as a varsity athlete and student leader at Lexington High School, where she graduated in June with a 3.5 GPA.
Despite the on-camera gaffe, Upton finished as third runner-up.
What?! She has a 3.5 GPA? Goodness, I would have never guessed!
Anyway, I get the Today show a day later than you “US Americans”, so you’ll all have seen it before I get a chance to. I’m definitely going to catch this episode of the Today show just so I can hear her respond to the question once more.
Please please please please please please make a fool of yourself again, Ms. Upton! You are so funny!! :D
I cannot wait to hear your explanation for this!
On a separate note, it looks like some people are trying to create a Wikipedia entry for Ms. Upton, only to be turned down because it is considered a “creation of an attack page on a teenager who will not be notable for anything once people forget about that video in a couple weeks.”
However, one (or more) individuals have responded back to that comment, saying “Secondly, out of 50 contestants SHE GOT FOURTH PLACE! Future generations should bear witness to what the USA values in our young women.”
Heck yeah! I want this page created now!
UPDATE: Video of the interview on the Today show below!!!
not to sound like a smarty pants (because i most definately am not).. but 3.5 isn’t really that hard to get.. is it? i think of 3.5 as average (me).. and u have to also take into consideration what classes she took to get that 3.5.. like i think dance and home ec and English (me) don’t deserve to be thought of as impressive.. haha omg u have to see her answers on the video interview on the miss teen usa website.. then u’d understand haha
if the scale was out of 1000 i wouldn’t question it. but for most people 3.5 out of 4 is quite high no matter what way you look at it.
It’s not 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. Honors classes, CP, etc. allow the scale to be up to 5.0.
btw, she goes by Caitlin Upton, not Lauren Upton.
RE: Dilbert2
Lauren Upton would still be her name, no?
Maybe she was confused…but “The Iraq”. She said it twice, and what is that? I think it was more than just being confused.
And check out the today show update! You can tell that they gave her all those questions beforehand… Unless she speaks that mechanically in everyday conversation.
3.5 is still pretty good. It’s good enough to know that she doesn’t normally answer questions like that. 3.5 is no where near average, especially when you put into consideration the other grades that people are getting in high school. Some people don’t even graduate. Furthermore, she was not only in a varsity sports team, but probably had pagaent training which both take a chunk of time. If you think 3.5 is average, then you sure are dissing a lot of people.
This is actually similar to the pressure of a job interview question, but even a lot greater pressure. I’m sure the interviewer has heard some quite mechanical answers before even though the majority of interview questions are pretty similar
Oh please, give me a break already. She claims she only heard a few words when asked the question. I think not. Her first sentence was speaking about US Americans (that’s a joke within itself) not having maps. Therefore, I know she heard the question loud and clear. If she didn’t hear the complete question, she could have asked for the question to be repeated. She need to stop making excuses along with other people(you know who you are). I know quite a few people who have 3.0-3.5 averages who aren’t very bright. Figure that one out.