phylogeny

My brain also refuses to see anything else.

They did that to a couple of girls. I think Paige was one of them. At the makeover they're all like "Nooooo don't hide your natural curl!" and then 2 episodes later they go back to having straight hair. I know they have to get permission before dyeing their hair, but I wonder if the exact style they wear it in is that tightly controlled as well.

I bet there are girls auditioning who are going to drive two states away just to find an open salon to get their hair touched up beforehand 😄 ...And I bet girls who stayed home and have some roots out are going to get compared negatively to them during deliberations.

Thanks for posting about this. I went looking for it out of boredom but it was a lot more interesting than I expected. I thought she made a lot of really good points about the problems with pro dance teams as they stand now and how anyone good enough to land a spot on one of them could just do social media influencing instead and make a lot more money. Also had no idea they actually taped themselves up in their dance outfits to prevent wardrobe malfunctions, so ya learn something new every day.

Coincidentally, I've just finished counting exactly how many girls are at auditions each season, and the numbers match up with what you're saying. Season 1: 240 Season 2: 300 Season 3: 378 Can't count for season 4 because this one was done at the Gaylord Texan and they don't pan out over them in the stadium Season 5: 285 Season 6: 242 Season 7: 288 Season 8: 322 Season 9: 241 Season 10: 232 Season 11: 204 Season 12: 195 Season 13: 175 Season 14: 161 It certainly does seem that the TV show was a pretty significant draw for the first few seasons and then there's been a pretty steady decline since. I'm glad you agree about the level of dance skills in general about the ladies in the earlier seasons, because I feel that on this board we tend to reminisce about seasons past and some of the superstar dancers on those squads, but after watching some of the earlier seasons again, they were... overall not as technically skilled at auditions as in more recent years, to put it nicely.

"Bless her heart, she's living in the past" 😄

Kali Drake got the same treatment and she looked great. 😡 It's doubly dumb because they have to go out on the field in the bras and shorts anyway so it's not like they really CAN hide anything. As you've pointed out already, it's just another one of the things they use as excuses to pile on to somebody they already have it out for.

I'm pretty sure she was a one and done. That's one hell of a job to give up for that.

And "not being the smiley cheerleader" wouldn't have flown with anyone else, either. See Ann Lux getting absolutely dragged for having a more reserved personality.

I just noticed that on the last day of the swimsuit shoot when the girls are just hanging out having fun at the hotel pool, there's this random dude with his camera out in the background filming them while they're just minding their own business having fun. Lol but also ewwwww.

I can definitely buy into this. I feel like Kelli usually keeps girls who look like Ashley around for a while and I was really surprised when she was the first (?) one cut. They told us it was for low kicks but there have been wayyy worse who've stuck around till almost the end of camp. Anyone know if she's reauditioning? Will be interesting to see how it goes down if she does and all of this is true.

I'm working on a project where I count the number of people auditioning each season from the Pluto episodes and I keep juuuust missing the first part of the first episodes 😭 But I counted 232 for the 2015 season

I believe Kelli has said that they like for the ladies on the ends (and 50 yard line) to have really perfect kicks, since the photographers often take pics looking down the kickline like so and that it doesn't look as good if the end isn't a high kicker. Kicks were a big weakness for Mackenzie.

I'm pretty sure she had something like invisalign from the beginning. She always looked like she had something on her lower teeth.

Meredith Land is one