Imagine your face as the cover photo of one of your favorite magazines, it gets distributed to stores and homes around the nation for all to see and your well-deserved modeling career has finally kicked off — this is the idea many magazine companies sell you when they run periodical modeling contests. From Jetset to Maxim and many prints in between, undoubtedly you’ve seen these competitions somewhere. Whether you personally entered into one or you had a friend begging for votes to make it to the next round, these contests seem to be making their way into our lives evermore frequently. But the real question is, who actually wins modeling contests, and are they really worth entering?

That’s a question that really boils down to two major things: do you want to put the time and effort — and perhaps money — into winning? And, is the publication legit? The latter of which is usually easy enough to determine, but not always.

A lot of us — myself included — are sold on the idea of what could be and sign up as soon as we see a name we recognize (or sometimes don’t) is accepting contestants as opposed to doing 5-minutes of research to find out more about the legitimacy and past reviews regarding these “competitions.”

To be totally fair, most of the competitions run by big-name companies are relatively authentic and you can win, however, they don’t seem to be totally forthcoming about how much work you have to put in if you want to win. You know that old saying, “nothing comes for free” — well, these contests are often no exception. The New York Post actually did an article regarding the “sleazy truth” behind Maxim’s contest in 2018, and another in 2020 — and Maxim is far from being the only publication with bad reviews.

Friendly reminder that the Inked Mag cover model “contest” is an exploitative advertising scam to take advantage of your social media to gain more traffic to their site.
If there is an option to spend money on votes, it’s not a contest. It’s a scam and I will mute your account.

— future whale cult leader (@plopfictionally) February 12, 2020

Generally speaking, publications aren’t running the competitions out of the goodness of their own heart; they do have an ulterior motive which could be either getting an influx of traffic to their sites (Example: click on my page to vote for me!) or, more likely, money (Example: you can buy extra votes for me for only $10!) At the end of the day, there’s no denying these companies know it’s a good PR stunt — seriously, look through Google and see all of the news articles — through better or worse and it will bring the company more moola one way or another.

What’s more, the question of the winner’s legitimacy often goes hand in hand with the above. It usually doesn’t boil down to who the “best” or most talented model is, it’s about who brings in the most money, traffic, etc. So, if you’re not popular enough to market yourself or have a lot of money to back you up, you can probably just forget about winning.

Of course, that’s not always the case — but speaking from personal experience, it’s something to be wary of before signing up to participate in one of these competitions. The best thing you can do before entering in a modeling contest is to do your research read real reviews — and be prepared to put in a lot of time and effort, perhaps even money, into winning. You could even go as far as asking previous contestants what their experience was!

Don’t be sold a dream — there are plenty of magazines always looking for new model submissions and if you work with the right photographers, like ICON’s founder James Patrick, you can increase your chances of being a cover photo model in no time for a fraction of the commitment.

I’ve had covers. I didn’t beg my followers to vote for me in a contest daily. That’s not how you feel published, which literally means nothing when the format is a dying medium.
For the sake of your image and dignity as well as respect for your fans, don’t do it.

— future whale cult leader (@plopfictionally) February 12, 2020