The Minister Mentor should be proud of Ms Ris Low. Single-handedly and in a shorter period, she has generated more buzz into this wilderness that is Singapore than the  Singapore Tourism Board, the economic tsars, financial wizards, F1 and the two casinos put together. In fact, I should say she has rocketed the boomz factor in this sedate city.

As it turns out, bad publicity is better than no publicity.  Now and a decade down the road we will all still remember this Ms World Singapore. “Ms Ris Low?  Oh of course I remember. The beauty with boomz right?”  Besides her, maybe only Ms Eunice Olsen and Ms Teo Ser Luck will be remembered.

Suddenly, Ms Universe has moved to the backseat and Ms World to the forefront. She has single-handedly  done what years of marketing by the organizers could not do: get the media, the netizens, and coffee shops to talk about their Ms World Singapore contest winner for weeks.

There can even be profitable spinoffs. She can co-write a book like “The Ris Low Story: from crown to crawl”. MediaCorp can get her to act in a sitcom as a love interest of the only young adult of the Phua Chu Kang family. She can start a new teenage fashion label called BOOMZ, or a lingerie line labelled RAD. Even a bank can begin a credit card for teenagers called: Low Ris credit card. I know this is not America, but isn’t this what buzz is all about: rampant capitalism.

Beauty contests has always been about external beauty despite all the talk about inner beauty being as important . A certain look, a certain walk and poise, and definitely height, height, height is what wins contest. Interestingly, the media, new and old, have caused attention to be focused on what is true beauty: the inner person. This resonates with the ageless Christian truth:

“But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:4)