The dreams of a 60-year-old beauty contestant come to an abrupt end in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A 60-year-old woman saw her dreams of becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant in history melt away in a haze of sequins and selfies Saturday at Argentina’s annual beauty pageant.

Alejandra Marisa Rodríguez, a hopital legal adviser whose entry into the competition had been cheered as a triumph over ageism in a youth-obsessed world, fell short of the Miss Argentina crown. But she did take home the title of “best face," one of several pageant categories including best evening gown, best swimsuit and most elegant.

During the contest she thanked everyone who celebrated her success in the Miss Buenos Aires competition last month. Her win there, after Miss Universe eliminated its long-standing age limit, generated a frenzy of global media attention that vaulted her from obscurity to local fame.

In an instant the soft-spoken lawyer from the city of La Plata, south of Buenos Aires, was doling out moisturizer tips to women striving to achieve her surreally smooth face and promising the public there was truth to the adage that age is just a number.

“As a result of what happened to me, I believe a new door has opened for many people who perhaps did not have it easy,” Rodríguez told The Associated Press backstage after the event, still dressed in her red cocktail dress with slits revealing her legs. “It was adventure and I had no expectations of this other than taking on a new challenge."

For the swimsuit portion of the Miss Argentina contest, Rodríguez chose a modest one-piece suit with a shawl draped over her shoulders, giving the crowd a shimmy as fans whooped and blew air horns.

But the judges preferred Magali Benejam, a 29-year-old actress and model from Cordoba who donned a skimpy blue bikini and sky-high stilettos to win “best swimsuit” and ultimately beat out the 27 other contestants to be crowned Miss Argentina.

“I’m so excited and so grateful to be here because the competition was not easy,” Benejam told AP. She will represent Argentina in Mexico City for the global competition in November.

Even Benejam's victory would have been impossible a year ago, as the pageant had long capped the age of contestants at 28. This year, for the first time in its 73-year-history, the Miss Universe contest is welcoming any participant over age 18.

It's just the latest in a series of changes for a contest that has been a lightning rod for feminist criticism since “bra-burning” protests upended the 1968 Miss America contest.

For decades, the Miss Universe pageant openly described itself as an extravaganza of unmarried women in their late teens and twenties strutting around for judges to rate their looks and personalities. As more and more people found that troubling, organizers realized how far the contest trailed behind the culture.

Over recent years, as #MeToo and social justice movements swept the globe, Miss Universe raced to persuade skeptics it was more about minds and spirits than bodies.

It stripped away many controversial eligibility requirements, opening the field for married, pregnant, lesbian and transgender women, and it nixed all mentions of "beauty" from its website.

Yet, as the contest stressed empathy, confidence and authenticity as feminine ideals, the mentions of “young woman” remained in place, and with it, the ban on crow’s-feet.

While many women praised Rodriguez’s decision to compete at age 60, others questioned whether she was setting an unreasonable standard for older women. Her award-winning face, statuesque figure and sculptured features made her blend in with the younger cohort onstage.

“It’s contributing to a sense that everyone should be able to look like this, all 60-year-old women should have the appearance of youth and freshness, as if they were 25,” said Lala Pasquinelli, an Argentine feminist activist. “If they don’t, it’s because they aren’t willing to make the sacrifices.”

Contestants perform during the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. Alejandra Rodriguez, a 60-year-old lawyer, is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Miss Rostro Alejandra Rodriguez competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez, right center, competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez, 60, competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez, 60, competes in the Argentina Miss Universe pageant in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Contestant Alejandra Rodriguez competes in the swimsuit category during the final of the Argentina Miss Universe pageant, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, May 25, 2024. The 60-year-old lawyer is hoping to make history by becoming the oldest Miss Universe contestant. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — One is a wildly popular, seemingly happy-go-lucky YouTuber from Cyprus. The other is a brash, fringe figure of Spain's far right who rails against unauthorized immigrants. They both are new members of the European Parliament thanks to their savvy use of video-based social media.

YouTuber and TikToker Fidias Panayiotou is a 24-year-old with no political experience and no formal higher education who rode the wave of his online popularity — and public anger at the country's political elites — all the way to one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament.

He says he’ll keep using social media “as my biggest weapon to use” when he formally takes up his new job as a legislator in Brussels and Strasbourg, France.

Widely addressed by his first name, Fidias secured a remarkable one in five votes cast in Sunday’s election without the support of any political party — until now, thought to be the be-all and end-all of getting elected in any political contest in Cyprus.

Fidias sent shockwaves through the Cypriot political system by running a campaign in which he took no political positions, made no promises or even presented a program for his time in office.

“It seems now that people are hungry not for political positions, but for true people that are not lying (but) saying the truth,” he told The Associated Press in an interview in English, the language he uses for most of his posts.

While Fidias avoided strong political positions and was already widely known for his online high jinks, Spaniard Alvise Pérez was mostly unknown until he leveraged his diatribes on Instagram and Telegram against the alleged dangers of immigration. He also railed against claims of widespread corruption among politicians to score not one, but three of the 61 seats Spain gets in the European Parliament.

The common factor between the Alvise and Fidias is that both hit the bullseye thanks to their mastery of social media to garner support among young people, many of whom may have been indifferent to politics.

“This is not just a Spanish phenomenon or only about a YouTuber in Cyprus,” Steven Forti, a professor of history at Barcelona’s Autonomous University and expert on the far right, told the AP.

Forti said the creation of “digital subcultures” around unorthodox candidates had been critical to the rise of Donald Trump in the United States and, more recently, Javier Milei in Argentina, as well as far-right figures across Europe. But this dynamic has been turbocharged by the increasingly video-based trends in social media.

“The newer types of digital platforms like TikTok and Instagram have clearly accelerated” the fragmentation of politics, Forti said, because they help the far right achieve its two main objectives of disseminating their ideas very quickly and making themselves appear as everyday, normal people.

Fidias has spent the last five years boosting his popularity with outrageous video posts of him spending wads of cash in Vietnam, living a week in an airport for free, and burying himself alive for 10 days.

With over 5 million followers across all social media platforms, according to Fidias, that online footprint served him well when he decided to throw his hat into the election ring. He said he learned to play the social media game through trial and error and to understand what makes videos go “viral” online.

“At first I didn’t like what I saw in politics. So if you don’t like what you see, I think you need to become the change that you want to see,” said Fidias.

By his own admission, his online popularity only gave a segment of Cypriot voters — who are deeply disenchanted with the perceived corruption of a party system that has operated on a favors-for-votes basis for decades — an outlet to vent their anger and chastise the country’s political caste.

“It will be a lie to say that it was only the social media. I think it played the biggest factor, but it was a magnifying glass to what I really am,” he said.

Nicholas Papadopoulos, leader of the centrist Democratic Party, which lost its lone European Parliament seat, told Cypriot state radio on Tuesday that the vote clearly sent a “message of disappointment, of protest, of desperation, of anger” that targeted the country’s entire political system.

Political analyst Haridimos Tsoukas echoed Papadopoulos, saying one in five Cypriot voters wanted to make their point by sticking “their tongue out to the political system, not just in protest, but to express disgust in an ostentatious way.”

Alvise, which is a pen name, also successfully tapped into an irreverent vibe. He ran under the name “The Party Is Over” (“Se acabó la fiesta”) and with a logo of a cartoon squirrel wearing a Guy Fawkes mask that has long become associated with various so-called anti-system movements. Fawkes was an Englishman who tried to bomb the British Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605.

Forti said Alvise, like Milei, wanted to connect young people by projecting an image of being equal parts entertaining and rebellious. But he warns that the fun veneer is designed to deliver a hard-line message.

Alvise declares himself an admirer of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and says he would like to build a mega-prison like the one the central American leader is raising. Many of his posts are honed to fan fears about immigration, even when the country’s economic authorities say more foreign workers are needed to prop up the public pension system.

“A field full of tomatoes now needs more paperwork to leave the farm than an illegal immigrant needs to enter the country,” Alvise told a hooting crowd after “The Party Is Over” won over 4% of the ballots cast in Spain and pulled in 800,000 votes.

Alvise has shocked Spain’s far-right Vox party, which earned six seats in the election but it would have likely done much better if Alvise had not launched his rogue venture.

While Alvise's rhetoric points to a drift toward illiberal rule, Fidias sees his unexpected triumph as democracy turning a corner toward a more direct connection between between voters and those they elect. He said social media empowers citizens by giving them a real, direct voice, “not just to follow what the TV says.”

“They can comment on the video, they can share it, they can make a video and respond to it. So it’s kind of a more direct democracy," he said about his modus operandi.

Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.

Alvise Perez, leader of "The Party Is Over" ("Se acabó la fiesta") poses for a photo in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, June 13, 2024. One is a wildly popular, seemingly happy-go-lucky YouTuber with no political experience from Cyprus. The other is a brash, fringe figure of Spain's far right who rails against unauthorized immigrants. They are now new members of the European Parliament thanks to their savvy use of the potential of video-based social media. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)

Alvise Perez, leader of "The Party Is Over" ("Se acabó la fiesta") poses for a photo in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, June 13, 2024. One is a wildly popular, seemingly happy-go-lucky YouTuber with no political experience from Cyprus. The other is a brash, fringe figure of Spain's far right who rails against unauthorized immigrants. They are now new members of the European Parliament thanks to their savvy use of the potential of video-based social media. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)

Fidias Panayiotou, right, speaks to his supporters after elected in the European Elections in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Sunday, June 9, 2024. Panayiotou, a popular YouTuber and TikToker who's humorous and occasionally obnoxious posts have earned him tens of thousands of followers has stunned Cyprus' political world by appearing to wrest one of six seats allotted to the island nation in the European Parliament from traditional political powerhouses. (AP Photo/Philippos Christou)

FILE - Fidias Panayiotou speaks to his supporters after elected in the European elections in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on June 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Philippos Christou, File)

Popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou holds his cell phone after his proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

A woman takes a selfie with popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou after his proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou speaks to the Associated Press after his proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou speaks to the Associated Press after his proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou speaks to the Associated Press after his proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Orthodox priest, father Kiprianos, left, and the mother Eirini Panayiotou, right, of the popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament, arrive at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou , third from left, stands with the others five elected, during his proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Popular YouTuber and TikToker with millions of online followers Fidias Panayiotou proclamation as the winner of one of six seats allotted to Cyprus in the European Parliament, arrives at the Filoxenia Conference Center in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The 24-year-old Cypriot says he will continue using social media in his new job as a member of the European Parliament because he sees it as "my biggest weapon to use" in affecting the kind of change he wants to see on issues such as education. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Alvise Perez, leader of "The Party Is Over" ("Se acabó la fiesta") poses for a photo in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, June 13, 2024. One is a wildly popular, seemingly happy-go-lucky YouTuber with no political experience from Cyprus. The other is a brash, fringe figure of Spain's far right who rails against unauthorized immigrants. They are now new members of the European Parliament thanks to their savvy use of the potential of video-based social media. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)