Difference between revisions of "List of Vote for the Girls (United States) moderators"

Revision as of 10:57, 14 October 2016

The American web site Vote for the Girls has, since its 2010 launch, employed a number of judges, known as the main female moderators , competing against the the male moderators.

History

From April 2010 until May 2013, the Vote for the Girls moderator panel competed against arch-rival Vote for the Worst. Usually, the female moderators compete to get all the male contestants eliminated before the females, much in the same tradition as the later incarnations.

During the tenth season of American Idol, notable pick Pia Toscano was considered a frontrunner in the competition, and her ninth place finish shocked judges Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, and Steven Tyler, all of whom were visibly and vocally upset.^[1][2] Some viewers and media outlets described Toscano's departure as one of the most shocking eliminations in American Idol history.^[3][4] Toscano's elimination saw Lauren Alaina and Haley Reinhart as the only remaining females left in the competition ^[5][6][7] and eventually led the web site bounce back from Toscano's elimination seeing the next five eliminated contestants were all males, leading to the first Top 3 with two females since the sixth season, the largest comeback ever in the site's history setting up for a possible since the third season to have a finale consisting of two women and guaranteeing a Double VFTG Victory. During this time, Lauren Alaina broke the record for Vote for the Girls' longest-running American Idol pick ever, a feat never before achieved until Alaina's record of 12 weeks (from the top 24 to the finale) would be tied three years later by with Jessica Meuse (from the top 30 to the top four) and later surpassed by eventual season 13 runner-up Jena Asciutto as Asciutto lated for a record 14 weeks: from the top 30 to the finale. Alaina's finished runner-up was eliminated in the finale—the same week as Crystal Bowersox in season 9 and Jessica Sanchez in the following year. ^[8] Ironically, three months later that year on the eighth season of So You Think You Can Dance the site finally gained its first double VFTG Victory upon the third place finish of Marko Germar with Melanie Moore defeating Sasha Mallory to what was then the largest comeback (that would later be surpassed two years later upon the elimination of Lazaro Arbos on Idol ) in the web site's history.

Season eleven of American Idol saw the site gain major momentum as Ava Zinn announced on April 18, 2011 she was herself auditioning as a contestant (it is interesting to note that this was Zinn's only chance due to Zinn being 28 years of age and is currently the only Vote for the Girls moderator to ever achieve that feat). Zinn auditioned as a contestant on Idol, and eventually went undercover as a journalist reportedly exposing season ten's gender voting bias and eventually would end the trend that Idol pundits call the "white guy with guitar" or "WGWG" factor. During American Idol 11, Zinn picked Hallie Day and Erika Van Pelt in the semi-finals because they also auditioned at the same Pittsburgh audition venues as Zinn and Elise Testone as the wild card. In what would become Robyn Hurd's final VFTG season (before her death on May 24, 2012), she and Holly Everman picked Hollie Cavanagh and Skylar Laine in the finale of American Idol with Jessica Sanchez as the wild card, eventually chosen by Ava Zinn after she had a "huge voting mistake" in not including Sanchez as her own pick. The site supported Sanchez during the time that Ava Zinn favorite Erika Van Pelt was eliminated,^[9] as well as Skylar Laine when more popular Hollie Cavanagh was eliminated.^[10]

Vote for the Girls has expanded its site to include other shows. The site helped support the six eventual female winners (including the moderators' save of Valerie Rockey on So You Think You Can Dance 11) and three "double victories" of Melanie Moore and Sasha Mallory's run during So You Think You Can Dance 8, Eliana Girard and Tiffany Maher on So You Think You Can Dance 9, and Gaby Diaz and Jaja Vaňková on So You Think You Can Dance 12^[11] and a seven season victory streak (with the exception of the moderators' saves used on Christina Grimmie and DaNica Shirey) on The Voice.

Vote for the Gils' mixed bag extends to other shows. The site has had some success with Emily West during America's Got Talent, Melanie Amaro and Alex & Sierra on X Factor, but was unable to help others such as Carly Rose Sonenclar during the second season of The X Factor, Bridget Carrington during Duets and Audrey Kate Geiger and Dana Williams on Rising Star

Not all of the shows mentioned on Vote for the Girls are in a bad way.

Since September 25, 2014, VFTG officially began including Dancing with the Stars as a built-in make-up competition; this differs with American Idol, X Factor and The Voice, of which the male moderators are not allowed to participate while the purple team moderators typically choose female celebrities and the pink team chooses the male celebrities. Typically the winning moderator of American Idol and/or The Voice does not participate (yet is an impartial moderator). Zinn has stated "there are no Vote for the Worst picks on DWTS all the moderators' picks are good." The only way a "loss" can happen on DWTS is if none of the moderators have the DWTS champion.

Since Della Terza's version of Vote for the Worst ended and the Ava Zinn version (of which was absorbed into VFTG and currently the male moderator panel), Vote for the Worst picks have only been male contestants, of which are never revealed until the end of the competition or until all male contestants are eliminated. Zinn's version banned gay males (as M2F picks), lesbian females (as F2M picks), and most notably transgender females. With the DWTS addition, Vote for the Girls introduced the "Flex pick". During the opening rounds, in addition to the as the standard (female) Vote for the Girls picks, in which each woman on the pink team and transwoman on the purple team could use only as much as four per season, or depending on the particular moderator's progress. Making that male Vote for the Girls FLEX pick based on his vocals and appearance would automatically disqualify the opposing pink and/or purple team members from making that pick and must be declared her Vote for the Worst pick on the opposing pink or purple team, regardless of the other moderators' opinions. Additionally the male moderator panel loses that particular contestant. Two occurrences of the male moderator panel having no picks left have occurred twice‐upon the elimination of Braiden Sunshine on The Voice 9 in 2015 and upon Manny Torres being flexed on American Idol: The Final Season in 2016.

Also the web site is be able to "cross-flex" supported female contestants between the pink/purple female team and the red/blue men's team, enabling the females (for the first time since The X Factor 3 in the 2013-14 season) and transfemales (for the first time ever) to support male contestants (for the first time since the 2013-14 season) as Vote for the Girls picks, and the males (for the first time since 2009-2010 season) and transmales (for the first time ever) to support female contestants as Vote for the Worst picks.

Ava Zinn can "cross-flex" some of these supported contestants before the start of, or during, the season as she see s fit. The first Vote for the Girls pick affected by this "flex" change was on ninth season of The Voice airing on September 21, 2015 when Tracia Ward chose Mark Hood while Ava Zinn and Kymberly Alvaraz chose Jordan Smith as the first FLEX picks instead of either Leonard Lai, Clark Jones, Archibald Coolranch, or Lawrence Hederick; and the first supported contestant affected by this "cross-flexing" change was on the twenty-first season of Dancing with the Stars week three (airing on September 28, 2015), reality star Kim Zolciak-Biermann (chosen by Lanise White) was forced to withdraw from the competition (and resulted in White being disqualified) after suffering a blood clot which resulted in a mini stroke (which resulted in no elimination that week and resulting in Hayes Grier and Emma Slater being moved from White to Julia Passalt). Tamar Braxton also withdrew from the season due to blood clots in her lungs making it the first season to have two withdrawals on DWTS and resulting in Nick Carter and Sharna Burgess being moved from Passalt to Ava Zinn and Kymberly Alvaraz, and automatically becoming the winning moderator by default and because Bindi Irwin won the competition overall and Carter finishing runner-up also marked the first "Double VFTG Victory" on DWTS.

The site currently has has fourteen permanent female moderators broken into two teams most often based on her gender identity and/or sexual orientation, with the women on the pink team, and trans women on the purple with four duo moderators and six solo moderators. The Purple team moderators are Ava Zinn, Kymberly Alvaraz, Kathi Jameson, Karly Jameson are the respective duo moderators on the purple team as Ava & Kymberly and Kathi & Karly with solo moderators Kendra Ray, Julia Passalt, and Lanise White–the latter along with Alvaraz were transferred from the pink team in 2015. The pink team moderators are Holly Everman, Perri Johnson, Tracia Ward, Hillary Matthewson are the respective duo moderators on the pink team as Holly & Perri and Tracia & Hillary with solo moderators Kellie Rock, Thia Tola, and Kathy Roberts.

Zinn and Everman have been referred to as hosts since the site's debut as well as serving as moderators on the respective purple and pink teams. The site's main female moderators all listed in VFTG's credit roll, along with the site's master list of Vote for the Girls picks on almost every episodes.

Starting in 2015, most of the female moderators also serve as news personalities at either Fort Wayne's NoSirGifts-owned flagship station and CBS affiliate WTOR or Indianapolis' WIFX due to NoSirGifts distributing the show. Kymberly Alvaraz, Kendra Ray, and Tracia Ward currently appear on WTOR while Julia Passalt, Lanise White, Hillary Matthewson, Thia Tola, and Kathy Roberts appear on WIFX. Karly Jameson hosted her highly controversial talk show The Karly Ryder Jr. Show was taped in Fort Wayne from 2010 until 2015, featuring screaming matches among her guests, and audience members.

Solo Moderators

Male Moderators

Duo Moderators

Moderators

The Vote for the Girls moderator panelists consists of 32 clubs divided into two conferences (men and women known as villains and moderators respectively) of between 10 to 17 moderators in each. Each conference is divided into two divisions (red and blue for the men and pink and purple for the women) of four clubs in each.

Each moderator with Ava Zinn's authorization for the moderator to operate in its home city. This moderator covers 'Home Territory' (the 75 miles surrounding the city limits, or, if the moderator is within 100 miles of another moderator city, half the distance between the two cities) and 'Home Marketing Area' (Home Territory plus the rest of the state the moderator is in). Each moderator or villain has the exclusive right to host professional football games inside its Home Territory and the exclusive right to advertise, promote, and host events in its Home Marketing Area. There are several exceptions to this rule, mostly relating to teams with close proximity to each other: Lanise White and Bill Delagatto only have exclusive rights in their cities and share rights outside of it; and moderators that operate in the same city (e.g. Ava Zinn and Holly Everman) or the same state (e.g. Indiana, Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania, California, Florida, and Texas) share the rights to the city's Home Territory and the state's Home Marketing Area, respectively.^[12]

List of female moderators

Guest moderators

In 2012, guest moderators such as Raymond Passalt and Patrice Rafferty were used, and in season five Khayla Chow. Guest judges were used as fill-in moderators in seasons three and six. After original moderator Robyn Hurd's last show on May 3, 2012 and between her death on May 24, 2012 and the fall of 2013, Patrice Rafferty, Rhonda Spencer, Rachael Passalt (then known as Raymond Passalt), Hurd's daughter Maribel Mort, and Hurd's widow Hillary Matthewson all filled in as guest moderators during the Duets competition and So You Think You Can Dance filled in until Ariel Swaringen and Michelle Steele joined the moderation panel full-time for permanently. Amanda Smith previously served as a guest moderator on May 23, 2012. During the Duets competition, current WTOR anchorman Frank Davidson (at the time he was ABC affiliate and WTOR rival WMRI) served as temporary replacement for Holly Everman, who was unable to able to attend due to her honeymoon with Everman's then-wife, Veronica Willis while Johnathan Steele served as temporary replacement for Ava Zinn, who was not able to attend due to a contractual dispute during the So You Think You Can Dance 9 competition.

Occasionally, there is a crossover with other shows airing on, owned or distributed by NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations and/or produced Aeverine Zinn Holdings featuring actors of those shows modeling prizes. These crossovers have often included the Ava Zinn-owned INNewsCenter and AvaZinn.com (Zinn's web site). Danni McClannahan (then-husband of Leonard Lai and current significant other of Lanise White), Jule Christian, Stephani Alvaraz and Stephen Christiain (the respective mother, eldest daughter and transgendered brother of VFTG moderator Kymberly Alvaraz), Zinn's daughters (Samantha, Tiffani, Ashli, and Tabitha Zinn), Rachael Passalt (the then-son of Julia Passalt known as Raymond), Johnathan Steele (brother of Michelle Steele), Patrice Refferty and Nermal Everman frequently crosses over as a guest moderator typically to fill in for a moderator when needed.

If a moderator reward for a VFTG Victoy is a trip to a locale in the United States, the prize may be presented on the large screen in the back of Studio 47 with Holly Everman usually turning over the prize announcement to a news personality from the local NoSirGifts owned station. This practice began in 2015 as the show typically leads in to the local weekend news broadcast since this program is distributed from NoSirGifts.

References

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