Miss Teen USA South Carolina — Close-up of Caitlin Upton speaking into a microphone at Miss Teen USA 2007

Miss Teen USA South Carolina

2007viral videoclassic

Published September 6, 2026

Miss Teen USA South Carolina refers to Lauren Caitlin Upton's rambling August 2007 pageant answer about American geography, uploaded to YouTube by user IRamzayI minutes after the closing ceremony1. The 48-second clip crossed 10 million views within its first weeks and finished as YouTube's most watched clip for September 20074.

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Overview

The video shows Upton stringing together fragments like 'I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps'1. Viewers zeroed in on filler tics such as 'such as' and 'like,' and the answer set off a wave of parodies and reaction uploads2. The tone of the meme swings between sympathy and secondhand cringe, with fans arguing whether Upton froze under pressure or genuinely lost her train of thought.

Editors tended to loop the 'such as' phrasing or subtitle the answer word for word so viewers could follow her sentence structure3. The clip is often grouped with other early YouTube gaffes as one of the first cases of a live network TV moment being mirrored and remixed by anonymous uploaders within hours of airing4.

Origin & Background

Platform
NBC broadcast / YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
Lauren Caitlin Upton
Date
2007

The Miss Teen USA 2007 pageant was held August 24, 2007 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and broadcast live on NBC to roughly 4.3 million viewers4. During the Q&A round, Friday Night Lights actress Aimee Teegarden asked Upton why about one-fifth of young Americans could not locate the United States on a world map1. Upton, representing South Carolina, delivered a 45-second reply that jumped between 'the Iraq,' 'South Africa' and 'our education like such as' before trailing off1.

How It Spread

Within hours of the closing ceremony, YouTube user IRamzayI uploaded the taped segment to the platform1. It cleared 10 million views in its first weeks and by August 2011 had accumulated close to 500 video responses on YouTube2. Facebook shares drove much of the early traffic, and the upload stayed the site's most watched clip for the month of September 2007.

Upton did the media rounds almost immediately. On August 28, 2007 she went on NBC's Today Show, where host Ann Curry gave her a second try at the same question and she answered cleanly3. She then performed a self-parody at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards and appeared as herself in Weezer's May 2008 music video 'Pork and Beans,' blending an atlas in a Blendtec as part of the clip's YouTube in-jokes5.

Her run of self-referential cameos ran into 2009 with a 'Get Crackin' spot for Wonderful Pistachios, where she wore a sash reading 'Miss Wonderful' and delivered a joke about 'Americans who don't have maps'6. That same year she filmed a Web Redemption segment on Comedy Central's Tosh.0, which locked in the clip's status as a reference point for on-air fumbles3.

How to Use This Meme

People typically quote lines from Upton's answer, especially the 'such as' filler and the 'Americans who don't have maps' phrasing, whenever a public figure fumbles a live TV question. Common convention is to share the raw clip or a subtitled edit rather than remixing the visuals themselves.

Frequently Asked Questions