Not going to lie. I always found the booth babes kind of sleazy, and the concept a little pathetic. Like, no one is going to care about your product, but put a busty chick infront of it, and now they'll pay attention? Lame.
Not in the least actually... at least that's not how I see it. ESPECIALLY today..
1. I can research a product and advertisements on it without having to go to a show or watch anything about a show/even they attend no problem at all.
2. Booth babes have by and large been replaced with 'free' 'cosplay contests' for these events. I mean who are we fooling here right? It's the same **** thing except now you have people making money or trying to by being 'influencers' that are making 'cosplay' outfits that are essentially the same **** thing as booth babes. Except now it's people making their own and taking some pride in craftsmanship and possibly knowing the IP even BETTER that they are essentially advertising for.
3. If you want to draw visitors at these less corporate events you have 'booth babes' or 'car girls' or whatever the eff you want to call it. Heck it could be 'hardware hunks' I mean really whatever.
Now it is criminal or distasteful to sell sexy to people. I mean... unless you're selling YOURSELF as being sexy or behind the scenes helping 'influencers' sell themselves. In all honesty I think the whole 'influencers' thing is FAR more shady in reality than booth babes ever were.
I have a friend I met online, we played some MMO's together. We had a person join our guild that was one of these 'influencers' . She marketed herself well, is/was very attractive, and got many guys in that guild to throw money at her. One of them was a lawyer who literally paid to get her to come to the US from India, attend college, paid for her place and everything with the idea that they had found true love. Not even 2 months after arriving she ghosted, found a local guy to take over the funding and he was gone... heartbroken. He'd been raked over the coals through emotional manipulation. She put in real time and attention to get what she wanted and moved on.
I know that isn't a one off... and there are articles a plenty online you can find about influencers doing the same or having similar or worse things even happen to them. (Think Saudi Arabia, private yachts and 'influencers' getting 10's of thousands of dollars for ahem... all access cruises where the access is to them.). It's shady as Eff, and with less protection for both the 'fan' and the 'influencer'. (replace fan with john, and influencer with Prostitute if you haven't caught on yet.)
At least with booth babes yea some guys are sleazeballs and think they can 'get' them or whatever. But they can be walked off. Otherwise they are paid to be nice it's an understood thing. And their are protections. With influencers it's the wild freaking west and tantamount to well.. prostitution. I'm sure there are dark sides to some booth babes... Maybe I was a babe in the woods back in the day when that was a real thing. I remember going to car shows and trying to talk to the 'car girls' that were there... lol.. sigh. good times good times...but it was never 'HARMFUL'.
I'm NOT trying to validate selling Sex and degrading people. But I am saying that pretending removing booth babes removes the sleaze is bullshit. It's there... and it's worse than ever. It's just removed from 'corporations' or 'Marketing'... by a few steps.
