Elsie Polosovai didn't enter the world of beauty pageants for the glamour or personal glory.
Instead, the reigning Miss Solomon Islands title holder saw the contests as a platform for bigger things — including advocating for women's health.
"It's such a big, important issue in the Solomon Islands," she says.
"Especially with the rise of cervical cancer, breast cancer, and the gap in the health system with palliative care, and also prevention."
Beauty pageants have waned in popularity in the United States and elsewhere, but they remain serious business in the Pacific Islands.
Most Pacific nations host a beauty contest every year, decades after the rise of television made pageants a worldwide cultural phenomenon.
Young women are judged at the contests on their poise, presentation skills and confidence, while the pieces they wear on stage are judged not only on beauty but the cultural methods and craft skills used to make them.
Pacific nations reinvented pageants as places to celebrate their culture and so they remained hugely popular despite losing cultural influence overseas.
While the competitions once catered mainly for the male gaze, over time, women have reclaimed them as platforms for empowerment and advocacy — especially in the Pacific.
The region's pageants continue to be a springboard for young women starting their career and a number of beauty queens have become politicians, activists and even UNICEF ambassadors.
But the contests have also been "a lightning rod" for conversations about aesthetics, beauty, skin colour and language, according to social media researcher Leah-Moana Damm.
The emergence of social media has amplified those discussions as it exposes Pasifika pageants to a wider audience.
"They're streamed live now. That's a level [of] access that's completely changed and we've not seen that before," Ms Damm says.
With that exposure, contestants have found themselves subjected to online bullying and forms of discrimination such as colourism.
Now some Pacific women are sitting out pageants rather than experience the abuse.
A toxic colonial legacy
Colourism — discrimination against people with darker skin tones — remains a pervasive issue in Pacific communities.
Ms Polosovai says it is not spoken about enough in Pasifika circles.
"I personally believe it's the post-colonial effect of how darkness was criticised by our colonisers," she says.
"We have come to hate [dark skin] a lot, because … it's much easier to hate on it than to be associated with it."
As a high school student, Ms Polosovai was surprised to receive more racist comments from her Pacific peers than from European students.
At one point the bullying was so bad that a family friend encouraged her to use skin whitening creams.
"At the time I didn't think anything was wrong with it … she made it out [to be] so normal," Ms Polosovai says.
"I tried using it twice and … it burns the skin. I don't know what it was … but then I stopped using it completely.
"And as time went by I looked back on it and I realised how much harm [colourism] has caused and how much I wasn't aware of [it]."
The issue once again emerged in this year's Miss Pacific Islands pageant, when social media users posted about the skin colour of a contestant from Papua New Guinea.
For Miss Papua New Guinea's May Torowi Hasola, the experience of competing alongside her fellow Pasifika contestants was mostly positive.
She said they formed a real sisterhood and was only after the pageant that she learnt she had become the target of cyberbullies criticising her skin colour.
The extent of the cyberbullying prompted PNG officials to threaten a ban on Facebook and TikTok, and to launch an official investigation.
"I only found out about everything that was going on when we had a statement from the police minister and the prime minister in Papua New Guinea," Ms Hasola says.
"It was disappointing experiencing colourism and especially when I put myself out to be of service and to be someone who really champions women here in Papua New Guinea."
Pacific women 'taking a break' from pageants
Online abuse has become so toxic for some contestants that they are deciding to skip pageants.
Tongan Ministry of Tourism chief executive Viliami Takau says the social media commentary has led to a drop in contestant numbers for Tonga's national pageant, Miss Heilala.
"A lot of parents and their daughters are still interested in the [pageant], but a lot of them have mentioned that this year they'll be taking a break because of the social media comments and bullying," Mr Takau says.
Former Miss Heilala contestant Racheal Guttenbeil said the cyberbullying she experienced affected her mental health.
"I faced a lot of negative comments … the main one is that 'she's not a Tongan, she's a [Westerner] … she's a lawyer, but she cannot answer a simple question,'" Ms Guttenbeil says.
"'She doesn't deserve the crown. She's not good enough. She's this, she's that.'"
Some Pacific Island organisations are working with contestants to address the problem.
In Tonga, the Women and Children's Crisis Centre has organised mental health workshops with contestants taking part in Miss Heilala.
"Part of our mental health and wellbeing sessions is talking to girls about safe spaces," centre director Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki says.
"Online is particularly important for us because it's the spaces where it's easy to bully people.
"We have seen a rapid increase in the number of young girls coming to seek our services because [they've been] abused and bullied online."
Some pageants have also begun to limit or remove the ability to comment during live streams.
Ms Damm says the responsibility to moderate these platforms falls partly to the pageant organisations, but she admits they may not have the resources.
"Broadly speaking, that issue of really toxic comment sections ultimately should fall back to the [social media] platforms themselves," she says.
Pageants offer a pathway 'home'
Many young Pacific women remain undeterred from competing despite the threat of online abuse.
For some, the pageants offer the chance to rediscover their cultural identity.
Anna-Li Chou Lee, who is part of Sydney's Tongan diaspora, marked a major milestone when she competed for the first time in the Miss Heilala pageant this year.
It was her first time in Tonga, and Ms Chou Lee said she immediately felt a deep connection when she arrived.
"When I came from the airport looking out the window, I strangely, immediately felt at home. Like my blood and my hair stood up and said, 'you're home!'" she says.
"I came to learn, to have fun, to embrace my Tongan side.
"Whether that's a quarter or a millimetre of Tongan [ancestry], you're still Tongan."
Ms Chou Lee overcame many personal obstacles to compete in the pageant.
She did not walk away with the crown this year but she did secure the Best Personality award.
But Ms Chou Lee considers the pageant a triumph for other reasons.
The contest helped her connect with her culture and inspired her family.
"Right now, I see my oldest little brother. He's 10 years old and he's not ashamed, but he's not proud of his heritage," she says.
"I think that's because [our Pacific culture] wasn't something we could implement at home since we didn't have that [growing up].
"So to all my brothers, I would say, this is not about me — this is about us.
"This is a proud moment for all of us."
