“Look where the giraffe is…”: Miss France 2026, Hinaupoko Devèze, responds to the criticism she received about her appearance

Miss France 2026, Hinaupoko Devèze, found that one “small detail” could be weaponised into something vicious: the nickname “the giraffe”. It began with a viral clip - a low-angle shot that exaggerated her notably long neck - and a snide line underneath it: “Look where the giraffe is…”. Within hours, the comment had mutated into a meme, a catchphrase, and a ready-made excuse for organised mockery.

When Hinaupoko appeared on a TV set that evening, the glare of studio lights blended with the cold blue glow of audience phones. Some people recorded her more than they listened. She sat upright, chin lifted, already aware of what would follow: TikTok edits, lazy jokes, animal comparisons. She took a slow breath, looked straight into the camera, and delivered a short sentence - almost a dare - that shifted the atmosphere in the room.

“Look where the giraffe is…”: when a nickname turns into a symbol

In the dressing rooms before going on air, a make-up artist murmured, “Have you seen what they’re saying on X?” Hinaupoko nodded. She had seen everything: screenshots, slowed-down videos, rapid-fire comments about her “too-long” neck, her “too-stretched” face, her body being “not Miss France enough”. She had even watched an edit placing her between two real giraffes with the caption: “Spot the odd one out.”

Online, “Look where the giraffe is…” looped endlessly. At first it was just a remark under footage of her walking in an evening gown. A few hours later it was everywhere - Stories, threads, Reels. Teenagers repeated it while laughing; adults shared it with that uncomfortable half-smile that pretends it’s harmless. Nobody seems quite sure where the joke ends and the cruelty begins. She is.

When the presenter put the infamous comment on screen live, the studio fell quiet. Hinaupoko gave a brief smile - the kind that looks more like armour than happiness - and replied evenly: “Look where the giraffe is? The giraffe is here, on national TV, representing a lot of girls who were told they were ‘too much’ of something.” In that instant, the nickname stopped tasting quite the same.

This was never a trivial side story. An IFOP study on cyberbullying in France reports that almost one young person in five says they have already been publicly mocked online for their appearance. For a Miss France, the scrutiny is magnified. Every camera angle becomes an invitation to dissect. Every detail gets enlarged by the magnifying glass of social media. People discuss a woman’s body as casually as they discuss the weather.

Since her crowning, Hinaupoko Devèze has been receiving thousands of messages daily. Among the congratulations are the lines that sting: “She looks like a telegraph pole”, “Did she use a stretch filter or what?”, “Is this Miss France or Miss Zoo?”. “Look where the giraffe is…” became a kind of shorthand - a way to signal “I find her weird” without having to say it outright.

One evening in her hotel room, she scrolled through comments in silence. She landed on a video of a secondary-school pupil mimicking her walk, exaggerating her neck, prompting classmates to howl with laughter. The caption read: “Future Miss France 2035”. Hinaupoko closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened her notes app and started writing - not to complain, but to frame the story before others did it for her.

The pattern is familiar: Miss France winners are examined, judged, and turned into a national conversation. This time, the target didn’t match the usual template. Hinaupoko is very tall and very slim, with a neck that draws attention before anything else. In another setting - on a high-fashion catwalk - people might call it an “elegant line”. Online, some called it a “deformity”.

There is something deeper under the “giraffe” label. It is often a coded way of saying: “You’re outside the norm. You stand out. We’ll push you back into place with a joke.” That reflex lands especially hard on women who don’t fit neatly into a comforting mould: too tall, too short, too muscular, too marked, too much of anything. Miss France 2026 becomes, unwillingly, a giant screen onto which strangers project their own insecurities.

A quieter piece of the story is the responsibility of the platforms and the broadcasters, too. When a public figure is being clipped, remixed and mocked in real time, the harm isn’t “virtual” - it follows them into studios, hotels and interviews. Better moderation tools, clearer reporting pathways, and stronger duty-of-care practices around live TV appearances would not erase cruelty, but they would reduce how easily it spreads.

Hinaupoko, for her part, refused to be reduced to an animal mascot. She later explained: “I knew if I stayed silent, the joke would swallow me.” By taking “Look where the giraffe is…” and turning it into a line of pride, she made a simple but forceful move: she took the microphone back, pushing the shame towards the people laughing a little too loudly.

Miss France 2026 Hinaupoko Devèze: how she turned the “giraffe” joke into leverage

Her first tactic was to answer without pleading her case. No apologies. No “yes, but I suffered”. No drawn-out, tragic monologue. On Instagram, she posted a photo in a fitted dress, profile unapologetic, neck forward. The caption: “Look where the giraffe is today.” No long text. No gloomy hashtags. Just the sentence - plus a subtle wink in a Story.

That decision mattered. Instead of hiding, she leaned into the very feature people mocked. She stood even taller. She picked hairstyles that exposed her nape. On TikTok, she filmed herself walking through a Paris street in slight slow motion, with text overlaid: “For years, they told me to ‘shrink’. I guess I grew instead.” The response was immediate: thousands of comments from very tall, very slim girls who saw themselves in her.

Let’s be frank: almost nobody reacts like that instinctively. Usually, when someone hits you where it hurts - your looks - you fold in on yourself. You change jackets, you slump, you stop posting photos. Hinaupoko admitted that on the first night she cried. But she set herself a blunt rule: “If it’s going viral anyway, it will go viral on my terms.” It is a harsh kind of self-protection - and painfully contemporary.

Her other tool was plain, steady speech. In a radio interview, the presenter read out the cruellest comments, including “Look where the giraffe is…”. The pause afterwards ran a second too long; you could feel the production team holding their breath. Then Hinaupoko said: “You know what is funny? When I was a child, kids called me ‘giraffe’ in the playground. Now the same word is used while I’m wearing a crown. Maybe the word didn’t change. I did.”

That reply spread everywhere: clipped, stitched, remixed on TikTok with dramatic music. She didn’t deliver a grand lecture on tolerance. She told a tiny playground scene - specific enough to trigger memories for countless people. Suddenly, the nickname looked less like harmless banter and more like an old, rusty mechanism we all recognise.

Messages started arriving from unexpected places: mothers of tall teenage daughters, young women working as models, men who spent their teens bent over to “fit in”. What moved people wasn’t her Miss France status. It was the sense that she spoke from a vulnerable place, not just from a pedestal.

In another television interview, she offered a line that caught people off guard: “I don’t want people to stop saying ‘giraffe’. I want them to think about why they need to say it so loudly.” She wasn’t asking for silence or blanket censorship. She was asking for self-examination. That slight, almost philosophical shift changed the dynamic: it stopped being only about defending herself and started pointing to something wider.

“If my neck is the problem, then the problem is very small. If the way we talk about women’s bodies is the problem, then we have work to do.” - Hinaupoko Devèze

Over the following days, she shared a few straightforward markers for anyone watching:

• Don’t respond to insults with insults, even when you’re tempted.
• Keep screenshots of the worst attacks, without reposting them.
• Talk through how you feel with at least one person “offline”: a friend, a parent, a professional.
• Choose one symbolic action to take the power back (a photo, a sentence, a video).
• Remember that mockery often reveals more about other people’s fear than about the body being targeted.

One more point is worth adding for anyone caught in the same storm: decide in advance what you will do with your notifications. Muting keywords, limiting replies, and setting a strict time window for reading comments can be the difference between coping and spiralling. Taking control of the narrative is powerful - but so is taking control of your attention.

So what do we do now with this “giraffe” that unsettles people?

“Look where the giraffe is…” has already changed meaning several times. It started as a snide remark about a body that didn’t match expectations. Then it became a defensive hashtag used by supporters. Now it also appears in videos from creators who show, proudly, the very features they were mocked for over the years: prominent ears, a broken nose, visible scars.

That flip says something about our moment. We live in a world where any physical trait can be zoomed in on and broadcast globally within minutes. But we also live in a world where the target can answer back, post, and turn the camera around. Sometimes the boundary between public humiliation and taking back control is a single Story with a few well-chosen words.

Perhaps that’s the real shift: the people who were pointed at in the playground can now hold the microphone. Hinaupoko Devèze won’t make the mockery vanish by magic. She won’t suddenly make the internet gentle. What she does open up is space - a space where a Miss France can say plainly that she cried, hesitated, and then decided she would no longer make herself smaller to soothe everyone else.

The next time you see “Look where the giraffe is…” in a comment thread, the question may no longer be “Is it funny?” but “What does it say about us?” Are we laughing because we’re uneasy with anything that breaks the frame? Are we repeating a line we’ve heard a thousand times without thinking? Or can we choose a different reflex - to see the whole person, not only the feature that stands out?

Key point	Detail	Why it matters to you
Reclaiming the nickname	Turning “Look where the giraffe is…” into a statement of pride	Shows how a slur can be flipped into personal power
A measured response	Answering without apologising or lashing out, using a clear sentence	Offers a practical model for handling criticism
Sharing lived experience	Hinaupoko links playground cruelty to social-media cruelty	Helps people connect their own story to hers

FAQ

• Why do people call Hinaupoko Devèze “the giraffe”?
  The nickname took off online because of her very tall, slim frame and her long neck. A single remark - “Look where the giraffe is…” - spread quickly and became a meme.

• How did Miss France 2026 respond to the criticism?
  She chose to address it publicly rather than apologise for her body. She reused “Look where the giraffe is…” as a proud line, notably on Instagram and during interviews.

• Did she speak about the effect on her mental health?
  Yes. She said the first wave of mockery hurt and made her cry, while also explaining that speaking up and reclaiming the narrative helped her feel less powerless.

• What can anyone take from the way she handled it?
  You can set the tone for your own story, keep records of serious abuse, and choose one symbolic act to reclaim what others try to use against you - rather than disappearing.

• Does turning a painful nickname into a badge of pride always work?
  No - not for everyone, and not in every situation. Sometimes staying quiet, stepping back, or getting professional support is the better route. Hinaupoko’s approach is one option, not a rule.