Be the best version of yourself rather than a bad copy of someone

Host: The backstage dressing room glowed with the warm shimmer of vanity lights — a dozen bulbs haloing the cracked mirror where color and courage had met for years. The air was thick with powder, perfume, and nerves, that intoxicating blend of fear and freedom that only arrives before the curtain rises.

On the counter: sequins, eyeliner, false lashes, and a single half-drunk glass of champagne. The faint hum of a distant audience vibrated through the floor.
Jack sat on a folding chair, suit jacket unbuttoned, his reflection fractured by the mirror’s cracks.
Jeeny, in a deep blue dress, adjusted a microphone on her collar and smiled — softly, knowingly, as if she’d seen too many versions of people trying to become someone else.

Jeeny: “Conchita Wurst once said, ‘Be the best version of yourself rather than a bad copy of someone else!’”

Jack: (chuckling) “That’s easy for her to say. She reinvented herself into a symbol. Most of us just try not to drown in comparison.”

Jeeny: “That’s the point though, isn’t it? Reinvention isn’t imitation. It’s rebellion — against the expectation to fit someone else’s mold.”

Jack: “Yeah, but what if you don’t know what your mold even looks like? We spend half our lives looking at others to guess what we should be.”

Jeeny: “Because we were raised to measure, not to mirror.”

Jack: “You mean to compete.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We confuse identity with performance. We wear masks and call them faces.”

Host: The lights buzzed faintly above them, one flickering like a nervous pulse. From beyond the wall came the muffled sound of applause — the previous act finishing, the world waiting for the next illusion.

Jack: “You ever notice how the world rewards copies more than originals? The algorithms, the fashion trends, the politics — everything thrives on repetition. It’s safer to echo than to create.”

Jeeny: “That’s why Conchita matters. She turned contradiction into authenticity. A bearded drag queen singing about love and dignity — that’s not imitation, that’s audacity.”

Jack: “And that audacity terrified people. Because nothing scares society more than someone comfortable in their own skin — especially when that skin doesn’t match its categories.”

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly why her message cuts through. ‘Be the best version of yourself’ isn’t just self-help fluff — it’s survival. For people who’ve been told they’re too much or not enough, it’s a manifesto.”

Host: Jeeny turned toward the mirror, tracing a small crack that split her reflection into two. The light caught her face in fragments — one half shadow, one half brilliance.

Jeeny: “You know, I think we all start as copies. Childhood is mimicry — language, emotion, identity. But growing up is unlearning imitation.”

Jack: “And adulthood is realizing how hard it is to stop copying.”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “Because copying gets applause.”

Jack: “And originality gets questioned.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: A stagehand knocked on the door. “Two minutes!” he called, and the echo lingered like a countdown to confession.

Jack: “You know, sometimes I think the world doesn’t want authenticity — it wants aesthetics. People don’t care who you are as long as you look like what they love.”

Jeeny: “Then you have to choose: validation or truth. You can’t have both.”

Jack: “And choosing truth usually costs the crowd.”

Jeeny: “But gains yourself. And that’s the trade Conchita made — she didn’t ask the world to understand her; she asked it to witness her.”

Jack: “That’s brave. Most of us only show what the world already agrees with.”

Jeeny: “Because approval feels like oxygen. But it’s just perfume — it smells good and suffocates you slowly.”

Host: Jack laughed quietly, a dry, weary laugh — the kind that comes from recognizing your own compromises. He looked down at his hands, calloused from years of chasing applause that never filled him.

Jack: “You think there’s ever a moment when you become the best version of yourself? Or is it always unfinished — like a song you keep rewriting?”

Jeeny: “Always unfinished. But that’s the beauty of it. The masterpiece isn’t the final portrait — it’s the act of painting honestly.”

Jack: “Even when you mess up the strokes?”

Jeeny: “Especially then. The flaws make it yours.”

Host: The buzz of the audience grew louder now — a wave of expectation pressing against the thin wall of the room. Jeeny looked at Jack through the mirror, her voice gentler now.

Jeeny: “You know, Conchita didn’t win Eurovision because she looked different. She won because she sang like her soul was on fire. People felt truth — not costume.”

Jack: “Yeah. You can wear anything if your voice is real.”

Jeeny: “And you can wear nothing and still be false.”

Jack: “That’s the paradox of performance — you need illusion to reveal honesty.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But illusion without intention is just camouflage. What she did was transformation.”

Host: Jeeny stood, fixing her microphone one last time. She caught her reflection again, this time whole — not because the mirror had healed, but because she no longer needed it to be perfect.

Jack: “You’re going out there?”

Jeeny: “Someone has to say something real.”

Jack: “And if they don’t clap?”

Jeeny: “Then at least they heard silence that wasn’t fake.”

Host: Jack smiled faintly. He picked up his jacket, brushed off invisible dust, and followed her toward the door.

Jack: “You know, the funny thing about ‘being yourself’ is that the world always wants to turn it into a brand.”

Jeeny: “Then you just have to keep being the version they can’t package.”

Jack: “And that’s freedom?”

Jeeny: “No. That’s defiance. Freedom comes later.”

Host: The stagehand opened the door. The light from the stage flooded in — bright, raw, merciless. For a moment, both of them stood still, suspended between fear and authenticity, between performance and truth.

Jeeny: (softly) “You ready?”

Jack: “Ready to stop pretending.”

Jeeny: “Good.”

Host: They stepped out — into the light, into the noise, into themselves.

And as the curtains parted, Conchita Wurst’s words lingered like a benediction for every soul that ever dared to live unreplicated:

That authenticity is not comfort, but courage,
that imitation may earn applause but never peace,
and that every person, in their contradictions and colors,
is a masterpiece still becoming.

Host: The crowd cheered.

Not because they were perfect.
But because, for the first time,
they were real.