History Main / TheRunnerUpTakesItAll

** In 1984, the award went to Music/StevieWonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from ''Film/TheWomanInRed''. While it's Wonder's most commercially successful single, it doesn't hold a candle to Music/KennyLoggins' "Footloose" and Deniece Williams' "Let's Hear It for the Boy" from ''Film/{{Footloose}}'' or the title song of ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'' in terms of overall fame.

** Music/LionelRichie's "Say You, Say Me" from ''Film/WhiteNights'' won the award in 1985, beating out Music/HueyLewisAndTheNews' "The Power of Love" from ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', which is one of the most iconic 80s songs to this day and is certainly better remembered than "Say You, Say Me".

** Elizabeth Filarski (now Hasselbeck) came in fourth place on ''Outback'', and went on to become a successful television presenter. She left a 10-year gig as co-host of the popular women's talk show ''The View'' to join Creator/FoxNewsChannel.[[note]]Her marrying [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball NFL]] player and current Creator/{{ESPN}} personality Tim Hasselbeck is actually an {{aver|ted}}sion. They met at Boston College ''before'' she went on ''Survivor''.[[/note]]

* At the 1988 Sundance Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic went to ''Heat and Sunlight'', a DeliberatelyMonochrome film about a photojournalist who had worked in Biafra trying to patch up his relationship with his lover. It's not exactly memorable and has faded into obscurity. Among the films that it won against were ''Film/{{Hairspray}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster'', both of which earned cult followings and are much better known today. ''Toaster'' also received the Special Jury Recognition prize that year. According to ''Toaster'''s director Jerry Rees, the judges told him that they gave the award to ''Heat and Sunlight'' in part because, while they considered ''Toaster'' the best film, they were worried people would not take the festival seriously anymore if they gave out the award to an animated film.

For the talent-based shows, the reason can be described easily. When you win, you're ''hot,'' and the producers of the show want to capitalize on that. This leads to getting pushed too fast and too hard. With singers, it might involve churning out a sub-par album to capitalize on their star power. HypeBacklash sets in, and people tend to get a little sick of them. But for the contestants who finish lower in the ranks, they still have all the recognition--all of the same people watched the show, after all--but they're allowed to work at their own pace with far more creative control, and develop a high-quality body of work that people are more likely to enjoy.

Also note that, almost by definition, many more people ''don't'' win than do (for every winner, there are multiple runners-up from the top Ten or Twelve contestants.) So even if any given winner is more likely to hit it big than any given runner-up, you still might see more runners-up who become stars than winners. Another reason is that the runner-ups simply decided that they weren't up to par in that field (they did lose, after all), but also discovered they had talent in a different field during their time on the show (acting is the most common such talents) and successfully pursued a career in that without attaining the trappings of the original competition's winner.

Also note that not all contests which are interesting for the public to watch are necessarily very good at discovering talent. They usually take place in highly isolated and contrived environments, which do not necessarily reflect the working environment of the industry the show is based on. They are also intended primarily as entertainment, meaning that the judges very likely take into account how a contestant appeals to the show's target audience. Often, the audience wants to see a quirky or avant-garde contestant win because they are passionate about the artistic pursuit in question. That tends to mean that they are jaded, and interested in innovation above all else. However, that person is unlikely to have much success in the industry because most industries are conservative by nature. They want to sell products, not win prizes. The runner-up who lost points for being "too conventional", is likely to do better when they get into the real world because they have a product the industry can actually sell to people who don't spend every waking moment thinking about that artistic pursuit.

* At the 1965 UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s, the winner for Best Live-Action Short Subject was Claude Berri's ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ_ugJ_E11A Le Poulet]]'', a 15-minute DeliberatelyMonochrome short about a family who buys a chicken. While it's a cute movie and there is a decent punchline in there, it's not exactly memorable, and ''Le Poulet'' faded into obscurity. One of the losers? Oh, only a cute little Creator/JimHenson movie called '''''Film/TimePiece'''''...
* This is an in-universe plot point of ''Film/RockyII''; Apollo Creed won the fight between him and Rocky in the first movie, but hates the fact that everyone can't stop talking about how impressive it was that Rocky nevertheless went the distance against him. He decides that the only way to restore his reputation is to provoke Rocky into a rematch so he can decisively beat him and prove it was a fluke.

* Gareth Gates from ''Pop Idol'', at least to begin with. Not so much several years down the line when Will Young was still fairly successfully releasing material and Gareth was finishing fourth in ''Dancing On Ice''.

** In a way it happened with straight girls as well; a few times they bonded with each other and decided the guy wasn't worth it

* It's hard to remember that Music/ChristinaGrimmie didn't win Season 6 of ''Series/TheVoice'' considering that she was still popular on Website/YouTube while the two singers that placed above her disappeared as fast as Adam's beard did. DeadArtistsAreBetter gives her even more of an edge now (or would have, had it not happened the same weekend as one of the worst terrorist attacks in American history). Of course the show has yet to see a truly successful winner; Cassadee Pope from Season 3 may be the leading success story, but she was already well known before she was ever on the show because of her stint as frontwoman for the pop punk band Hey Monday. Music/MelanieMartinez from that same season has also achieved considerable success after her stint on the show.

** Aubry and Tai were the runner-ups of ''Kaoh Rong'', but they are more well-known than the actual winner of the season, Michele (who was criticized for [[WhatMeasureIsANonBadass not being a very strategic winner]]). In fact, they both return for ''Game Changers'' where they went on to the last two jury members of that season.

* The beatbox crew Music/{{Berywam}} lost their first crew battle against Team Punk in GBB2015, but they would go on to be an internet sensation and had appeared in many more prestigious competition (including ''Series/AmericasGotTalent''), with multiple album releases. Meanwhile, Team Punk has pretty much disappeared as a group, although some of their past members, especially Alexinho and Saro, have found success as solo beatbox and loop artists respectively.

** 2013 had a bit of a zig-zagging in Italian singer Marco Mengoni. He placed 7th in the contest proper, yet won that year's Sanremo festival (and got to Malmo from there), broke sales records back in Italy, and had won the Italian ''X Factor'' before then. Mengoni also won an MTV EMA at the end of 2013.

** The 2001 award went to "Heaven is a Halfpipe" by OPM, which is all but forgotten today compared to its competitors, "My Way" by Music/LimpBizkit, "Crawling" by Music/LinkinPark, and "Hash Pipe" by Music/{{Weezer}}

** "Dance With My Father" by Music/LutherVandross won in 2004 after it's massive success as a radio request spurred by its usage in an episode of ''Series/BostonPublic'', a somewhat rare way to gain a Top 40 hit -- or even a Grammy winning song -- by the early-to-mid-2000s. It's still a respected song in R&B circles, but it hasn't quite made the cultural impact of Music/ChristinaAguilera's "Beautiful", Music/AvrilLavigne's "I'm With You", or especially Music/{{Eminem}}'s "Lose Yourself".

** "Dance With My Father" by Music/LutherVandross won in 2004 after it's massive success as a radio request, a somewhat rare way to gain a Top 40 hit by the early-to-mid-2000s. It's still a respected song in R&B circles, but it hasn't made the cultural impact of Music/ChristinaAguilera's "Beautiful", Music/AvrilLavigne's "I'm With You", or especially Music/{{Eminem}}'s "Lose Yourself".

** At the time, Music/LaurynHill's win in 1999 seemed well deserved off the back of her much-acclaimed debut album. But then she vanished from the music industry about a year later, while fellow nominees the Music/BackstreetBoys, Music/DixieChicks and Music/AndreaBocelli all went on to have long, successful careers.

** Again, Music/LaurynHill's win in 1999 for ''Music/TheMiseducationOfLaurynHill'' seemed well deserved thanks to its critical & commercial success, but then she vanished from the music industry about a year later. While her album is still highly respected by music critics, it isn't nearly as popular with the general public compared to Music/ShaniaTwain's ''Come On Over'', Music/{{Madonna}}'s ''Music/RayOfLight'' and Music/{{Garbage}}'s ''Version 2.0''.

** Music/{{Beck}} took home the award with ''Morning Phase'' in 2015. Again, it was largely seen as a ConsolationAward, given that Beck had been nominated for the Album of the Year two times prior and lost both times. Today, ''Morning Phase'' is seen as just another Beck album, while the heavily favored nominee, Music/{{Beyonce}}'s [[Music/Beyonce2013 self titled album]], is the more iconic album, being ranked 81st in ''Magazine/RollingStone'''s 2020 update of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. This wasn't lost on Music/KanyeWest, who nearly interrupted Beck's acceptance speech in protest of the decision before deciding to sit back down. Not helping matters was that Beck had also beat out popular albums from Music/SamSmith and Music/EdSheeran.

* A 1997 Grammy showcase award for Best Unsigned Band was won by [=SoCal=] SkaPunk band Save Ferris. Save Ferris saw some attention at first, with their song "The World Is New" being used in multiple TV shows and film trailers (most notably, a trailer for ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad''), but then they vanished into obscurity as soon as their 15 minutes of fame were up. As for the runner-ups, Music/{{Saliva}}? They became a popular act of the NuMetal genre, scoring hits such as the #15 Mainstream Rock hit "Click Click Boom" and the #3 Mainstream Rock hit "Your Disease".

** Also from season 6: the female winner, Sara Lee, was released from developmental after being impregnated by Wesley Blake, while the runner-up, Amanda Saccomanno (a.k.a. Wrestling/MandyRose), also got a developmental deal, appeared on a season of ''Series/TotalDivas'' and had started wrestling on NXT TV before being drafted onto Raw by Wrestling/{{Paige}} along with Wrestling/SonyaDeville (who, ironically enough, was also on Tough Enough under her birth name of Daria Berenato and placed eleventh).

** Subverted in 2011 - that year's winning song, "Running Scared" for Azerbaijan, wasn't too successful, yet triumphed among an unusually strong competition. If the song's composer Iain James had not worked on Emeli Sande and Little Mix's biggest songs soon afterwards, Ell and Nikki would have been completely forgotten outside the Middle East- although this is partially because Azerbaijan was found trying to use bribery for votes for the next two years, and hence haven’t fought for the title since, and hence sent chirpier, more upbeat entries, though less competitive, than in their dominant era, with just 1 in the top 10 out of 7, and even a failure to qualify.

** Music/FionaApple won the award in 1997 with her music video for "Sleep to Dream". One of the videos she beat? Music/{{Jamiroquai}}'s "Virtual Insanity".

** Fantasia Barrino of Season 3 ended up a TwoHitWonder – and her career is a blip on the radar compared to that of [[{{Theatre/Dreamgirls}} Oscar-winning]], Super-Bowl-anthem-singing, talk-show-hosting Music/JenniferHudson, who finished ''seventh''.

** Fantasia Barrino of Season 3 ended up a TwoHitWonder – and her career is a blip on the radar compared to that of [[{{Theatre/Dreamgirls}} Oscar-winning]], Super-Bowl-anthem-singing Jennifer Hudson, who finished ''seventh''.

** And fulfilling the trope to the letter, runner-up Creator/JessieBuckley went to RADA, made quite the splash at the Creator/RoyalShakespeareCompany and broke into television with glowing reviews for her role as Princess Marya Bolkonskaya in the Creator/{{BBC}}'s 2016 adaptation of literary classic ''Literature/WarAndPeace''. Her star would further rise in TheNewTwenties with roles in ''Film/ImThinkingOfEndingThings'', ''Film/TheCourier'', ''Film/{{Men}}'', and ''Film/TheLostDaughter'', the latter of which earned her an Oscar nomination.

* Cara Mund of North Dakota was named Miss America 2018. Not too bad, right? But it was fourth placer Margana Wood of Texas who stole the show. Miss America adopted a political theme in its Q&A segment that year. Wood was asked to comment on Donald Trump's response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier that year in which he blamed "both sides" for the violence. Wood sharply criticized his response, referring to the neo-Nazi car attack as a terrorist attack, stating the white supremacists were solely to blame, and saying Trump should have condemned them the day of the rally. Mund's question was about the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, which she disagreed with, but Wood's got more attention for several reasons:

** Music/MileyCyrus, Music/KatyPerry, Music/TaylorSwift, and Jordin Sparks were beat in 2008 by the German emo-pop-rock group Music/TokioHotel. The band won due to their huge at-the-time fanbase, [[NoHitWonder despite not having a hit single in America]]. 2008 was one of the first years where voting was open to the public, and their fans stuffed the ballot full of votes in their favor. However, Tokio faded into obscurity pretty much right away, while the former three became pop megastars, and while Sparks has since fallen off the radar come 2010, she at least got to enjoy a successful rest of 2008 and all of 2009.

** The ''Sound of 2012'' poll was won by Michael Kiwanuka, who was ultimately supplanted in popularity by second-placed Music/FrankOcean, fourth-placed Music/{{Skrillex}}, and unranked nominee Music/ASAPRocky.