Here’s The Story Behind A Viral Clip That Shows Cheerleading’s ‘Bats**t Crazy’ Beauty Standards

“I didn't know failure, and I didn't know how to process what had happened,” Victoria Brown, who auditioned for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in 2007, told HuffPost.

With the recent release of Season 2 of Netflix’s docuseries “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,” a resurfaced clip of a 2007 cheer audition has people stunned — and reflecting on just how “batshit crazy” the beauty standards of the early 2000s were.

The clip, which has garnered more than 3.2 million views across Instagram meme accounts, comes from the second season of the squad’s original reality show, CMT’s “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team.” In it, 18-year-old dancer Victoria Brown twirls before Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Director Kelli Finglass, who reflects on her chances of earning a spot on the team. Finglass continues to lead the organization today.

“Her biggest battle is going to be to tone up and lose weight, and she’s not losing any weight, and that’s starting to show,” Finglass says.

“That girl’s big, isn’t she?” one of the judges remarks as the reality show turns back to the audition. The clip then captures a meeting between Finglass and Brown, with the director saying she loves Brown’s dancing, but her “tummy, midsection” is what’s going to stop her from making the famous squad. Brown politely tells Finglass that she’s working on it, then leaves her office and cries in the locker room.

Nearly 20 years later, Brown wasn’t aware that her audition had found a new life on Instagram accounts until HuffPost reached out to her. She said she stayed up all night reading the encouraging comments ranging from, “She looks the exact same size as everyone else in the room” to “This is heartbreaking. I just want to hug her.”