What a stiff! Cardboard Bieber is teen's prom date

By Courtney Garcia, TODAY.com contributor

Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images

A teenage girl was so determined to go to her prom with Justin Bieber?that?she hauled along a?cardboard model of the pop star as her date.

Kristen Schubert, a senior at Grand Valley High School in Parachute, Colo., tried unsuccessfully to contact Bieber with a pitch through his record label, reports?ABC 7News. So last Saturday, the senior took a life-size replica of the pop star to the school dance.

Schubert?arrived in a bright orange dress and the?fake Bieber was decked in black jeans, a black vest and sneakers. Schubert told 7News that she and her invented partner "joined the grand march at the prom" and received "the biggest applause out of everyone."

"Everyone loved that I brought him and loved how I actually danced with him!" Schubert said. "When his new song 'Boyfriend' came on, a huge group of people came over and started dancing with us."

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But fake Bieber isn't not necessarily a shoo-in for best prom date this season.?He faces stiff competition from cardboard Tim Tebow, who attended a different function in Sioux City, Iowa. The football star?s re-creation was the work of Kingsley-Pierson High School senior Rachel Bird, who the Des Moines Register reports spent just $20 on her reproduction and said, ?more people took their picture with Tim than they did with me."

Schubert said she experienced a similar reaction. ?I don?t even know how many people took our picture and how many people wanted pictures with him. As a senior, that was my last prom and definitely worth all the weird looks!" (Check out this slideshow of the happy couple.)

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Will cardboard celebrity prom dates become the new trend in lieu of actual living, breathing classmates? There certainly seems to be a market for these upright citizens.

In 2011, Cady Eimer, a Virginia teen, launched a website pleading for Bieber to accompany her to the dance, and elsewhere, 16-year-old Leon Purvis began a year-long quest?on YouTube to convince the pop star to join him as his ?friend.? Purvis even garnered the attention of Ryan Seacrest, who discussed the campaign on his radio program.

Additionally, on April 21, USA Today compiled a list?of a half-dozen teens campaigning through social media to convince celebrity idols, including Bieber and Taylor Swift, to be their prom dates, many of which went viral.

So far, however, cardboard renderings are the only "celebs" who've shown.

If you couldn't get the real thing, which cardboard celeb would you take on a date? Tell us on Facebook.

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