From the Guardian:
It was meant to be a dating website exclusively for the use of "beautiful men and women", where members ruthlessly selected and excluded those who did not match their definitions of good looks.
But last month when BeautifulPeople.com was attacked by a computer virus, some claim standards slipped and around 30,000 new members gained admittance. Now, in a move which has made those rejected "apoplectic" with rage, they have been unceremoniously booted off at a financial cost of more than $100,000 (£62,000) to the site's operators.
The virus was quickly named Shrek – after the animated film about how looks should not matter – as it attacked the software used to screen potential members. A helpline has now been set up with counsellors on hand to help the distressed rejects from the site.
The website is more honest about the ruthlessness of standards of beauty that apply in everyday life, but to see the policy spelled out in plain language is shocking.
"We got suspicious when tens of thousands of new members were accepted over a six-week period, many of whom were no oil painting," Hodge told the Guardian.
A good many of us are no oil paintings. But then again, figures in oil paintings, including some of the most famous paintings in the world, such as the Mona Lisa, may well portray people who would not be considered sufficiently beautiful for the website. As I read the article, I started off laughing, but then I became quite sad that we place such emphasis on outward appearance in our relationships.
According to the website, Norwegian women and Swedish men have the greatest chance of being accepted. British men have the least chance, and Irish men are not far behind.
1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’
Thanks to Cathy for the link.
The brutal axing of the 30,000 hopefuls is not the site's first brush with controversy. Last year, about 5,000 members were removed from the site after they had appeared to put on weight during the Christmas period.
ReplyDeleteROFL!
I admit a uncomfortable ambivalence (re BeautifulPeople.com). On the one hand: ridiculous, effed-up.
On the other?
I care about looks. Way too much.
JCF, I guess a good many of us enjoy looking at those we consider beautiful people, but with people I know, looks don't matter. I do care about what I look like. I wish I was better-looking, but I'm not obsessed.
ReplyDeleteConfession: I put on weight over the winter, because I stopped walking on cold, windy days. Had I been in, it's likely I would have been thrown out. But it's unlikely that I would have been included in the first place. I wonder if the website has an upper age limit.
I wonder if the website has an upper age limit.
ReplyDeleteGo for it Mimi!!!!
We all like looking at beautiful people and if good-looking people want to meet other good-looking people well fair enough, there's no law against that, but my problem is that the website openly refers to those who don't meet their "standards" as "riff-raff" and takes a sneering attitude to them. That ain't right.
Thanks, Cathy, but I don't think I'll apply. Wanting to meet only beautiful people seems rather shallow and limiting to me.
ReplyDeleteYes, very much so. It's the old Groucho Marx thing, isn't it - you wouldn't really want to be a member.
ReplyDeleteIt's a Mensa sort of thing - who the Hell would want ......
ReplyDeleteRight, Your Eminence.
ReplyDeleteWhat's one of the first "wise sayings" we're taught when we're young?
ReplyDeleteBeauty's Only Skin-Deep
...and yet my *gut* tells me otherwise. That a really BEAUTIFUL SMILE (in a symetrical face, like what the research says we prefer. Oh, and usually my age or younger) says "a loving heart", that a plainer (IMO) face (w/ a smile that's...off) just doesn't have.
Am I crazy? Deluded? Too picky? Hopelessly shallow?
JCF is throwing the floor (um, thread) open to debate...
JCF, when those characteristics are applied to you to judge you by your appearance, do you find them equally acceptable? Of course, I've never seen you or even a photo, so you may fit the bill.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent test organization. First, it provides idenitifcation for people who I would not want to associate with. Second, if I was objectively beautiful (which I an not)I would be proud to reject an opportunity to join.
ReplyDeleteKevin K.
Kevin K, yes indeed. If I set up a website called "PeopleIdonotwanttoknow.com", all the members of BeautifulPeople.com would be automatically screened out.
ReplyDeleteMimi,
ReplyDeleteThis is what I was talking about re: the parade thingy.
wv: lateonc - Beyonce's younger sister.
JCF,
ReplyDeleteThis is a question I've had: yes, I am shallow.
But, am I shallow because it's a "natural impulse to a beautiful type" or because I'm told, at every turn, consciously and unconsciously, this is what sexually desirable looks like? In other words, are they beautiful, or am I just told they're beautiful so pervasively that they become so. For gay men, this is compounded with a focus, a constant focus, on our sexual habits in fictionalized portrayals which leaves a sour taste in my mouth - look at Queer as Folk or even something like Will and Grace; even their "unattractive" characters are prettier than most we see in daily life, and those "unattractive" characters are sex-starved figures of mockery.
Most people we see as beautiful have got good teeth, glowing skin, bright eyes, and splendidly muscled bodies. They are, in other words, giving off the message that they're in a state of blooming good health (this message can be deceptive, ie a lovely model or actress can be starving herself, but that's the message our brains "get"). So, I don't think it is just a matter of what we're repetitively told, though we are also ruthlessly offered up certain types (the fashion world's refusal to use black models springs to mind here).
ReplyDeleteNearly everything in nature is elegantly shaped (slender, muscled) and gorgeously decked out in terms of fur or feathers. Or leaves and petals. I don't think the response that it is beautiful is a shallow one, meself.
Having said that, when people start treating beauty as something that distinguishes them from other people in a Them/Us sort of way, that is when they miss the point, in the same way as someone who says "I think most people are simply very stupid" (which I had a friend say to me the other day) or "most people are simply not as successful as I am" (which I am sure a lot of business people say) or "I am rich and that means I am a cut above everyone else". Beauty is a good thing but it doesn't separate anyone from the rest of humanity. All elites exist in the human mind and nowhere else, certainly not in the sight of God. There is quite often a sneaking sense of unloveability lurking in the heart of the person who thinks these things anyway, which is why they overrate what they see as personal qualities that set them apart (well that is true in the case of my friend, anyway). That's me two bobs' worth for today :)
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, the bombardment with images of what someone or someones consider the "ideal" in appearance affects our notions of beauty. Even the most stalwart amongst us who believe that beauty is evidenced by what is inside, are affected by the images.
ReplyDeleteCathy, Google "ugly animals", and you will find that nature gives us strange looking creatures to which I would hardly apply the descriptive elegant.
I agree that an appearance of good health contributes to the perception of a person's beauty. Still, the splendidly muscled bodies we see in the beautiful people today are rarely the result of hard physical work, except at the gym, so even that is a bit phony.
At first glance, physical beauty may be what attracts me, but the more lasting attraction is an appearance that is interesting and departs somewhat from what we think of as conventional beauty.