Hotornot.com and ratings in general

Lounge
1

There was a thread in the women’s section: Why do guys stare and do nothing?

and it got on the subject of ratings – an awesome topic, if I do say so myself. However, that wasn’t REALLY the point of the thread, and not necessarily pheromone related - but I still had something I wanted to say, so I’m posting it here.

I’m not sure if alpha_wolf will be reading this, but he said something along the lines of ratings being important for looking at how the world views you, and making adjustments according to that, and how hotornot.com is an example of this.

Hotornot.com is not accurate. Yes, yes, you take the average, and with a huge number of people rating you, in the end, that’s probably what it’s going to be. But at the same time, you have to look at the individual scores, and you have to know WHY they scored that way.

And I know this because I had this set of rules whenever I rated:

Guys got automatic 1s if:

*he was showing off his car
*Holding money
*scratched out a girl clinging to his arm
*in his underwear
*the picture was too small
*couldn’t crop his image properly
*was obviously Republican

Not very fair is it? But that’s how I was.

I rated on hotornot.com because at the time I was REALLY superficial (not so much anymore, but it’s still there). I wanted to see what 3s were, 7s, 9s. I wanted to know what number I was, but didn’t have the guts to find out, so I compared myself with others, and started rating to see as many pictures as I could.

I didn’t like the fact that we had to rate to SEE the rating – that was how I started. I HAD to rate in order to find out what number this person was – and in comparison, how I was.

And I was honestly, honestly shocked. There were people there who were 3s that I honestly could not tell WHY. I never ever rated under 5 (except for when I followed the rules), and those were few and far between.

That ONE picture is being judged – not you – and not necessarily by people who are being honest about it. You have me, the silly self-righteous girl with the head-above-the-rest mentality, dealing out justice, or so she thinks. You have those snot nosed pissant teenagers who like to be mean and wreak havoc and play with people’s emotions. And you have those who are also like I was - afraid of how they looked, and therefore rated accordingly, cutting people down, or bringing them up.

No matter how many 9s you get, you’ll see that 1, rated by an anonymous person with no explanation whatsoever, and agonize over it. That 1 is going to make all the difference.

I haven’t been rated in years, if I have no one has told me, and I don’t really care to find out. My entire being can’t be contained in a number.

And I’m not knocking people who are doing it – I’m just saying this is why I don’t, and how for me personally, it’s a very dangerous thing to do.

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated, although I’m not expecting any! I just wanted to say all that, and now I’m done. :slight_smile:

2

saruanne, im curious, did you just write this, or was it a copy and paste from elsewhere? because im just about to rate you…

3

Interesting topic! I agree that ratings are useful (not “important” but I’ll concede useful) in understanding how (a snapshot) of the world views you. It took me an admittedly long time to “get” that not everyone is going to see me as I do. Hey, I’m an only child of two musician parents, grew up in a vaguely counter-culture/academic setting, lived in two countries as a child. Looks were rarely talked about, and “beautiful” was applied to poetry, music, art, speech, and dance as often if not more than to looks. Emerging from this aesthetically refined world, where I was encouraged to find the meaning and value of most things (and people), to the cold hard world of enhanced T&A was a bit traumatic, to say the least. For years I just assumed people were like me and viewed the world with the same rose-colored comtemplative awe I did. Not!

So I went to hotornot.com because I wanted to know what they thought of me too. Like sauranne, I rated folks low because they were putting on gangsta poses in front of their suburban lawns, or girls who were doing fish mouth at the camera in an attempt at sexy (she’d be prettier if she were natural) or wore really bad, lame message T’s. I would rate more than just looks. Rarely was I ever wowed by someone’s physical appearance. I’d notice things like “she looks bookish” or “he’s hot because his bod is like that from swimming” for a guy photographed near a pool or even military guys got a high rating from me because, although I’m opposed to war, they looked hot in their uniforms and their whole presentation gelled, something which always gets high marks from me no matter what look you’re going for.

I wondered if people would look at my photo and think: she looks like a smart chick, wow I bet we could have long talks at night drinking wine naked in bed after hours of marathon ****ing. Or maybe they just said: chest too flat, hair not long enough, not a full body come hither shot. 5!

I started gaming the system, guessing what the rating would be. If the girl had big boobs, was blonde, or scantily dressed, I was sure it would be 9 or up and in most cases I was right. My hotornot experience left me thinking that guys will rate an average girl with big boobs and a bikini higher than a really beautiful girl in a more reserved pose. Am I right? Maybe in the hotornot universe, but maybe the smart guys that I like also want T&A with their MA.

I have days when I’m more obsessed with how I stack up, and there’s days where I’m happy with what I have and realize I’m no Pamela Anderson lookalike and no matter how palatable to Largest Common Denominator of Men Based on My Observations I make my outsides, I know I’m not the easiest to get to know because I bore quickly and suck at superficial.

4

hotornot is slightly biased. but I can’t claim it to be bullshit because I’d be calling myself ugly

5

Hotornot is like American Idol: an alluring (hence lucrative) concept that reinforces junior high school values and encourages junior high school instincts. (Not that I’ve ever turned down the opportunity to act like a 12-year-old.)

Anyhow.

The ratings are often inaccurate. I know people who are bonafide 8.5s and 9s standing in front of me and yet got completely chumped on the site. Why? Sometimes it’s an issue of photogenicity. The camera eye invariably loves some people too much and others not enough…meaning an ego boost for the former group and useless doses of degradation for the latter (how is it at all constructive to have “6.4” tatooed on your consciousness all day when you may really be a 7.8 - or even a glorious 8.125! - in three-dimensional space?).

Likewise, I do remember (though I haven’t looked at the site in a Stephen Hawking eon) a ton of entries that didn’t deserve the abnormally high marks they were getting. A lot of people had 8.5s, 9s, or 9.5s simply because they had blonde hair, were smiling, or had on a football jersey with the right name…because of what they represented, rather than the way they actually looked.

Blahblah. I stop now. I’m crotchety and delirious at the moment. But interesting topic and most excellent posts.