Thursday, October 27, 2005

Hot or Not?

During my first two years of college, I got a lot of kicks out of Hot or Not, a site that allows people to post pictures of themselves and allow others to vote, on a scale of 1 to 10, on how "hot" they are. Most people go there for the sheer joy of rating, or to see and meet attractive people. I went there for different reasons.
I did some experiments, to be sure. I used different pictures of myself to find out what people find attractive in clothes, and was somewhat fascinated with the results. For example, people think men are "hot" when they wear a baseball cap backwards and give a slight grin. On the other hand, they don't generally like fedoras . . .

(I wish I could wear this hat every day, but people stare)

I also developed rules that I followed for rating people. Any girl who tried to show off cleavage or soemthing similar would get a 1, as would any guy who flexed his muscles or wasn't wearing a shirt. Old guys with a beard would get an automatic 10, as would anyone with a dog in the picture. I'm not sure what I did when two rules conflict, as when a guy without a shirt was holding a dog, or when the old guy with the beard was showing off his cleavage.

But the best thing about the site, however, is some of the absolutely bizarre pictures that people would post on it. For example:

This one's not too bad. From the file name, we know that her name is Rhonda. And from the picture, we know that she's a reptophile (I just completely made up that word). Rhonda and her iguana . . . actually the issue is, which one are we voting for? That is a very handsome iguana (at least a 9) but Rhonda's more of a . . . 6, probably. So, maybe she posted this so we would split the difference and giver her a 7 or 8.


This is absolutely amazing. Who posts a picture of themselves, for purposes of rating their attractiveness, in which they are wearing a mask? Does he think that people find luchadores attractive? And where you can see his face, it is cloaked in shadow, and the attendant mystery. Who is Mojo 2K? He is the luchador who comes in the night.


Now, when I think of what makes a person "hot," I think of their complete and utter hatred for all people. This one doesn't even bear further comment.

Has anyone else spent time on this site, or any other, finding amusement in it for reasons other than its creators intended?

2 comments:

  1. I loved/Love Hot or Not...

    I would do some stuff like you did, but I never put up a picture of myself...

    I would just go rate all the women who were homely, but looked cool..I would give them a 10, while the "it" girl who just put up her picture to improve her self-esteem, well, she gets a One...

    Excellent post and I look forward to the Intelligent Design debate..

    ReplyDelete
  2. The ranking system always seems messed up there, as surprising amounts of people manage to get 10. I agree with your system of ranking people, I always found it mildly annoying that people would rank someone high just because they were wearing little clothing.

    I always prefered rankpeople, and I have no particular reason why.

    ReplyDelete