Our generation, is a generation of choosers. Some may even claim that our array of choices, when it comes to food, music, school, fashion, and technology, has made our generation some of the pickiest people on the planet. Even when it comes to dating, finding a niche is often the route many choose to take, and because of many millennial total embrace on technology,”niche” dating websites have been popping up over the years to accommodate the pickiest of people.
There’s sites for people who love books, sites for people who love dogs, even sites for people who want to cheat on their significant others! There’s vegetarian dating sites for “Veggie Singles”, and my personal research favorite, a dating site for people who love Star Trek. (Set phasers to stunning!!!)
But what about a website that caters exclusively to beautiful people? Does that sound too vain and shallow?
Don’t worry, it is.
The website BeautifulPeople.com — designed for people who like mirrors – came to my palate not as a prospective dating alternative, but as a prompt, or rather dare from a fellow journalism student.
It was winter break, I had too much time on my hands, and I thought I’d embark on my first “investigative journalism piece”.
What’s the worst that could happen? Someone could call me ugly? As a full-hearted believer that beauty is entirely subjective, I didn’t see what the big deal was. But what I experienced was far worse than anyone calling me ugly. Some people on this site, actually thought I was beautiful.
These people do not know the true meaning of the word beautiful, and through this harsh lesson I originally thought was going to be hilarious, I’m going to tell you why.
The site has a “strict ban on ugly people”. A few years ago the site even ousted 5,000 members for allegedly “packing on pounds” during the Christmas season. In a statement released by the site’s founder, Robert Hintze, he states “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model”.
Over a period of 48 hours members of the opposite sex vote on your picture alone and determine if you are “beautiful enough” to enter the sight
Members can vote a potential candidate “Beautiful”, “Hmmm Ok” (With 3 M’s) “No” and “Absolutely not.” This was me after the first hour;
The candidate gets to watch for two days as their attractiveness varies between the four categories. It’s just as hostile as a political poll, except more stuck-up. When I first started my investigative piece on this site I was of course disgusted, but that feeling was quickly pushed aside when I started to think how ridiculous this concept was. There is no binary definition of beauty and sites like this perpetuate what is just a social myth. I’d like to say I maintained a level head throughout this and took copious amounts of notes, but most of the time I just snorted in front of my computer. I was getting voted into a website based on how much strangers on the Internet liked my face. It was like the 2015 cyber version of playing f*ck, marry, kill!
I felt ridiculous, and like a piece of meat. Like a silly ridiculous piece of meat with blonde hair.
This feeling of ridiculousness was present until I started to really look at my application process. As my rankings swayed back and fourth between “beautiful” and “hmmm OK” (with even some “absolutely not’s” thrown into the mix) I started to think about how many lives have been affected, or even ended due to low self esteem and cyber bullying issues. What if a younger, more impressionable girl had signed up for this site just for fun and the “Absolutely not’s” really got to her?
What if another writer that looked less generic did not get “voted into” the site. How would they have felt?
Me? I just don’t give a s%*t? But any one that does can be really harmed by the attitude this site puts forth.
After the 48 hour waiting period, I was finally voted in and receive a plethora of “winks” which is the equivalent of a “Poke” on Facebook, except inherently flirtatious, and predominately from men ages 30-55. Because this project was research based, and also because most of them seemed old enough to have DJ’d The Boston Tea Party, I did not message them. However, if I were to do so, I would have to go through further confirmation that my face was ACTUALLY my face by becoming “verified”. This process entails taking a picture of your face, and holding up a sheet of paper with your handwritten username and date written on it. After this process is completed over another 48 hours, your profile gets a “Verified check” so potential suitors of conceit know that you are in fact the person in your picture, and your selfie game, or whatever these people seem to care about, is most definitely on point.
Is my selfie game on point? Yes.
Does that make me better than other people? WTF no! Of course not! But Beautiful People, markets that idea. Some advertisements even state that this is the site Charles Darwin would have used, had he been alive to see the invention of a computer.
Uhm. Hold up.
As a writer, woman, and science lover, I hold Charles Darwin in very high esteem. I’m pretty sure Darwin’s first thought, should he magically get transported to 2015, via worm hole or Tardis, wouldn’t be online dating. First of all, he would be really freaked out and interested BY THE INVENTION OF THE CAR. Second of all, for a site that claims to weed out all the generically “fat and unattractive”, would Charles Darwin really even get into your website?
Guy had more hair on his chin than he had on his entire head.
Even so, I would much rather go out on a date with Charles Darwin than any of the men found on this website. Charles Darwin probably had a dazzling a personality and a wealth of knowledge about Galapagos Finches and their varying beak sizes.
Allow me to get very rash for a second and then I’ll move on.
Beautiful People sounds a lot less like a dating website Charles Darwin would give the thumbs up to, but more like something that would get a certain Dictator of Germany’s seal of approval.
Did I get into the site? Yes.
Do strangers think I’m decent looking? Yes
Did I just compare a dating website to the Third Reich? Sorry…(But not really)
This site was just a bit too “Eugenic”-y for me. No thank you.
The most dangerous thing about this site is how normalized hatred is.
Yes, hatred.
Singling out someone for the way they look is something we as a society have fought for years to try and stop. It’s a nice site, a clean site, and like many dating sites, the surface of it all seems kind of fun. I myself even got a little excited at the bombardment of notifications flooding my inbox once I was officially “verified”. It’s a huge social problem masquerading as a site for singles.
Being called beautiful under this context may be anesthetically accepted as fact, but how do you know someone is really beautiful until you know who they really are on the inside?
When you’re old, wrinkly, have two broken hips, and having anything but a nap after a date is impossible, are you really going to care about how hot your partner is? No.
You’re going to care whether or not they’re a kind human being. You’re going to want them to have a sense of humor when you’re dentures fall out or you have an unexpected fart, or whatever wacky things old couples deal with on a daily basis.
There is no a binary definition of what beautiful is, and just because we are a generation of choosers, that doesn’t mean we have to hate or exclude others. Choose to be kind, and open minded instead. If we choose that path, our generation will be beautiful on the inside and out.