by yerc
the blackpill. no cushioning.
BP stands for blackpill.
there are three pills. this is the dark one. the other two are coming.
“The blackpill is the realization that life is not a fair game.”
Your genetics, appearance and environment determine the advantages you’re born with.
Height, bone structure, skin type, hairline. Rolled before you were born.
How all of that lands on your face and frame, and how people read it.
Money, food, sleep, family, braces or no braces, where you grew up.
Nobody picked their stats. The bluepill pretends everyone rolled the same. Comfortable.
The comfortable story. Looks don’t really matter, personality wins, there’s someone for everyone.
The manosphere version. Attraction is a game with rules: status, confidence, “game.” Learn the rules, win.
The forum version. Looks and genetics set the baseline. Effort only moves it so far.
origin: the matrix (1999). red pill = see how things really are. blue pill = stay comfortable.
the movie had two pills. the internet added the third one.
In the film, the blue pill keeps you comfortable. Online, the comfortable story: looks don’t really matter, personality wins, there’s someone for everyone.
Personality does matter. It just arrives after your face does.
In the film, the red pill shows you how things really are. The manosphere took it: attraction is a game with rules like status and confidence. Learn the rules and win. Supposedly.
Some of it is gym and sleep advice. Some of it is angry men on camera.
The third pill is not from the film. Blogs and forums made it. Looks and genetics set your baseline. Effort only moves it so far.
The Anti-Defamation League describes the hardest version as the belief that your situation is hopeless and permanent. We reject that. So should you.
“Taking the blackpill” means rejecting the illusion that effort can overcome anything.
“Effort can overcome anything.”
the bluepill. comfortable. wrong.
“Effort is pointless. It’s over.”
the doomer version. also wrong. it’s just quitting early.
Effort has a ceiling. Everyone’s is different. Most people never get close to theirs.
BP. anything ≠ nothing. take
- - - ceiling = genetics + environment
■ fill = what you actually do
To acknowledge the genetic hierarchy that governs social perception.
Not to like it. Not to worship it. To admit it exists. You can’t work around what you pretend isn’t there.
Everything gets a label: fact or opinion. Most of the internet doesn’t.
What’s physically there. Bones, skin, measurements you could point at.
Community vocabulary. Useful words, not science.
Opinion. Argue with it.
Actual research. Names and years. Check them.
no receipt = not a fact. that includes the takes.
People treat good looks as evidence of other good traits. Nobody decides to. You do it too, and fast.
smart
kind
competent
trustworthy
confident
funny
looks
Thorndike (1920) named it. officers rating soldiers let one good trait bleed into every other rating.
Dion, Berscheid & Walster (1972): “what is beautiful is good.” attractive people got assumed to have better personalities and better lives.
Langlois et al. (2000), big review of the research: attractive kids and adults get judged and treated better, and people mostly agree on who’s attractive.
Treating people differently because of how they look. The halo effect is the mechanism. Lookism is what it adds up to.
0.1 sec
your face. judgment already formed.
seconds
voice, posture, clothes.
minutes
humor, vibe, how you talk to people.
weeks
personality. who you actually are.
receipts Willis & Todorov (2006): people formed judgments of a face (trustworthy, likeable, competent, attractive) after seeing it for a tenth of a second.
The bluepill says personality can overcome it. Sometimes it can. It just loads last.
that gap, between how fast looks hit and how slow personality loads, is the whole reason BP exists. take
“The goal: find ascension that can be told apart from cope.”
Ascension
forum termA real improvement in how you look or get read. Holds up in person, in daylight, a month later.
Cope
forum termSomething that feels like progress but isn’t, or a belief that protects you from the truth.
consistent skincare + SPF
mewing to rebuild your jaw (no solid evidence)
8–10 hours of sleep
face yoga (making faces, for an hour)
a haircut that fits your face
a 12-step routine with every active
getting fit. eating enough.
filters
braces, if an orthodontist actually says so
“it’s over” at 15
clothes that fit
“personality is all that matters”
rule of thumb: if it only shows up with a filter on, it’s cope. take
No refunds on your face and body. Make the most of them. Most of it is cheap, boring and reversible.
definitions › l › looksmax
verb · also looksmaxxing, noun · forum term
Manosphere and incelosphere ethos promoting maximizing one’s physical appearance.
In plain English: getting the most out of the face and body you were dealt. The ugly part is where those two underlined words lead.
Soft
forum termNon-invasive. Skin, hair, sleep, fitness, posture, grooming, clothes.
reversible · cheap · safe
Hard
forum termInvasive. Surgery and procedures.
adult · medical · expensive · permanent
At 14–16, softmaxxing is the whole game. Your face is still growing. Nobody should be planning surgery on it. take
A few words worth knowing: forum slang, the anatomy it borrowed, and the research it skips.
mog
To outclass someone in looks just by standing next to them. Likely from AMOG, pickup-artist slang for “alpha male of the group.” Getting mogged is about the comparison, not your face on its own.
use itStand at the edge of a group photo next to the tallest guy there and you get mogged twice.
Doing something that makes you look worse: sleep debt, crash diets, mouth breathing. Maxxing’s opposite.
use itAn all-nighter before picture day is a textbook looksmin.
looks·min
eff·dub·aitch·arr
Facial width-to-height ratio: cheekbone width divided by upper-face height. Some studies link a higher ratio to looking, and sometimes acting, more dominant.
use itOne study linked a higher fWHR to more NHL penalty minutes per game. A bigger follow-up found body weight explained it better.
nee·ot·uh·nee
Keeping youthful features into adulthood: bigger eyes, smaller nose, softer face. People read it as cute and young.
use itBaby face at 25? That’s neoteny, not a skincare routine.
Working models. Picked for their faces, lit, styled and usually retouched. Real faces, and not a normal sample.
Forums grade features one at a time: eyes 7, jaw 5, nose 4. Your brain doesn’t. It reads the whole face at once.
receipts Young, Hellawell & Hay (1987): people process faces as a whole, not part by part (the “composite face” effect).
receipts Langlois & Roggman (1990): faces averaged together got rated more attractive than most of the real faces that went into them.
take A great feature on a face it doesn’t fit is just a feature.
Split the face at the hairline, the brows, the base of the nose and the chin. The classic “ideal” says all three come out equal.
receipts Farkas et al. (1985) measured real young adults against the classic face proportions. Most faces didn’t match them.
take Equal thirds is an art-school guideline, not a law of attractiveness.
hairlinebrowsnose basechinThe angle of the line from the inner corner of the eye to the outer corner. Outer corner higher means positive tilt.
Positive tilt is treated as the ideal. “Hunter eyes” are deeper-set with less upper lid showing. “Prey eyes” are rounder with more white showing.
take Tilt shifts with head angle in photos and slowly drops with age. One selfie isn’t a measurement.
The infraorbital rim is the ridge of bone under your eye. It holds up the lower lid and the soft tissue under it. Set further back, it leaves more hollow and shadow under the eye.
The midface ratio is pupil-to-pupil width divided by pupils-to-lip height. Close to 1:1 gets called “compact”. It’s a forum ratio, not a medical standard.
take Some dark circles aren’t skin. They’re shadow.
The ramus is the vertical back part of the jaw. The gonial angle is the corner where it meets the jaw body. Most adults land somewhere around 120-130°.
A long ramus and a sharper angle make the “defined jaw” everyone posts.
take Body fat hides it, head angle changes it, and at 14-16 your jaw is still growing.
Sexual dimorphism: the features that split between male and female faces during puberty. Brow ridge, jaw, chin, cheekbones, face length. “Dimorphic” means strongly masculine or strongly feminine.
receipts How much extra masculinity helps a male face is mixed in the research. Preferences change with the person, the culture and the context (e.g. Scott et al., 2014).
take Puberty isn’t finished at 14-16. Neither is your face. What’s yours to change right now is skin.
To outclass someone just by standing next to them. Getting mogged is about the comparison, not your face on its own.
Models are photographed next to each other all day, by people paid to make them look their best. You never are.
the goal
Skin changes fast at 14–16 because of hormones. Dumping a pile of actives on every problem is not advisable.
“the holy grail of good complexion”
It’s the outermost layer of your skin (the stratum corneum). Think brick wall: flat dead cells are the bricks, fats are the mortar. Its whole job is to keep water in and irritants out.
anatomyRedness, dehydration, irritation and acne flares: chances are your barrier is damaged.
piling on more topical treatments only makes it worse.
bricks = corneocytes (flattened dead skin cells)
mortar = lipids: ceramides, cholesterol, fatty acids
gentle
cleanser
am / pm
good
moisturizer
am / pm
spf
50+
am, reapply
Your skin barrier needs three things: a gentle cleanser, a good moisturizer, SPF.
Individual issues go on top of this. Not instead of it.
PM
non-negotiable
You must remove sunscreen, oil and other residue at the end of the day.
AM
optional-ish
A gentle cleanser is enough. Dry or sensitive skin? You might not need to cleanse in the morning at all.
Tight after washing is not “clean.”
Tight = barrier dysfunction.
A good moisturizer hydrates, calms and makes the rest of your skincare work better. Look for ceramides, glycerin, panthenol and other barrier-repairing ingredients.
Occlusives
seal it in · petrolatum, dimethicone
Emollients
smooth the gaps · squalane, fatty alcohols
Humectants
pull water in · glycerin, hyaluronic acid
a good moisturizer has all three ↓
Sun protection is the most underrated aspect of skincare.
UV exposure leads to pigmentation, redness, collagen loss and faster skin aging. It makes acne scars more prominent.
Broad spectrum on the label = it covers both UVA and UVB.
Congestion, blackheads and inflamed pimples are not one issue. Treat them as one and you get mid results.
Whitehead
closed comedone
anatomyBlackhead
open comedone. dark from oxidation, not dirt.
Pimple
papule / pustule. inflamed.
Nodule / cyst
deep, painful. dermatologist territory.
Redness and post-acne pigmentation are two separate issues. Both take a long time to resolve.
PIE
post-inflammatory erythema. red, pink or purple. leftover inflammation and blood vessels.
PIH
post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. brown or dark. extra melanin.
Press a clear glass on it. Red that fades under pressure = PIE. Brown that stays = PIH.
the goal
Bad hair is the most fixable flaw on your head. You’d rather defend it than fix it.
Your hair changes at 14–16. Texture shifts, oil goes up, your face isn’t done. The cut that works now won’t last.
A good haircut beats any product. People notice it from across a room. It costs about the same as a pizza.
Bring photos. More than one. Say what you don’t want. “Just clean it up” gets you the same haircut you already hated.
You can’t buy your way out of a bad cut.
Blow dryers on max and straighteners cook the outer layer of your hair. It adds up: split ends, frizz, hair that snaps.
Use heat? Lowest setting that works. Keep it moving. Heat protectant first. Hair can’t heal. Fried ends have one fix: scissors.
No product fixes fried ends.
myth
“Cutting your hair makes it grow faster.”
Reality.
Hair grows from the follicle in your scalp, roughly half an inch a month. Scissors never reach it.
Trims remove split ends, so your hair looks healthier while it grows. That’s the real reason to get one.
the goal
A logo doesn’t fix a bad fit. “I don’t care about clothes” is still an outfit. It still gets judged.
Clothes matter, but you’re still growing. Expensive clothes you outgrow by spring are wasted money.
Expensive clothes that don’t fit lose to cheap clothes that do. Fit is what makes an outfit look intentional.
Baggy on purpose is a style. Baggy by accident is a size problem.
Nobody sees the price tag. Everyone sees the fit.
People look at shoes more than you think. Dirty, beat-up shoes drag down a clean outfit.
Clean your sneakers. Replace the laces. Rotate pairs so they last. Clean white sneakers go with nearly everything.
myth
“You need expensive brands to dress well.”
Reality.
Logos don’t fix fit. A plain outfit that fits, in colors that work, beats head-to-toe brands that don’t.
Spend on shoes and a jacket. Go cheap on tees.
the goal
Gym content sells pills and intensity. The program that works is too boring to sell.
Lifting is safe at 14–16 with good form and someone qualified teaching it. Health condition? Doctor first. Anything sold in a pill: no.
Pediatric and sports-medicine groups say strength training is fine for teens with good coaching and good form. Most injuries come from ego: too heavy, too fast, bad technique.
Learn the movement light first. Add weight only when the last rep looks like the first.
receipts American Academy of Pediatrics: resistance training is safe and beneficial for youth with proper technique and supervision.
Muscle needs protein: eggs, chicken, fish, beans, yogurt, milk, tofu. Spread it across the day.
Most teens get enough from normal meals, if they actually eat them. A shake is food in a cup.
myth
“You’ll get bulky by accident.”
Reality.
Visible muscle takes months of hard, consistent training and enough food.
Nobody wakes up too big. People quit right before it starts showing.
the goal
Starving a growing body for a jawline is the worst trade in looksmaxxing.
This is the maxxing most likely to go wrong at your age. Growing bodies need fuel. Food taking over your thoughts is a warning sign, not discipline.
Less body fat shows more jaw, cheekbones and neck. That’s the whole reason the forums obsess over it.
At 14–16 your body is supposed to be adding size: height, muscle, bone. Starve it and you lose the growth that actually matters.
Diet teas, “detox” cleanses and appetite suppressants are sold to insecure people. Some are basically laxatives.
Someone online says eat less and has a discount code? That’s an ad, not a friend.
The default plate: half fruit and vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter grains or starch, water to drink.
Not a ritual. It keeps you full and gives your body enough to grow.
receipts based on USDA MyPlate and Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate.
the goal
8–10 hours, same schedule every night. A 2 am skincare routine is moisturizer on a tired face.
Sleep is the most underrated part of the routine. You ignored it. Fix that.
Teen body clocks run late. Melatonin, the “time to sleep” signal, kicks in later at night than it did when you were a kid, so you’re not tired at 10 pm.
That’s biology, not an excuse. School starts early anyway. Protecting your sleep is on you.
receipts Carskadon (2011), “Sleep in adolescents: the perfect storm.”
Short sleep shows: puffier eyes, darker circles, duller skin, a tired-looking face.
Axelsson (2010): people rated sleep-deprived faces as less attractive and less healthy. It shows.
You cycle through light, deep and REM sleep about every 90 minutes. Deep sleep comes early in the night. REM stretches toward morning.
Cutting the night short mostly cuts REM. Going to bed really late mostly cuts deep sleep. Either way, you lose.
the goal
Some “bad bone structure” is phone neck. The goal: stop hiding the frame you have.
Posture changes how your face, jaw and height read, instantly. Forums mistake it for bone structure more than anything else.
Head forward, chin down: your jaw disappears and your neck looks shorter. Head over your shoulders: both show.
The bone didn’t change. The angle did. People see the angle.
Mewing: your whole tongue resting flat on the roof of your mouth, lips closed, breathing through your nose.
Nothing more: the normal resting tongue position. The name comes from a British orthodontist family who promoted it.
myth
“Chewing gum all day builds a jawline.”
Reality.
Chewing works your masseter muscle slightly. Bigger muscle, same bone.
Overdo hard “jawline gum” and you can end up with sore jaw joints.
the goal
Height is mostly genes. The rest isn’t for sale. The goal: your full height, standing at all of it.
Most of you are still growing. Nothing online adds inches. A lot of it is a sales pitch aimed at you.
≈80%
Twin studies put adult height heritability at roughly 80% in well-fed populations. Your genes wrote most of it. Nobody asked you.
The rest is environment: nutrition, sleep and health, especially while you’re still growing. Only that part is yours.
receipts twin studies of adult height; estimates vary by population.
Growth needs fuel and recovery. Skimp on food or sleep during the growth years and you work against your own height.
Eat enough. Protein, calcium, vitamin D. Sleep 8–10 hours. Boring. That’s the “protocol.”
myth
“Hanging from a bar makes you taller.”
Reality.
Hanging and stretching decompress your spine a tiny bit, briefly. Gone by tonight.
Bones don’t stretch.
the goal
You can’t whiten your way out of lazy brushing. The goal: healthy teeth and a smile you actually use.
At 14–16 your adult teeth are in, braces are common and wisdom teeth are on the way. What you do now stays for life.
Two full minutes, fluoride toothpaste, morning and night. Most people quit at around 45 seconds.
Soft brush. Small circles. Angle it at the gumline. Scrub hard and you wear down gums and enamel.
You think you brush for two minutes. You don’t.
Checkups and cleanings catch problems while they’re small and cheap. A cleaning also removes tartar. Brushing can’t.
Cost isn’t an excuse. Ask about school or community dental programs.
myth
“Charcoal toothpaste whitens your teeth.”
Reality.
Charcoal is abrasive and can wear enamel. A lot of charcoal pastes skip fluoride entirely.
No good evidence it whitens better or works safer than normal toothpaste.
the goal
The goal: smell clean. If you don’t, everyone knows before you do.
Puberty switches on a new set of sweat glands. You didn’t need deodorant at 11. You do now.
Sweat soaks into fabric, especially polyester gym clothes. “One more time” is how you become the smell in the room.
Wash gym clothes after every use. Dry them fully. Don’t leave them balled up in your bag.
Two or three sprays. Neck, chest or wrists. If people smell you from across the room, you overdid it.
You go nose-blind to your own scent fast. It’s always stronger than you think. Don’t reapply because you stopped noticing it.
You can’t smell it anymore. Everyone else still can.
myth
“Natural deodorant detoxes your armpits.”
Reality.
There’s no “armpit detox.” Natural deodorants can handle smell. They don’t stop sweat.
Buy whichever works. Don’t pay extra for “detox.” It’s a price tag, not a feature.
the goal
The goal is looking taken care of. Genetics can take the blame for your jaw. Not for your nails.
Facial hair at 14–16 is usually patchy. Grooming tidies what’s there. It doesn’t invent what isn’t.
Facial hair fills in over years, often into your twenties. Patchy at 15 settles nothing.
Until it fills in, clean-shaven or very short beats patchy and long. That’s not a style.
Thin, over-plucked brows are a classic regret. Regrowth can take months. Sometimes it never fully comes back.
Pluck strays one at a time, after a shower, in good light. Step back from the mirror often.
Brows take one night to wreck and months to grow back.
myth
“Shaving makes hair grow back thicker.”
Reality.
Shaving cuts hair at the surface. The follicle is untouched. Thickness, color and speed can’t change.
A blunt tip makes regrowth feel coarser for a while. That’s it.
the goal
The goal is rested eyes and frames that fit. No exercise, tape or mewing gives you hunter eyes.
This is the eye area from, minus the cope. Bone structure doesn’t negotiate. The rest is maintenance.
If you wear glasses, the frame is the first thing people see on your face. Every day. It outranks any outfit.
Try on a lot. Photograph them from a normal distance. The arm’s-length selfie lies.
Time outdoors in daylight is linked to a lower risk of becoming nearsighted in kids and teens.
It’s also the best thing for your sleep schedule. Your bedroom does neither.
myth
“Eye exercises give you hunter eyes.”
Reality.
Canthal tilt and deep-set eyes are bone and tendons. No exercise, tape or mewing changes them.
What does change: how tired your eyes look. Sleep. Allergies. Stop rubbing them.
the goal
The goal is photos that look like you on a good day. You keep blaming your face for lens physics.
Half of every glow-up online is a camera trick.
Soft light from the front or slightly to the side (a window, daylight in the shade) flatters nearly everyone.
Overhead light (bathrooms, classrooms) puts shadows under your eyes and makes everyone look tired. Avoid it.
Everyone here looks tired. That’s the lights. Mostly.
Push your forehead slightly toward the camera. Tilt your chin down. It defines your jawline and separates it from your neck.
It feels dumb. It looks normal. That’s photography.
myth
“The camera adds ten pounds.”
Reality.
Not literally. Wide lenses up close and bad angles warp proportions.
Distance, light and angle fix most of it.
the goal
The goal is a voice people can hear. You measure your jaw down to the degree, then open it and mumble.
Your voice is still changing at 14–16, especially if you’re a guy. It cracks. In front of people. Forcing it deeper isn’t the fix.
Pushing your voice lower than it naturally sits strains it. It also sounds forced.
A relaxed voice at its natural pitch, with good volume, sounds more confident than a fake-deep one.
Fake deep only fools the guy doing it.
During puberty the voice box grows and the vocal folds get longer and thicker. In boys the voice can drop by about an octave.
Cracks happen while your muscles learn the new instrument. They stop when they stop.
myth
“Only deep voices are attractive.”
Reality.
Some research finds people prefer lower-pitched male voices. One factor of many.
Confidence, clarity and warmth matter a lot. A forced deep voice sounds forced.
Looks shape first impressions. Behavior shapes every impression after that. People rate someone they like as better-looking.
Socialmaxxing is the one maxxing that works on people who already know you.
receipts Kniffin & Wilson (2004), see.
People like people who ask them questions and actually listen to the answers.
Ask a follow-up about what they just said. Simplest charisma move there is.
receipts Huang et al. (2017): in conversations, asking more questions, especially follow-ups, made people more liked.
the goal
The goal is a clear head. Adults say looks don’t matter. Forums say they’re everything. Both are cope.
Looksmaxxing spaces can mess with your head. The point of BP is seeing the hierarchy clearly, without letting it eat you.
Body dysmorphic disorder: worry about a flaw, often one others barely notice, that takes over hours of your day.
It’s a recognized condition. It often starts in the teen years. It’s treatable. If that sounds familiar, tell a doctor or counselor. A forum is not a counselor.
The doomer forums say your looks decide everything and nothing can change.
You’re 14–16 and still growing. Almost everything in this presentation is still ahead of you. It’s not over. It hasn’t started.
myth
“Once I fix my face, I’ll be confident.”
Reality.
Confidence that depends on your face is fragile. Plenty of very attractive people are deeply insecure.
Confidence is built separately. By doing things.
1999 to 2026
The pills, the forums that rated faces, and how a niche forum word reached the news.
1999
The red pill and blue pill come from the film The Matrix (1999). Red shows a hard truth. Blue keeps you comfortable. Blackpill was added later.
source ADL, 6 Nov 2019
2011 to 2012
The ADL says it was first used in 2011 and popularised by the blog Omega Virgin Revolt. Quartz dates it to 2012, on the same blog.
forum termsource ADL, 6 Nov 2019
noun
The ADL: in incel circles, the belief that your situation is hopeless and permanent. Blackpilled incels hold that looks are fixed by genetics.
first documented around 2011 to 2012, on men’s-rights blogs
forum termsource ADL, 6 Nov 2019
2009
PUAHate was created in 2009 for men who felt pickup-artist methods did not work. Over time its members decided that appearance was what mattered.
forum termsource Pelzer et al., 2021
The paper behind these dates is a 2021 peer-reviewed study of incel language.
source Pelzer et al., 2021
Vice
20 Jun 2018
Vice described a site where users rate and criticise each other’s faces, with about 600 users active in one 15-minute window. Its domain was tied to a PO box in Panama, so the operator was unclear.
source Vice, 20 Jun 2018
Fortune
9 Nov 2017
Fortune reported that Reddit banned r/incels, a forum with about 41,000 members (a figure it credited to the BBC), for breaking its rule on content that calls for violence.
source Fortune, 9 Nov 2017
Aug 2018
It was founded in August 2018 for men who want to improve their appearance. It allows “rate me” photo threads. A 2021 paper says it was run by the same owner as incels.co.
forum termsource Pelzer et al., 2021
2010s
Wikipedia says looksmaxxing is tied to black pill thinking: the idea that looks decide who gets partners. Three defunct forums, the PSL Forums, produced the rating scale and much of the jargon.
source Wikipedia, accessed 2 Nov 2026
source Wikipedia, accessed 2 Nov 2026
noun
Holding the tongue against the roof of the mouth to supposedly sharpen the jaw. It is the online version of orthotropics, an idea from British orthodontist John Mew. Wikipedia says it spread on social media from 2019.
first documented Spread online from 2019
source Wikipedia, accessed 2 Nov 2026
noun
Hitting your own face with an object to supposedly build a chiselled jaw. Business Insider called it a joke in which no one was actually doing this. CBS Baltimore reported the videos had passed 250 million views.
source Business Insider, 8 Nov 2023; CBS Baltimore, 6 Nov 2023
noun
Reports on Dictionary.com’s 2026 Word of the Year say looksmaxxing began in incel communities online. Dictionary.com says archived examples go back to 2015.
first documented incel communities online, archived examples from 2015
forum termsource CBS News, 26 Oct 2026
Hypergamy. The dice roll. What the studies say about looks. What the pill turns into when it goes wrong.
There is one word the forums are afraid of.
hyper-over, above
-gamymarriage
Traditionally, it describes women marrying men of higher social status. It started as a sociology and anthropology term for marrying into a higher caste or class.
Any gender can do it. The forums only talk about one.
This preference extends to physical attractiveness, favoring men blessed with superior genetic advantages.
Men spread their interest across most women.
Women’s interest piles onto the top slice of men.
0%
OkCupid’s blog (2009): women rated about 80% of men as worse-looking than average.
Men’s ratings of women came out as a normal bell curve.
Now the data.
what gets screenshotted
OkCupid’s blog (2009): women rated about 80% of men as worse-looking than average. Men’s ratings of women came out as a normal bell curve.
shape only (schematic): men rating women · women rating men
what usually gets left out
Feingold (1988), meta-analysis: real couples tend to match each other in attractiveness.
Esteve et al. (2016), “The End of Hypergamy”: in a lot of countries women now out-educate men, and women marrying “up” in education has been dropping.
The apps show you the filter. Real couples show you the outcome. Both are real. Both matter. The forums only screenshot the first one.
Everything in this presentation was decided by a roll you never saw.
snake eyes.
Nobody does. It came from two people who didn’t pick theirs either.
Same genes, same face. The face was in the code before it was on you.
Same dice. Higher stakes. Nobody tells you the odds before it lands.
Some of it moves. Most of it doesn’t. The forums are right about that part.
For the rest of your life. Here is the evidence.
Studies from cradle to grave. Every one of them is real. None of them are fair.
Newborns aged 14 to 151 hours were shown pairs of women’s faces. In two experiments, they looked longer at the faces adults had rated attractive.
Hours old
cradle
grave
14 to 151 hours
receipts Slater et al. (1998), Infant Behavior and Development
born
Intensive care.
Nurses in two Beirut NICUs rated 56 premature babies’ looks. Even after controlling for birth weight and a medical risk score, babies rated more attractive gained more weight and went home sooner.
receipts Badr & Abdallah (2001), Infant Behavior and Development
A review of classroom research. Teachers generally rated attractive students as more intelligent, with more academic potential, better grades and better social skills than unattractive students.
receipts Ritts, Patterson & Tubbs (1992), Review of Educational Research
Pretty reads as smart
Interviewers rated US teens’ looks, personality and grooming. Attractive girls had higher GPAs. With grooming and personality counted, looks turned into a significant minus for boys. Grooming paid off for both sexes.
Grooming beats the face
cradle
grave
US teens
receipts French, Robins, Homer & Tapsell (2009), Labour Economics
strangers
Strangers.
604 white adults at airport phone booths found a lost graduate-school application with a photo and a stamped envelope. They mailed it more often when the applicant in the photo was attractive.
receipts Benson, Karabenick & Lerner (1976), Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
36%
2,540 fake résumés sent to real job ads in Buenos Aires. Photos edited to look attractive or unattractive. Attractive applicants got 36% more callbacks (10.3% vs 7.6%), and got them faster.
receipts López Bóo, Rossi & Urzúa (2013), Economics Letters
Filtered by face
Taller people earned more. In their data, seven extra inches were worth about $5,525 a year, roughly $789 per inch.
receipts
03C.22 · work
Judge & Cable (2004), Journal of Applied Psychology. Figures in 2002 dollars.
Height.
$789 / inch / year
03C.22
receipts Mazzella & Feingold (1994), Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Mock jurors, pooled across experiments. Attractive defendants were less likely to be found guilty and got lighter recommended punishments. Small effects: d = 0.19 and 0.12. For some crimes, zero.
Ugly looks guiltier
Faces that are closer to average, more symmetric, and more feminine (women) or masculine (men) are rated more attractive. A review with meta-analyses found this for both sexes and across cultures.
receipts Rhodes (2006), Annual Review of Psychology
Not arbitrary
Website users made over a million guesses about strangers from photos: drinks? uses drugs? ever arrested? For 10 of 11 traits, they did worse than if they had ignored the face and always picked the most common answer.
For 10 of 11 traits, they did worse
receipts Olivola & Todorov (2010), Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Looking made it worse
From the delivery room to the courtroom, the bias is measured, repeated and documented. Almost none of it is against the law.
There isn’t even a word most people know for it. It’s called lookism. take
“Just be confident and nice”
what they mean
Personality beats looks. Fix your attitude and the rest sorts itself out.
what’s true receipts
Confidence and kindness do change how people see you, especially once they know you. People rate someone they like as better-looking (Kniffin & Wilson, 2004).
what’s missing take
All of that loads after the first impression (see: 0.1 seconds). It’s a multiplier, not a replacement.
so
Be nice anyway. It doesn’t change the first impression.
“Hypergamy goes both ways!”
what they mean
Men are picky too.
is it true
Yes. See the red arrows in the hypergamy diagram. Men have preferences too.
tu quoque
Latin for “you too.” Answering a point by pointing at the other side instead of dealing with it. Men being picky doesn’t cancel the original claim. Both can be true.
so
Both sides have preferences. The claim is about who gets chosen, not who is picky.
Some people take the pill and never come back.
The word “incel” was coined by a woman named Alana, for a website meant to support lonely people. It was meant to be kind.
Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project (1997).
Twenty years later the same word meant a forum, a worldview and a sentence people pass on themselves.
Chad
Chadlite
High-tier normie
Mid-tier normie
Low-tier normie
Incel
Subhuman
The forums rank every face on earth, from “Chad” at the top down to “subhuman” at the bottom.
The bottom tier. A lot of the people typing it are talking about themselves.
Teenagers hitting their own cheekbones with hammers, because a forum read half a sentence about how bone heals. That is where it goes.
Lie down and rot. On the forums it isn’t a joke. It’s a plan.
Under all the vocabulary, almost every post is the same post.
Looks are unfair, and only part of it. Don’t be cruel. Fix what you control. The rest is no excuse.
made by yerc
Every study, article and photo in this deck is on the Sources page of the site, with its origin. Check them.