Todd Stadler's blog

Am I a voyeur or not?

[Editor's note: This is a really old entry in this journal. As such, it was written before I, um, knew what I was doing. So I clearly intended to fill in the links below with HTML that would take you to the actual pictures. But I never did that, for some reason, and now, over a year later, I have no clue where those pictures are. So it goes.]

I have of late, to my own intense shame, become infatuated with AmIHotOrNot. There's something about sitting on high, casually casting numeric judgment on legions of anonymous people with access to a scanner or digital camera. Or maybe it's the ability to glimpse at often-unglamorous normal folk. Maybe it's just the girls. I don't know, but I'm hooked. I'd like to think that I engage this site in a more high-minded way than most, trying to figure out what average score a person will get before I give my own, and trying to figure out what makes a person "hot" according to the fans of this site. With women, it seems fairly obvious that showing any skin or shapeliness will mean a high ranking, no matter how conventionally attractive you may be. And yet, some girls I find attractive - those with unnaturally-colored hair or piercings or such - don't always do well, no matter how pretty they may be. Maybe it's the Midwest sensibilities I know little about.

Ever the scientist, I set out to see how different photos of me would do. I picked images that I thought looked pretty good, although they probably painted vastly different portraits of who I was and what I really looked like. At first, I was told that I was fairly unattractive, since this photo got a 1.8 out of 10, and this one got a paltry 1.2. Ouch! Maybe bleach-blonde hair doesn't go over so well out there. Maybe I should have shaved. In an effort to appeal to the masses, I submitted this photo and received a more encouraging 4.2. Is it the appearance that I am "a little bit country", or merely the fact that you can't see my face as well in that one? Is it the two watches? More research was needed, so I submitted this guy and did even better - a whopping 4.8! I was genuinely not unattractive now! Did the overalls make me look less threatening, more rural perhaps? Is it the red hair? The barely-visible Spitting Image hand puppet of Ronald Reagan that gave the picture a compassionate, conservative tone? I had to do one more experiment. I posted this image and received a astounding 6.1! The people had spoken, I was attractive than more than half of AmIHotOrNot's pool of flesh, and I decided that before the hoi polloi came to their senses (and realized I was just a fad being pushed on them by my massive marketing machine), I would stop posting any more pictures of myself.

Clearly, this shows how fickle people are. Or maybe just stupid, but you don't need an experiment to prove that. Maybe it just shows how one picture isn't enough to tell you what a person looks like. Maybe it shows what an egotistical dork I am. I'd take a vote on what the true conclusion to this experiment is, but I already know the answer, and besides, science don't work like that.