Beautiful people have so many problems. Not only do they have to worry about getting mobbed at parties and being given more free swag than they can carry home in a taxi but now they have to worry that their friends are spying on them on the Internet. No, this is not the usual Big Brother hysteria over being outed for one’s political views, cross-dressing fetish or secret collection of Marie Osmond porcelain dolls. It turns out that if you are beautiful you have a lot more to be worried about than your drunk-face pictures going viral on Facebook. Like, say, your friends tattling on you for gaining weight.
Beautifulpeople.com, the dating site notorious for requiring people to pass a hotness panel before joining (death panels are so passe!), has recently made news again for kicking off over 5,000 members after other members ratted them out for getting fat. The newly unbeautiful were pushed off their sanctimonious pedestals after posting pictures of themselves enjoying holiday goodies and having the audacity to not barf them up immediately afterward. And as everyone knows, fat = ugly.
Site founder Robert Hintze explains the move saying, “As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld. Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.” While Hintze does not explain how calling customers “fatties” is good for potential business, he does say that if the ex-members whip themselves back into acceptable condition they can reapply and, if they pass the hotness panel, rejoin.
Why would people want to rejoin a group that found them so abhorrent they couldn’t even tolerate looking at their pictures? Because, of course, it is an exclusive club and people like being special. It’s easy to pick apart BeautifulPeople.com – after all their homepage is littered with superficial gems like “Do you want to guarantee your dates will always be beautiful? No more filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites!” – but they are merely continuing a long-held human tradition: the middle school clique. Even the fossil record shows evidence of prehistoric pelt-wedgies.
BeautifulPeople.com certainly isn’t the first social group to self select based entirely on one characteristic. While an IQ exam is slightly less subjective than a hotness rating, Mensa is equally exclusive in their membership. So I vote that rather than vilify the pretty people for wanting to keep their ranks pure, we make our own dating site. We may not be cool but we’re a lot closer to cold fusion! Imagine the Mensa dating site: “Tired of meeting stupid people? Bored with dinner conversation that revolves solely around the unironic discussion of reality TV? No more sifting through people that don’t get why prehistoric pelt wedgies are funny!”
The truth is that people have long allowed beauty to blind them to other more important issues, like aspirations of global domination. Just ask Mark Antony. (No, not Mark Anthony although J.Lo. may very well being trying to take over the world -one perfume at a time!) I actually feel for the dethroned beauties. If you have based your whole self image around one thing, especially when that thing is as ephemeral as “beauty”, then it must be quite the blow to informed that you are one of the hoi polloi after all. I’d be interested to know what happens to the 5,000 ousted uglies. Will they move on to other things, eventually realizing their immense good luck in escaping such inanity? Or will they spend inordinate amounts of time and money trying to reclaim what they lost? And, most importantly, will anyone realize that weight is not the defining characteristic of beauty?
Paris Hilton, always available for comment, spoke for all the beleaguered hawt people chiding, “Like I’ve always said – if you’re not a hottie then you’re a nottie!”*
*Paris Hilton did not actually say this. Despite my maiden name being Hilton, I hail from the side of the clan with the “panties on” gene and am therefore ostracized at all family functions. Still, I bet she was thinking it!
Anyone else kinda feel sorry for the not-hotties? Or did you crack a little smile and envision slapping a sticker on their rear that says “spanked by karma”??
i have to admit that i did chuckle a bit. but i was shocked that such a site exists! like you said, sooo middle school and i actually feel a little bit bad for the people using the site in general because if, i remember correctly from middle school, those exclusive cliques had major insecurity issues that made them feel the need to pick on others. hopefully those kicked off wake up and see the light
But what about those of us who are neither Beauty School nor Mensa material? O! Woe to the middle-of-the-road middle-class middletons 🙁
I take exception to your description of this behavior as 'middle school.' What makes you think it got better in high school? Did you go to a high school of people who were into acceptance of differences and peace among men?
Dang, woman, if there were a time machine I'd use it to go back and check out this mythical place!
– Merry the Cranky
(Whaddya mean is this PMS? I'm always like this!)
Part of me is kinda glad this site exists; it'll help the rest of the population skip the vapid, shallow segment of humanity and allow them to move on to the cool, interesting folks. (I say "them" because I have already met my cool, interesting, and totally-hot-but-doesn't-think-he-is other half. Plus, I'm not one of the beautiful OR smart people.)
I'm usually against segregation, but after having lived in L.A (the Home of the Proudly Vapid and Shallow) for so long, I'm thinking we could just put all the pretty, mean people together and let them fight amongst themselves, leaving the rest of us to live our lives in peace.
i'm beautiful, but i don't have bulimia. however, i do not like the suggestion that i am automatically boring or stupid enough to watch reality tv (or television at all— because i don't).
i don't vomit everything i eat to stay thin, i just workout a lot and i don't stuff my face full of crap!
p.s. paris hilton is not beautiful.
very nice blog
I have heard about this site & to me, yes, it is a free country but the whole thing makes my PO'd to no end!!! It is like that stupid millionaire matchmaker show, who tells the curly haired curls to straighten their hair. Yes, I liked to straighten my hair when I was younger but does that mean that us curly haired girls will never get the guy…
This whole mentality makes me crazy!!!
I've heard about this site…and yeah, it does sound kinda shallow.
I actually met my super-awesome husband on eHarmony. But other than him, I was really disappointed with how most guys portrayed themselves on the site. They'd say they were in shape and really into fitness but their photos were, well, not really great examples of fitness. It would've actually been nice to have the eHarmony website help police people that were not honest about their looks and physical activity. Just my two cents though. 🙂
yikes! hotness panel? seriously?
I kinda think the people that visit these sites deserve each other and they are pretty perfectly matched. Feel sorry for their kids, though.
cammi99
This dude SAID that? "Fatties"? He can say things like that without getting sued? Huh.
I don't imagine much good comes from websites like these. I think we all need to be firmly convinced of our own good looks and not bother with trying to compare ourselves to others- isn't THAT the beauty of the human body? That we're all DIFFERENT? That's what I think.
I was getting kind of creeped out until you imagined the Mensa dating site. Then I thought: Hmm, if I was dating, I'd sign up for that!
😉
Well, nope, I can't muster up much sympathy for the no-longer-hotties.
Though I'm kinda glad that the people who value arbitrary standards of physical attractiveness above all else have a place of their own to keep them occupied. That way there's less risk of the rest of us having to deal with them.
Yeah seriously, keep them in their own little playpen so that the rest of the human race can continue on as normal. To those of them kicked off the island: welcome to the real world, where things aren't QUITE so one-dimensional.
The 13 year old in me who lives for schadenfreude thinks that if people want to be a part of such a snarky, selective group, they should be able to handle the repercussions. I can only hope the 5000 people kicked off can realize they're worth more than their "hotness score" and be happy.
I actually frowned "out loud" at that one.
I think I'll have to cancel my membership to that club. Oh, that's right, I have kids so how could I pass the panel? Bitches.
This whole ridiculous site reminds me of something Jessica Biel told Allure. She said being beautiful was so hard because people turned her down for movie roles based on her looks. It's not a quote, but she said something like, "I'm so pretty, people don't want to cast me in serious roles."
Um, yeah, that's why. Not because you're a horrible actress. Too bad you're not as ugly as Oscar winners like Kate Winslet and Julia Roberts. Shame.
Oh stop- I'm still laughing aloud at the "letting the fatties roam the site" comment- like they are wildebeests or something.
OK and prehistoric pelt wedgies is my new fave visual. LOLOLOLOL!
I guess if someone is silly enough to base their entire choice of a mate on looks, then they deserve to find someone of equal silliness. Sadly, beauty is fleeting and if that person turns out to be a douchebag, I guess they will be SOL. Win some, lose some. 🙁
Thanks for another HI-larious post! (that is also thought-provoking, natch)
Loved this post. I believe it is a free country and people should organize at will and I sure hope there is a Mensa dating site some day for my girls – they already eschew reality tv and tabloids which makes high school lunch conversations pretty limiting.
Interesting enough, one is in a psych class and they were just assigned to help the 6th grade girls deal with their social issues (as they hope advice coming from seniors will be listened to). A group of girls has striated the class into 4 tiers (aka social classes) and they will only socialize within their tier. Now, the 'lower tiers' have decided to hold dances without the 'upper tiers'. How much do you not want to be 12/13 again?!
One of my favorite shows to watch is The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, because I just cannot comprehend that being the end-all be-all of someone's dreams. Sure, when I was around 8-14, I would have loved to have been one. But at this stage, it just seems so different from who I am that I can't help but be fascinated by it. The people who want to be on that website strike me as the same type of people.
I feel for people who have only had their looks emphasized to them.
Lovin' your blog, darlin'. 😀