May 16, 2001

6:26 PM

PicRaveis replacing Am I Hot or Not as the next way to see and judge beautiful women (and guys) without looking at porn. More inside-->
posted by ktheory (16 comments total)

A little self-promotion: my picture profile.

PicRave focuses much more on building community (see the 'couples' section in which a males and females team up to boost their ratings).

Word of warning to guys considering posting their own pics: prepare to be bombarded with emails and IMs from adolescent girls.

Also, an interesting point is that all photos are filtered, (and sometimes cropped or resized) by people.

Questions:
Why are these sites that judge people so superficially so popular?

What are the risks to promoting this kind of community (e.g., pedophiles)? Is this way of meeting people just as valid as walking up to someone in a bar?

There are more questions, but I'll let the rest of you ask them.
posted by ktheory at 6:35 PM on May 16, 2001

How cutting edge and innovative.
posted by lagado at 7:48 PM on May 16, 2001

One of the first times I've ever said to myself "guess I must be getting old."
posted by ParisParamus at 8:07 PM on May 16, 2001

I guess I'm already years past my current days. Why ain't I interested in "exposing" myself? I'm sure y'all are thinking something.
posted by wantwit at 8:11 PM on May 16, 2001

zzzzzzzzzzz........
posted by jpoulos at 8:13 PM on May 16, 2001

It's like High School online, but instead of a lunchroom seating hierarchy there is a voting system. Community as popularity contest is not a kind thing.
posted by john at 8:27 PM on May 16, 2001

Do their parents know they're doing this?
posted by solistrato at 8:40 PM on May 16, 2001

hey .. how many comments do i have to post before i can post a link ?
posted by sikander at 9:17 PM on May 16, 2001

I thought that's what themes.org was for.
posted by holloway at 9:21 PM on May 16, 2001

"...without looking at porn."

wait wait wait. what's the good part?
posted by pnevares at 10:11 PM on May 16, 2001

It is so nice to finally see the beautiful people being recognized for their struggle against the overbearing burden of having been born attractive. Kudos!
posted by daveleck at 10:56 PM on May 16, 2001

You kids git off the lawn! And turn down dat noise! And quit postin' yer ugly mugs all over the Internet! I'm warnin' ya! I'll call the police! I'll take out my teeth and gum ya ta death!
GET OFF THE LAWN!
posted by ZachsMind at 11:05 PM on May 16, 2001

It's kind of funny, the top two women when I looked at the site both had "foxy" in their usernames (not to mention posting 25 pics of themselves. 25!?!).

It does seem that the site is trying to do something more than the typical hot-or-not site, but the way people are using the site seems typical of the genre - vain people looking for more positive feedback that they're beautiful. And there are a lot of banner ads, which makes me think the community attempts are just ploys for stickiness and ad revenue.
posted by mathowie at 11:27 PM on May 16, 2001

very astute observations mathowie. i must add that "Trendy Writers" is a slick way of having underage persons give you free content and make them feel important. We need more of that. Here's an example of how PicRave changes lives (of whom you can decide). What's also disturbing is a 14 year old is currently (see time posted below) the number 1 rated person on PicRave. hrm...
posted by wantwit at 12:38 AM on May 17, 2001

I was more surprised by the lack of many real sponsors in the banners. From what I can tell, it looks like WebMD and Wall Street Journal are the only outside sponsors, and on a very minimal impression ratio. I thought the parent company's site was pretty interesting though...
posted by modofo at 1:26 AM on May 17, 2001

As a 17 year old, I unfortunately do not seem to be having ktheory's problems of girls my age bombarding me with messages. :(
posted by swank6 at 2:54 PM on May 17, 2001