Sadly they all died from a disease caught from an undisinfected telephone

June 15, 2010 11:30 AM

OKCupid prides itself on being a free (though ad-supported) dating site that (supposedly) doesn't use underhanded methods to make money. But The Consumerist is reporting that some members are receiving notice that, as Beautiful People, "You will now see more attractive people in your match results."
posted by waraw (211 comments total)

I don't see the problem.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:32 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

OKEugenics
posted by Burhanistan at 11:32 AM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure why these two ideas are in opposition.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:33 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't see the problem.

That's because the problem is so much more attractive than you are that it's been hidden from you.
posted by Nothing... and like it at 11:34 AM on June 15, 2010 [42 favorites]

technically, it should ready "you'll be shown people that were ranked as more attractive in a survey of other users of the site. Note that your own standards of personal beauty may vary and you may not really notice any net improvement. Also, these people are not necessarily any nicer or more interested in you."
posted by GuyZero at 11:37 AM on June 15, 2010 [6 favorites]

I think ATT is taking the same approach and hiding the iPhones from me.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 11:37 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Does anyone actually believe those emails are real? I mean, seriously, I thought it was an obvious ploy to get the recipient to log back on, the same way they send you emails about new people in your Quiver and how there are new matches in your area.
posted by schroedinger at 11:37 AM on June 15, 2010 [14 favorites]

I got a notice, should I feel special?

When I read it, it seemed to me that they would simply start using the average star rating as an extra filter in the match search.
posted by Binliner at 11:38 AM on June 15, 2010

And I will now divert another two hundred a month to checking my savings account for cosmetic surgery.
posted by adipocere at 11:38 AM on June 15, 2010

My roommate got one of these emails last week. He was flattered.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:39 AM on June 15, 2010

I'm interested in seeing how they determine attractiveness through algorithms, because there's no way someone is going to filter through every photo. They must do some sort of traffic stats stuff and then sort by most viewed profiles, then equate that with being attractive.

I guess they'll make a OKCupid Blog post about it soon and we'll have a thread about that too. :)
posted by mathowie at 11:39 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm sure everybody got one of these. It's like "Everybody Gets A Trophy" day.
posted by Floydd at 11:39 AM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

schroedinger: "Does anyone actually believe those emails are real"

I don't. I got one of these e-mails about a month ago and expected to log on and find pages of new search results that were hidden from me previously. Not a single new person.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 11:39 AM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Binliner: "it seemed to me that they would simply start using the average star rating as an extra filter in the match search"

Because lord knows us ugly people are primarily attracted to other ugly people.
posted by idiopath at 11:39 AM on June 15, 2010 [5 favorites]

OKCupid is also known for conducting experiments. People are known for their appreciation of flattery. I for one bet that they are graphing usage stats before and after users receive this email. Also click-through rate on said email.
posted by Phredward at 11:40 AM on June 15, 2010 [9 favorites]

In what way is this an underhanded method to make money? Or can you pay to play?
posted by mr vino at 11:40 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Look at all the pretty people!

(within your selected bracket of mate-ability)

"Sloth love Chunk!"
posted by yeloson at 11:42 AM on June 15, 2010 [6 favorites]

I got one of these emails, which either means they aren't really measuring attractiveness or their algorithm done broke.
posted by mullacc at 11:42 AM on June 15, 2010 [13 favorites]

I am among those rated more attractive, and can confirm that it has changed my match results. It has not caused women who are interested in me to move closer to my area, sadly.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 11:42 AM on June 15, 2010

♬
How does it feel to be
One of the beautiful people?
Tuned to a natural E
Happy to be that way.
♬

posted by edgeways at 11:42 AM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah, they sent me one of those emails, and then proceeded to not show me anyone new, hot or otherwise.
posted by 23skidoo at 11:43 AM on June 15, 2010

Yeah, this would be underhanded if you could pay to be shown to more attractive people. Remember that episode of Saved by the Bell?
posted by roll truck roll at 11:43 AM on June 15, 2010

They've been running YourBestFace for a while. I imagine rankings there might be available for data aggregation.
posted by edbles at 11:44 AM on June 15, 2010

Is there a way I can remove the super hot people from my search results? Because I find the girls with composed head shot photos and the "I get way to many messages to respond" profile line kind of annoying.
posted by edbles at 11:46 AM on June 15, 2010

I got the email. The explanation seemed valid (they judge attractiveness based on how other uses rate you on quickmatch and on click followthrough(?)). I didn't notice a change. But I also don't really use the site very much.

It's interesting that they use the quickmatch ranking to determine physical attractiveness, because you're ranking the whole profile when you use it. I, for one, give idiotic and banal profiles one star even if the person is good-looking.
posted by millipede at 11:47 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm interested in seeing how they determine attractiveness through algorithms... They must do some sort of traffic stats stuff and then sort by most viewed profiles

Is that how Flickr does its "interesting"-ness sorting of photos?
posted by cribcage at 11:49 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I didn't get one. :(
I actually just searched my gmail inbox for messages from okCupid but the only stuff there was the usual quickmatch stuff that I never look at. I haven't actually used the site in forever (met my bf on there 3 years ago) but now I inexplicably feel kind of crummy. yay!
posted by capnsue at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2010

I am among those rated more attractive, and can confirm that it has changed my match results. It has not caused women who are interested in me to move closer to my area, sadly.

I see what you did there and lol'd.
posted by ninjew at 11:51 AM on June 15, 2010

This leaves more ugly ones more me.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:52 AM on June 15, 2010

I'm interested in seeing how they determine attractiveness through algorithms, because there's no way someone is going to filter through every photo. They must do some sort of traffic stats stuff and then sort by most viewed profiles, then equate that with being attractive.

I can think of a couple ways they could automate this:

(1) They could look at the average number of stars (out of 5) each user receives from other users. I'm sure many people don't bother with the stars since they're an inessential part of the site, but that doesn't matter -- as long as you've been starred by some users, OKCupid has a basis for knowing how others rate you. The upside of this is that there's a lot of data to work with, but the downside is that the stars are based on your profile text in addition to your photos.

(2) OKCupid has a new project called MyBestFace (which is what edbles linked to), where you upload a few photos of yourself that clearly show your face, and other people decide if they'd want to date you or some other user based on two side-by-side photos. I received the "You're good-looking" email just 12 days after participating in MyBestFace. If OKCupid is sending the emails based on MyBestFace, this would have the advantage of being pretty directly based on how people respond to your photos and no other info about you.
posted by Jaltcoh at 11:52 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's old advice, but sound: Don't pick a woman you can't keep.
posted by Joe Beese at 11:53 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

problem?
posted by L'OM at 11:53 AM on June 15, 2010

I'm sure everybody got one of these. It's like "Everybody Gets A Trophy" day.

The email says at the end:

And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see.

posted by Jaltcoh at 11:53 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users.

Wow, so this isn't even an elite thing? HALF of their userbase can now infer that they're ugly, or at least below average? What assholes. (Uh, no, I didn't get the email!)
posted by naju at 11:56 AM on June 15, 2010

And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see.

i guess i can confirm this. :(
posted by capnsue at 11:56 AM on June 15, 2010 [4 favorites]

These people have some serious explaining to do. I got one of those "Congrats, you're pretty!" emails a few days ago. I sent a reply that there must be some mistake, that as a 30 something happily married dude I wasn't looking to be part of the dating scene at all, and asked them to fix the problem ASAP. OKCupid replied back pretty quickly and said it would be fixed the next day.

So you can imagine how mad I was when I woke up in Chicago yesterday morning as a 22 year old barista named Holly. I tried to call my wife to explain what was going on, but of course she didn't believe me, she just shouted that she wanted to know where her husband went and threatened to call the cops on me.

I tried to log back in to complain, but I don't know Holly's login details, so that's no help. I ended up getting dressed (which was a lot harder than I thought) and heading out to drown my sorrows. That sucked even more. I couldn't even order a beer before some dude was asking me for my number!

This just goes to show: never join a dating site run by mischievous mythological creatures.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:56 AM on June 15, 2010 [72 favorites]

Oh, actually, to answer mathowie more directly, the email specifies how they came up with the information:

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.

How can we say this with confidence? We've tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people's reactions to you in QuickMatch and Quiver.

posted by Jaltcoh at 11:57 AM on June 15, 2010

Yes one of my friends got this. I did not. For the record, I was pissed. Then I went back under my bridge and cried in my big pillow.
posted by spicynuts at 11:59 AM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.

This sounds like a Chance card from Monopoly.
posted by cashman at 12:00 PM on June 15, 2010 [5 favorites]

the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users.

Wait, I just realized we can't infer anything from that statement. Nevermind.
posted by naju at 12:01 PM on June 15, 2010

Even I got one of those emails. So um...clearly doesn't mean anything.
posted by special-k at 12:01 PM on June 15, 2010

robocop is bleeding: I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by edbles at 12:02 PM on June 15, 2010

Didn't get one. But this cements my opinion the OKC is full of superficial assholes. (Held long before this event)
posted by Hactar at 12:04 PM on June 15, 2010

I wanna live like beautiful people...
posted by hippybear at 12:04 PM on June 15, 2010

I wish I was even better looking.
posted by I Foody at 12:09 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

ok, but how is this helpful? at least the last fpp on best ways to take a profile pic showed up as results around the web, now you just weep if you don't get an email?
posted by infini at 12:10 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm interested in seeing how they determine attractiveness through algorithms, because there's no way someone is going to filter through every photo.

Two thoughts:

1. Mechanical Turk, maybe?
2. They could probably create exactly the same effect (from a marketing standpoint) by selecting half their users randomly as by actually evaluating attractiveness.
posted by gurple at 12:10 PM on June 15, 2010

I think people might be misreading OKCupid's email. Everyone seems to be assuming that it must be referring to search results. I'm not so sure about that.

Here's the relevant text of the email:

Your new elite status comes with one important privilege:

You will now see more attractive people in your match results.

This new status won't affect your actual match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match's answers. But the people we recommend will be more attractive. Also! You'll be shown to more attractive people in their match results.

Now, the OKCupid staffers strike me as very savvy and articulate, much more so than the average dating site. Their email consistently uses the phrase "match results," and they say they'll "recommend" people who are more attractive. Why don't they ever use the word "search"? Maybe because that's not what they mean.

Of course, most people will read "match results" and think of search results. But it's implausible that until a few weeks ago, OKCupid was hiding its most attractive profiles from me whenever I ran a search on the site. Why would any dating site want to artificially lower the average physical attractiveness of profiles accessible to people using the site?

I think when they talk about "match results" and who they'll "recommend" to me, they're referring to the many places on the site where profile thumbnails pop up not as a result of my own search queries -- in the left-hand sidebar on each page, in the "more people like ____" right-hand sidebar of each profile, etc. If that's what the email means, I really don't think this is a big deal. I happen to find those extra, unprompted "match results" kind of annoying (why can't OKCupid leave it to me to decide what kinds of people to search for?), but it just doesn't have much effect on my use of the site.

(I'm not discounting the possibility that the whole thing is a flat-out lie. I'm just saying it could be true without affecting search results.)
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:12 PM on June 15, 2010 [7 favorites]

Son of a bitch-- everyone got that?

btw, I love okcupid. It's a casual, fun way for nerds to hook up. I've never paid a dime for it, nor felt pressured to.
posted by empath at 12:14 PM on June 15, 2010

Congratulations, [RESIDENT]. You may already be a winner!
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 12:15 PM on June 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

If I was beautiful like you...
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:15 PM on June 15, 2010

Attractive if it's based on the criteria they say, seems to attractive in the "arousing interest" sense of the word. Their e-mail claims they aren't using MyBestFace and are instead using QuickMatch and Quiver click-throughs which could be based on opening snippets as much as photos.
posted by edbles at 12:16 PM on June 15, 2010

I thought I'd finally freed myself from the shackles of mingerdom when I got my email. As seems typical with OKCupid outside the US and London, my top 40 matches were the same bisexual women in a MF relationship looking for a girl as they have always been.

Then I re-read the email and saw that I'd just flipped from the lower 50% to the top 50% so the email that made me preen in front of the mirror for half an hour was actually an email telling me I was decidedly average.
posted by vbfg at 12:17 PM on June 15, 2010

What if you use different criteria in your search for a partner? Can I stop seeing stupid people? People with no sense of Humor? Mean people? I so hate rankings by looks that I would not use OKCupid for this reason.
posted by theora55 at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I suspect this is all part of an experiment that we'll soon see a blog post about. I mean, they sent me that email, so their attractiveness "algorithm" is obviously flawed beyond usefulness.

*sigh*
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2010

Jesus this is cold. What an excellent way to upset half your user base. I'm happily married and I never had to do the internet dating thing (thank God, apparently), but if I were a subscriber I certainly wouldn't be getting one of those emails and I'd be really upset about it and I'd probably quit -- I'm self aware and all, but that doesn't mean I don't have feelings. I don't get it. Do they WANT to alienate half their users? Seriously, what's the business model here?
posted by The Bellman at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

They changed the sender name on these emails from "OkCupid!" to "OkCupid! Summer Interns". Subsequent OKC emails are still from "OkCupid!".
posted by christopherious at 12:21 PM on June 15, 2010

Son of a bitch-- everyone got that?

Um, no.

But if I were a subscriber I certainly wouldn't be getting one of those emails and I'd be really upset about it and I'd probably quit -- I'm self aware and all, but that doesn't mean I don't have feelings.

As a subscriber I'm not really that hurt. Definitely not enough to quit, because okCupid has otherwise been a huge boon. I have a feeling that if I concentrated on improving the profile pictures I could move up in the world, but like my real-life appearance my online appearance just isn't that much of a priority.
posted by edbles at 12:21 PM on June 15, 2010

One other thing. Since they've admitted that minorities don't do so well on their site ("racism is alive and well"), is the new crowd-sourced "stable of hotties" going to look awfully... white?
posted by naju at 12:22 PM on June 15, 2010 [4 favorites]

Match results are what turns up when you go to the match page. I'm sure it just will now take attractiveness into account.

I haven't noticed any difference.

But this cements my opinion the OKC is full of superficial assholes.

I've found that OKC does pretty well at matching you up with people who are pretty similar to you.
posted by empath at 12:22 PM on June 15, 2010 [4 favorites]

So nobody didn't get the email, am I not incorrect in this assumption?
posted by Mister_A at 12:23 PM on June 15, 2010

No.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:23 PM on June 15, 2010

Match results are what turns up when you go to the match page.

What does this mean? There are "matches" all over the site.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:24 PM on June 15, 2010

Also, I agree with the people saying this might just be an experiment. I eagerly await the blog posting about this. I like that OK Cupid seems to be run by a bunch of nerds playing with a skinner box.
posted by empath at 12:24 PM on June 15, 2010

What does this mean? There are "matches" all over the site.

There is a match page. I assume the algorithm that's been changed is the default one - 'special blend'
posted by empath at 12:26 PM on June 15, 2010

Mister_A, I didn't get the email.
posted by capnsue at 12:26 PM on June 15, 2010

One other thing. Since they've admitted that minorities don't do so well on their site ("racism is alive and well"),

ah well, that explains everything
posted by infini at 12:27 PM on June 15, 2010

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.

Thrilled to discover they didn't go further than "top half." Cuz that's kind of a booby prize if there are emails for 75th and 90th percentiles.
posted by grobstein at 12:28 PM on June 15, 2010

There is a match page.

OK, but the phrase was "match results," not "match page." How do you know they're not using "match results" to mean "the results that we get behind the scenes when we try to come up with matches for you to see all over the site"? Let's face it: considering how many different ways OKCupid has of showing you "matches," the phrase "match results" is ambiguous.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:29 PM on June 15, 2010

One other thing. Since they've admitted that minorities don't do so well on their site ("racism is alive and well"), is the new crowd-sourced "stable of hotties" going to look awfully... white?
posted by naju

FWIW, I'm apparently a member of the stable of hotties, and I'm not white.
posted by Comrade_robot at 12:29 PM on June 15, 2010

And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone

The others were told they were more intelligent and will be matched accordingly.
posted by Obscure Reference at 12:29 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Do they WANT to alienate half their users? Seriously, what's the business model here?

But it's only the ugly ones they're alienating. Yeah. Or some shit.
posted by paultopia at 12:30 PM on June 15, 2010

I assume the algorithm that's been changed is the default one - 'special blend'


Doubt it. special blend [before and now] only shows me women who haven't logged on in a very long time.
posted by special-k at 12:31 PM on June 15, 2010

One other thing. Since they've admitted that minorities don't do so well on their site ("racism is alive and well"), is the new crowd-sourced "stable of hotties" going to look awfully... white?

So in other words this means that the site is going to be even more unusable for me. (Well except for Flagmod which is its own kind of fun.)
posted by Rubbstone at 12:33 PM on June 15, 2010

FWIW, I'm apparently a member of the stable of hotties, and I'm not white.

Yeah, me too. But I have a feeling they chose me to be the token brown person.
posted by special-k at 12:34 PM on June 15, 2010

They could easily implement some kind of affirmative action to correct any racial skew, since most people specify their race in their profile.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:35 PM on June 15, 2010

"And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see."

i guess i can confirm this. :(
posted by capnsue at 2:56 PM on June 15 [+] [!]

An "ugly friend"?? What a load of bullshit. I challenge anyone who reads MeFi to click capnsue's profile page (and linked flickr stream) and pronounce her anything other than awesome. Astrophysics? Are you kidding me? This is what I meant in my comment. Is it really a good business model to attack people's self-esteem like this? Screw them, capnsue.
posted by The Bellman at 12:37 PM on June 15, 2010 [4 favorites]

which wouldn't make any difference to the actual results anyways.. as a side note, I never liked match sites, i prefer hanging out and blathering to going out on formal "dates". tried that and its harder work figuring out whether the other person has a brain or not adn if so do they know how to use it
posted by infini at 12:37 PM on June 15, 2010

Cuz that's kind of a booby prize if there are emails for 75th and 90th percentiles.

I wonder if those who have blank profile pages, no pictures, or obvious scam pages count in the sample pool. If so, the top "half" might be wider, and therefore crueler, than we think.

I deleted my OKC account a while ago, since getting serious with the girlfriend I met on there, so I've been spared an email or a lack thereof.

I'm weirdly confused by this move. It seems too drastic and personal to just be an experiment on OKC, or maybe I'm way off. There is a certain sense in matching people of equal attractiveness, but telling people about it seems bizarre. As stated earlier above, the OKC people seem far too smart to do this just to flatter some of the users and depress some others - especially since those offended are probably more offended than the flattered users are flattered.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:38 PM on June 15, 2010

An "ugly friend"?? What a load of bullshit. I challenge anyone who reads MeFi to click capnsue's profile page (and linked flickr stream) and pronounce her anything other than awesome.

Oh, come on ... she said she hasn't used the site in years! She probably hasn't shown up in QuickMatch or Quiver at all, which would explain why she didn't get an email.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:43 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I have no problem with them actually doing this--I'm not in the top half, but it's worked well for me in that I've been distracted by fewer pretty boys and am getting likelier matches. (I found out about it when I was someone's ugly friend about a month ago.)

But telling people what side of the divide they're on? Stupid. No way was that going to stay under wraps.
posted by Epenthesis at 12:44 PM on June 15, 2010

"I got a notice, should I feel special? "

You're still using a dating site. Feel as special as you want.
posted by doctor_negative at 12:46 PM on June 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure how this is 'underhanded', people are more likely to date people about as attractive as they are.
posted by delmoi at 12:47 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I tried out their Your Best Face picture rating thingamajig. I uploaded four pictures and one got way better results than the other three. I switched my profile pic to that picture and actually did start seeing a higher number of visits to my profile page.

I got the you're pretty email about a week later and thought it must be the result of the increase in my click-throughs. I did start seeing some new women in my suggested matches.
posted by Babblesort at 12:48 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

At some point in its history, did OKCupid acquire some other dating sites? This past Valentine's Day, I got a "Congratulations on not being single" email from OKCupid. The last time I used a dating site was almost ten years ago, and I don't think I ever bothered to log back in and tell it I wasn't single anymore.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:49 PM on June 15, 2010

The last time I used a dating site was almost ten years ago, and I don't think I ever bothered to log back in and tell it I wasn't single anymore.

That doesn't make sense -- OKCupid has only existed for 6 years. Maybe it was some kind of spam.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:52 PM on June 15, 2010

I'm confused about this, honestly. I have logged into the site recently (mostly to check out profiles of people that my friends were chatting with, because they asked me to) and I show up on quickmatch all the time, at least a few times a week, and people send me messages every now and then...so I don't know, I don't think it's based SOLEY on when you last logged in or used the site.

and seriously, thank you for the kind words, Bellman. Thing is I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about how "attractive" I am, and I hate it when something like this just makes me feel like shit out of the blue. I would never in a billion years give a shit as to whether I was part of the "stable of hotties" until I'm explicitly told I'm not. blah.
posted by capnsue at 12:52 PM on June 15, 2010

But telling people what side of the divide they're on? Stupid. No way was that going to stay under wraps.

Yes I agree with this, I don't have any delusions of better-than-average attractiveness, but it was a pretty dumb move on OKC's part. They might as well have sent everyone else an email telling them that they were in the bottom half. It all sounds like a not very well thought out summer intern project.
posted by burnmp3s at 12:53 PM on June 15, 2010

I got the email, and I'm not even an OKCupid member. Yes, yes, that is how attractive I am.
posted by davejay at 12:55 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

attractive to spam
posted by davejay at 12:55 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, capnsue, one thing we know is that their email can't possibly be true. It's incoherent. First it claims to have figured out who the "good-looking" people are. Then it says the way it figured this out is by looking at who was chosen or rated highly in QuickMatch and Quiver. I've never used Quiver so I don't know how it works, but QuickMatch does not just show photos and ask people to rate their physical attractiveness. QuickMatch shows almost all of a profile and has people give it a number of stars, which is really code for "I'll give this person 4 or 5 stars if I'm interested in them; otherwise, I'll randomly give them 1, 2, or 3 stars." I have no idea what your profile text says, but if it at all refers to your unavailable status, that would explain why (if) people don't give you high ratings. Anyway, you've been in a relationship for 3 years -- why does it matter whether people like your ancient dating profile text?
posted by Jaltcoh at 1:00 PM on June 15, 2010

They need to break down the data a bit more.

"Congratulations -- you're cute and nerdy! However, we see you're still in high school, where your best matches are still fruitlessly chasing that football jock/cheerleader. We think you'll be pleased with your prospects, however, about ten years from now."
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 1:01 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wait. i got an email from them saying I have a "great personality." Does that mean what I think it means?
posted by rtimmel at 1:01 PM on June 15, 2010 [9 favorites]

From an economics standpoint, this move makes sense. And I'm not referring to economics as in "OkCupid wants moar money." I mean economics in the sense of efficiently matching users together. There are finite resources here (time and attention) and an extremely large matching result set. I think I read about this last month somewhere (Mashable?), and the reasoning listed there is good. Users are more likely to have a good experience if they're matched with people that they're likely to follow up with. So users benefit. Of course, this benefits OkCupid too. Users who have a good experience are more likely to return and tell their friends. This even benefits the less attractive people. They're more likely to receive a reply from somebody in their attractiveness range.

A lot of people have brought up the fact that they're getting the same results back as before, but this indicates a misunderstanding of the many ways search results can be massaged. It's not just "dump all the results on a series of pages." Results are filtered and sorted. For example, while you may get the same users in your results as before, the more attractive ones might float to the top more. Depending on the weight they assign to this feature, the floating may be more pronounced than not.

The real danger here is that systems like this generates homogeneity in our culture aka cyberbalkanization, an idea heavily popularized by the new head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass R. Sunstein. While it might not be in OkCupid's and it's users interests to promote diversity in search results, it may be in our society's best interest.
posted by formless at 1:02 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

someone fire those interns
posted by grobstein at 1:03 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I didn't get one. Those fuckers.


What a weird thing to do, anyway. Did they think the news wouldn't get out to the lower 50? Is there some complex, 3-Dimensional, space-chess game that they're playing with their users so they can shoot out another statistically inaccurate blog post?
posted by codacorolla at 1:04 PM on June 15, 2010

I just received a video showing the founders of OKC holding me down while taking turns peeing on me. Weirdest thing is, the video is seemingly post-dated exactly twenty minutes from now. I wonder what this could mean. Probably nothing.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:05 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

I got the email, and I was flattered, but then I put two and two together. I'm a chubby chaser (ugh I hate that term), and all the other users are voting down all the BBWs. Great, now they're invisible. Since then, I've kinda put OKCupid down, but I might try it again if there's a way to disable the "hide the ugly" option.

Plus, in QuickMatch, I found myself voting on the person's profile as a whole, not just looks.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:08 PM on June 15, 2010

I wonder if they’re doing percentage or straight up numbers? Like are people living in metropolitan areas more likely to end up in the top 50% based on sheer numbers?
posted by edbles at 1:09 PM on June 15, 2010

It is entirely possible OKC did not expect The Internet to take a publicity ploy so seriously.
posted by schroedinger at 1:09 PM on June 15, 2010

Did they think the news wouldn't get out to the lower 50?

This is actually a WB-Superstar-style reversal, and the OKC admin are "negging" the top 50 so they can score dates with them.

Or they hit the bottle a little too hard this last weekend.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 1:10 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also everyone's assuming attractive means "hot." If they're using Quickmatch and Quiver text is a big part of that. It seems to mean has an attractive profile.
posted by edbles at 1:11 PM on June 15, 2010

I followed the creators of OKC after they left The Spark years ago, and I've traded friendly emails with some of them over the years (starting back when they had only a few thousand users). They all seem like warm, good-natured people who all have an irreverent sense of humor.

Not once have I ever seen one of them write anything that ridiculed someone because of their looks. They all have accounts and seem willing to have a conversation with anyone about anything, regardless of how they look. That alone is less superficial than most people. (In my experience, many people reserve their friendliness for people who are as good-looking as they are.)

The only things they've done is acknowledge that hot people like to be matched with other hot people, and that people like to be told they're hot.

This has to be part of an experiment. I wouldn't take it so personally.
posted by Toothless Willy at 1:16 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Ignoring the economics for a second, the other issue is the "offensiveness" of this move. Is it offensive if all the users benefit? I've noticed MetaFilter has a tendency to get offended when sexual attraction is the topic of discussion. One of my favorite ask mefi comments is in this thread Is it true that the first thing women check out on a guy are his glutes?. The thread is mostly a series of "No!" answers, but then merocet relates his experience with eye tracking research in store displays.

We might not like to admit it, but sexual attraction preferences are deeply ingrained in us, both culturally and biologically. Using those to generate a better user experience makes sense to me.
posted by formless at 1:16 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also everyone's assuming attractive means "hot." ... It seems to mean has an attractive profile.

The email begins with a huge photo of the recipient, then an equals sign, then "good-looking," as in, "[You are] good-looking."
posted by Jaltcoh at 1:16 PM on June 15, 2010

The email begins with a huge photo of the recipient, then an equals sign, then "good-looking," as in, "[You are] good-looking."

Ah. Okay now I hate them forever or until I get bored and scroll through my Quiver again.
posted by edbles at 1:24 PM on June 15, 2010

I didn't get one. Then again, I deleted my account two weeks ago. Aside from OKCupid getting my hopes up again and again with their teaser emails, the initial relative anonymity of online dating makes for some flaky-ass people and I'm tired of the disappointment. But I'm not bitter. Nope.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 1:25 PM on June 15, 2010

I suddenly wonder if I'm the only Mefite not on OKCupid. Are there meetups there? Do they have cameras? What am I missing?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:25 PM on June 15, 2010

I suddenly wonder if I'm the only Mefite not on OKCupid. Are there meetups there? Do they have cameras? What am I missing?

I tried to join, but they're hiding the whole site from me.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 1:30 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Love and lust are not democratic. Dating opportunities make precious little room for "fair." Anything which reminds us of this raises our ire, most especially if we are not at the top of the dating pyramid. With that in mind, OKCupid might have been better served to tweak the match algorithm and then say nothing about it.
posted by adipocere at 1:35 PM on June 15, 2010

Didn't get the email. Of course, I don't have a picture up but now it looks like that would just be an avenue to make me feel like crap.
posted by dilettante at 1:35 PM on June 15, 2010

This seems like a good way to get new members, who join in order to find out if they qualify as attractive. I call this a marketing ploy.
posted by orme at 1:38 PM on June 15, 2010

to be honest, being in the top half of ok cupid users is not exactly an amazing accomplishment. It's like finding out you have at least a 100 IQ.
posted by empath at 1:39 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah I got that email and thought it was real fucked up. Oh and FYI: Internet dating doesn't work.
posted by thescientificmethhead at 1:44 PM on June 15, 2010

I have two OKC profiles, one that I use to take their silly little personality tests and one that I actually use to meet people. Both profiles have the same picture of me. The profile I don't use for dating purposes got the attractiveness email, and my "real" profile didn't.

This seems to suggest that the whole thing is a ploy to get people who don't use the site to its full potential to log on more.
posted by arianell at 1:46 PM on June 15, 2010 [8 favorites]

Does is it factor in the fact that I'm ugly in the morning?

Am I the only one who's never tried an online dating site? I don't count my stale account at consumating, as it was way to lame for anyone to get a date from.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:56 PM on June 15, 2010

Oh and FYI: Internet dating doesn't work.

Ok I’m getting a little tired of this only-losers-use-online-dating/online-dating-doesn’t-work attitude in this thread. Guess what? If you’re gay/shy/slow-to-warm-generally/nerdy/bad-at-approaching-random-strangers for whatever reason, online dating is a fucking godsend. It’s also good training wheels for real approaching and asking out situations. Go look at AskMe if you don’t believe me.
posted by edbles at 1:59 PM on June 15, 2010 [7 favorites]

Guess what? If you’re gay/shy/slow-to-warm-generally/nerdy/bad-at-approaching-random-strangers for whatever reason, online dating is a fucking godsend.

As long as you're not "ugly", evidently.
posted by The Bellman at 2:03 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Bellman's right. Any algorithm that says capnsue is not attractive is just plain broken. Fact.
posted by straight at 2:08 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Ok I’m getting a little tired of this only-losers-use-online-dating/online-dating-doesn’t-work attitude in this thread. ... Go look at AskMe if you don’t believe me.

Hey, maybe all those people talking about how they met their significant others and spouses through dating sites are all lying!
posted by Jaltcoh at 2:11 PM on June 15, 2010

It's better to approach women you don't know on a dating site than to approach women you don't know on the street, imo.
posted by empath at 2:19 PM on June 15, 2010 [6 favorites]

If these things were real, I would be expecting an email about how I'm now relegated to the crazy people because of my horrible personality
posted by tehloki at 2:39 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

tehloki, I think they'd filter you out because you'd manage to click on both pictures when asked which person is more attractive.
posted by GuyZero at 2:45 PM on June 15, 2010 [4 favorites]

Oh and FYI: Internet dating doesn't work.

Oh, and FYI: you must be doin it wrong
posted by Nothing... and like it at 2:49 PM on June 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

Are you one of the beautiful people? Is my name on your list?
posted by ZsigE at 2:49 PM on June 15, 2010

I am in the bottom half of their most attractive users.
posted by Eideteker at 3:01 PM on June 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

Also, I agree with the people saying this might just be an experiment. I eagerly await the blog posting about this. I like that OK Cupid seems to be run by a bunch of nerds playing with a skinner box.

Yeah, I think this is probably an experiment to see if the randomly selected people who get the email then start sending more messages because they think they're seeing more attractive people (when really, nothing has changed). Thats exactly the sort of the thing that would make a good OKCupid blog post.
posted by memebake at 3:04 PM on June 15, 2010

I am married. I have no further need for attractiveness.
posted by Danf at 3:07 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Now that we're discussing OKCupid, can I complain about all the married/in a relationship people on the site who claim they are doing it to 'keep in touch with friends'? It's one thing if they don't actively message single girls, but I would still be irritated if my bf was on a website called Okcupid. Anyway, back to the story. When I first joined the site some guy that was not at all my type was messaging me. We emailed back and forth a bunch, I didn't study his profile or anything but then I agreed to meet him for coffee. We met, I concluded that while he was nice he was really really not someone I would ever find attractive (long hair and earring--blech). Awhile later he emailed me asking to go out again, and I said "you know, you're great, but I just don't feel it". I got this indignant email back about how he has a girlfriend and I misunderstood the whole thing. Ok, fine, it did say that but what kind of creep emails single girls on a dating website asking them out to coffee and has a girlfriend???? That's just weird dude, it's weird.
posted by treeshar at 3:14 PM on June 15, 2010

a lot of people really are on ok cupid to meet friends, also a lot of people just join it for the quizes.
posted by empath at 3:16 PM on June 15, 2010

I haven't used this site in forever, but my lack of getting an email made me... curious (or upset/jealous/however you want to read it ;), as I had uploaded some photos of some modeling work I had done. So I logged to see wtf, and there is definitely some filtering going on now. Whereas my matches before ran the gamut from 1-10, without exaggeration, no girls I would rate less than a 9 have come up in my matches now. Yeesh.
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 3:20 PM on June 15, 2010

Whereas my matches before ran the gamut from 1-10, without exaggeration, no girls I would rate less than a 9 have come up in my matches now.

Careful with that kind of talk 'round these parts...
posted by Jaltcoh at 3:28 PM on June 15, 2010

They sent me an actual paper letter and I don't even use OKCupid!, what could this mean?
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:31 PM on June 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

They sent me an actual paper letter and I don't even use OKCupid!, what could this mean?

You've ascended to level 90 extreme attractiveness volume 47. You now have Dr. Who* level pheromones shooting out of your nose and people of both sexes will fling themsleves at you as you walk down the street. Now for just 3 easy payments of $47.50 you can ascend to extreme attractiveness level 91 volume 63 and get them to fling themselves at you topless at convenient hours of your choosing.

*_{Seriously the man attracts any person who talks to him for more than 20 seconds, when I act all cooky and weird I just get funny looks.}
posted by edbles at 3:36 PM on June 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yes!
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:55 PM on June 15, 2010

This is the site that used to have a profile box marked "I spend a lot of time thinking about:", and it would randomly (and briefly) appear to people viewing your profile as "What I think about while masturbating:".

They're silly on that site. I love them for it.
posted by Toothless Willy at 3:56 PM on June 15, 2010

Melanie or Marilyn?
posted by Sys Rq at 4:06 PM on June 15, 2010

I am beautiful
No matter what they say
Your words can't bring me down...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:39 PM on June 15, 2010

sooo then I guess I'm the only one here who got the email welcoming him to okCupid Platinum Reserve? it's "strictly for the top 50% of the top 1%" so maybe just confirmation bias given the small sample size in this thread.

they did something similar a few years back with the "hotlist." the email informing me of my inclusion came at a time I desperately needed the ego boost so thanks, okC.

iammadefromham @ okC, come say HAAAAAAAY)
posted by jtron at 5:35 PM on June 15, 2010

I'm sure everybody got one of these.

I'm on OKCupid, and I did not get one of those emails.

Which can only mean one of two things:

1. OKCupid is doing some kind of random "ooh, let's make people feel special," which is a weird sort of way to generate buzz, or

2. It's actually legit, and people on OKCupid think I'm ugly.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:53 PM on June 15, 2010

I didn't get one. But my ex did. And that makes me very, very bitter.
posted by superquail at 5:55 PM on June 15, 2010

I don't know why I didn't get an e-mail. After all, I look hot when I've just woken up.
posted by WCityMike at 6:06 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's pledge week all over again.
posted by contrariwise at 6:11 PM on June 15, 2010

The only things they've done is acknowledge that hot people like to be matched with other hot people, and that people like to be told they're hot.

Yeah, but there are so many different definitions of "hot" that this is meaningless in a collective sense.

I have a very specific idea of what is "hot" for me. I have a feeling that OKC's definition of "hot" doesn't match that. So say I got that magic email, and they now started pre-filtering the "not-hot" people out of my results. How do they know that I WOULDN'T think some of those people WERE hot?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:15 PM on June 15, 2010

I'm going to guess that this is an experiment with half of the users being chosen at random to be sent this email. The only way that would produce measurable results, though, would be to not actually change the matching algorithm in any way. Then they would be able to see if just by thinking that they are seeing a more beautiful selection of the dating pool that would cause an increase in the messages sent or maybe even replied to. What this doesn't explain, though, is the significant increase of hotties linked all the way across my match list. Is anybody else experiencing this? Are these fake profiles? Or are these just typical results and I am being fooled by this ploy as well (despite my not receiving an email anyway and thus being a part of the uglies that should be matched with other uglies)?
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 6:20 PM on June 15, 2010

I got this mail and my girlfriend (whom I met on OKC) did not. I have had better conversations with her than the one that began "Hey, did you get that mail from OKC saying you were in the top half?"
posted by 0xFCAF at 6:34 PM on June 15, 2010 [11 favorites]

Last Saturday I had a second date, someone with whom I had a pretty high match percentage. Towards the end of the evening I asked the name of the very sweet cat curled in my lap.

"Oh, I don't know what he called her, but I haven't chosen her real name yet."
Excuse me?
"The guy she belonged to hangs a confederate flag in his window, so I'm going to keep her."
What??
"He hangs a confederate flag!!"

So apparently it's quite possible to match very well with someone, and yet still discover that they're capable of something well and truly fucked up.
posted by waraw at 6:58 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

So apparently it's quite possible to match very well with someone, and yet still discover that they're capable of something well and truly fucked up.

Or are just....off.

I went on a date with one guy who was nice enough to talk to, but...he looked, furnished his house, and acted like he was secretly an Amish time traveller from circa 1859.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:16 PM on June 15, 2010

Yeah, if you're dating on the internet, then you're doing something wrong.
posted by thescientificmethhead at 7:34 PM on June 15, 2010

Umm. What?

The Internet is a really awesome way to meet people, actually. With the caveat that you have to move it into meatspace quickly, before you start getting invested in each others internet personae as opposed to the actual people.

Or are just....off.

I went on a date once with a guy--not from online, set up by a friend--who was awesome until he snapped his fingers for the waiter.

There was no second date.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:40 PM on June 15, 2010

I didn't get the notice. Also i went out of my way to tell the site that i am in a relationship, and it still sends me matches.

Of course i have only been contacted once, and it was a girl from nowhere near me who went out of her way to tell me that i was a lame loser. It puzzled me, because i (for some reason) didn't (and still don't) want to delete my account, and had intentionally put up crazy stuff to scare people off (which i still do).
posted by djduckie at 7:41 PM on June 15, 2010

I was amazed that they did this. The scale of the reaction must have been quite immense. I imagine the smugness of the world probably increased a measurable amount.
Upon recieving the email, I leaped out of bed and drove for three hours on four hours sleep. This is not common on Saturday mornings.
posted by niccolo at 8:41 PM on June 15, 2010

I was all ready to get out the pitchforks and torches and join the mob when I remembered that I filter all my OKCupid messages to a separate email folder.

Now I'm giddy as a schoolgirl. Heehee. Apparently I am easily swayed.
posted by Skwirl at 9:18 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, if you're dating on the internet, then you're doing something wrong.

OK, now I get it:

Dating: wrong.
Trolling: right.

Thanks for the tip.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 9:43 PM on June 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

Oh, hmm. I was wondering why I suddenly started seeing a lot more people hitting my OKC profile! I guess I'm one of the beautiful people now...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:54 PM on June 15, 2010

But wait, I didn't get an email. What does this mean?!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:58 PM on June 15, 2010

I must say that I've been pretty satisfied with OK Cupid (my profile here, I note that at least one of you is from Brooklyn and female...) - though I haven't quite met the girl of my dreams yet, I've met some people I really liked, had my heart-broken once, and generally kept myself in slap and tickle while waiting for Mlle. Right....

I attribute it to the matching - in particular, I suspect it keeps all the Republicans away from me as everyone I've met has been quite to the left...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:06 PM on June 15, 2010

if you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot.

I'm just sayin' .
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:05 PM on June 15, 2010

What are you just sayin'?
posted by Burhanistan at 11:08 PM on June 15, 2010

I know this is like a crazy concept but I can use okCupid while I'm at work and/or home and still hit on girls at bars irl.

I think it's a win/win.
posted by empath at 11:10 PM on June 15, 2010

Ps, I'm in the top 50%, ladies of metafilter, so feel free to wink at me via memail, with the okcupid guarantee that I am not as ugly as half the people on okcupid.
posted by empath at 11:14 PM on June 15, 2010

I get laid plenty often, PareidoliaticBoy, couple-three times a week.

Though that may well be going up soon courtesy of the wonderful man I have just started seeing. Where did we meet? That would be OkCupid.

Thanks for playing.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:15 PM on June 15, 2010

if you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot.

I dunno, I get laid quite a bit, and OKC has been responsible for much of it recently.

The trouble is finding a long-term partner. It's surprisingly easy to find cute young girls who will have their way with you, but they tend to have poor attention spans. My contemporaries find me too out in left field, or they themselves are too straight for me. And finding someone who's obsessed with music like me is very hard.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:17 PM on June 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

My friend, who is happily dating a boy she met on OKCupid, got this "you're attactive!" email a while ago. I... did not. I'm actively looking, and actively searching, and actually taking it a tiny bit seriously, just in case. But honestly the most exasperating thing about OKCupid to me is how unattractive the large majority of my match results are to me. I'm not the most photogenic girl on the block, but I'd really like to date someone who doesn't immediately strike me as uglier than myself. This whole thing angers me on a middle school level. I want to see the hot guys! Come on, OKCupid! I'll let you copy my math homework.
posted by Mizu at 11:24 PM on June 15, 2010

just fyi, on OKC's database shenanigans (love the tag) I abandoned it in late 2006 but still get emails from them
posted by infini at 12:42 AM on June 16, 2010

f you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot.

*long withering stare*

Please explain to me the following:

a) how much time you think I engage with OKCupid, and

b) how much time you think I engage with real people in real life.



Oh, but first let me round up my defense team, which consists of:

a) everyone at my place of employment (where everyone happens to be married or much younger than me)

b) everyone at my main theater company (where everyone is either coupled or one of my exes, and in one case, it's both)

c) my friends (see my theater company above)

d) everyone else who's ever been to a New York City meetup


And let's let my defense team tell you how much I engage with them in real life, and the calibre and quantity of my interactions with them.



....In short -- the jury has found you to be Guilty Of Talking Out Of Your God-Damned Ass.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:19 AM on June 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

MeTa: Guilty Of Talking Out Of Your God-Damned Ass.
posted by infini at 4:28 AM on June 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I can't believe people are actually taking the time to respond seriously to a comment that begins, "if you dipsticks..."
posted by Jaltcoh at 5:06 AM on June 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

If you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot.

Fuck that sound. OkCupid is multitasking, which me and all my friends are awesome at. I can hit on and flirt with cute girls while listening to my breeder roommate bitch and moan about how hard it is to find and meet straight males. This has the added bonus of distracting me enough to not slap the heteronormative privilege right out of her, which is bad for society, but good for my living situation.

Dating is a numbers game and I will do any god damn thing to cheat those odds.

Also: Dude, you post on metafilter. I sympathize as this is an illness I struggle with as well, but it's a little "kettle you are black."
posted by edbles at 5:14 AM on June 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

I received the "You're good-looking" email just 12 days after participating in MyBestFace.

I also got it a couple of weeks after using this feature. I'm guessing only MyBestFace users (that is, people who signed up to be scrutinized based on their appearance) got it. Each picture you upload to MyBestFace comes back with a percentile rank and data about who picked your picture over a different one. For example, I had one picture that ranked really high among conservatives and meh with everyone else--now I know not to use it.

It's interesting data, and it's the only purely picture-based way to rate people on the site. Every other feature (star ratings, match %, etc) has to do with answering questions about yourself or rating someone's entire profile (not just their photo). Unless they're also paying their summer interns to play hot-or-not with my profile pictures, it's the only place this data could have come from, and it's completely opt-in.
posted by almostmanda at 6:13 AM on June 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

The real danger here is that systems like this generates homogeneity in our culture aka cyberbalkanization, an idea heavily popularized by the new head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass R. Sunstein.

Whoa, did you just feel like dropping some spiffy sociology jargon or what?

These are sub-groups based on attractiveness. Attractiveness != culture.
posted by tybeet at 6:42 AM on June 16, 2010

actually, wouldn't be surprised if attractiveness was indeed = mainstream consumer culture as driven by mass media advertising scenarios
posted by infini at 6:47 AM on June 16, 2010

i have a theory based on pretty much nothing that men get this message more often than women. the only people i know personally who got this message are dudes... many of them unattractive. not that this is objective in any way (shaking my fist at you, okcupid).

maybe i'm wrong about this. probably i am. but if i'm right, it might be because there are (probably) way more dudes on the site and (probably) the girls are, on average, way cuter. or at least that's what i tell myself, because i totally didn't get one of these messages.

the internet is calling me ugly.
posted by timory at 7:18 AM on June 16, 2010

I'm guessing only MyBestFace users

Nope, I got it, and I've only got one photo and have never used mybestface.
posted by empath at 7:43 AM on June 16, 2010

Dear my fellow apparently horrendously grotesque okcupid users:

If all the “beautiful people” were to let’s say disappear, there would be room at the top for our monstrous countenances. Here is my 5 step plan for OkCupid dominance:

Step 1: Swear fealty to me, your overlord.
Step 2: Continue swearing peon.
Step: 3 Acquire Fortress
Step 4: Construct ridiculously outlandish giant laser guided e-mail drones to target recipients of the you are hot e-mail.
Step 5: Receive you are hot e-mail. Oh wait fuck we are the enemy which means: (SPLODEY E-MAIL DRONE SPLOSION)

Ok so I guess that was my 5 step plan for my Okcupid suicide cult. But whatever I’m flexible.
posted by edbles at 8:06 AM on June 16, 2010

if you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot.

I'm guessing someone got 0 responses in their inbox.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:32 AM on June 16, 2010 [6 favorites]

This totally vindicates me for being far too apathetic to ever upload a picture to OKCupid: now I have plausible deniability for why I didn't get this email. I win at online dating forever!
posted by sldownard at 8:57 AM on June 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I got that e-mail, after not having logged into the site for weeks. I immediately did a match search and found that I was getting exactly the same people showing up as before. Nor do the quiver matches seems particularly different than before. I figured it was a way to entice me to log in again. Either that, or there aren't sufficient numbers of users in my area for it to have any discernible difference.
posted by Kurichina at 9:18 AM on June 16, 2010

Hooking up was so much easier before the intarwebz lol
posted by Doohickie at 9:56 AM on June 16, 2010

Eh, I was on OKCupid for a while, deleted my account once, and with input from friends joined again to give it a "second chance," and like going back to an ex, realized why I broke up with it in the first place, then deleted it again recently. I don't know. It just doesn't work for me. I've had people talk to me like I'm outright lying when I said I didn't see the point of being on the site because it was more effort than it was worth since I obviously was not what their userbase of dudes was looking for. They'd be all "WHAT? Omg, internet dating is like a waaayy easier way to meet people, dude." It totally was not for me.

All of their studies and such on their userbase confirmed everything I already knew or suspected: I am of the brown persuasion, not attractive (I don't mean like I'm fug or something, just meaning that I'm not like knock out gorgeous or whatever nerd/hipster/young NY person finds generally attractive), and my pictures have me doing weird shit that are weird enough to not be that usual sexy/sweet/cute profile photo that just makes you want to get to know someone, yet not weird enough to get me point for being quirky.

So for some weird reason, this pretty party invite business is just further vindication in my decisions to leave that site.
posted by kkokkodalk at 10:20 AM on June 16, 2010

if you dipsticks...

You are obviously a people person, and must get laid quite often.
posted by davejay at 12:15 PM on June 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Storytime: I first started communicating with people online when I was a preteen, via acoustic modem, because my father had one. I found an online multiuser system where people played live trivia games, and my typing rapidly improved because winning those games (being the first to type the correct answer) and winning site credit was the only way I could afford to be on the system beyond the trial period.

Then there was a meetup, and my parents let me go (public place and all that.) It turned out to be mostly a bunch of graduate students, because that's the kind of person who had such access to computers at the time. They kind of "adopted" me, since I was only fourteen and more or less harmless; they gave me advice on how to dress and such to succeed in high school, things like that.

Eventually a few more kids close to my age joined the group and I went to a few more parties, and started dating one of them. It worked out like any relationship at that age does, regardless of whether it starts online or not. And over time, I found that meeting people online and offline is more or less the same, because people are people wherever you go. So I stopping going online, and spent my time being social and dating in the real world.

Then around my early twenties, that whole AOL thing (back when they charged by the minute, remember that?) happened, and I went back online to see what it was like. And boy, had it changed; instead of a bunch of smart, funny people chatting about stupid things, it was a huge meat market, with lots of people in my area trying to hook up (this was before the whole AOL chat room-as-stalker-paradise thing happened, although not much before.)

So I went with it, and boy, I met people I would never have met in real life, and did lots of stupid things, and had a great deal of fun, but ultimately the whole thing felt kind of dirty, so I walked away and went back to being social and dating offline.

Then in my late twenties I was bored at work, and was surfing a dating site (no longer around, you could sign up for free initially) laughing at profiles, when I read a profile from someone who seemed smart and funny and together, so I sent a small note saying (in essence) that I wasn't looking to hook up but thought her profile was awesome. She basically responded with a big fuck-you, and that was that.

Except a year later, I found the login info, logged back in, and sent another small note. She responded with an apology for the fuck-you, we chatted, it turned out we lived close to each other and had mutual friends, and we got married less than two years later.

So internet dating, at least in my experience, has evolved quite a bit -- but it's just a tool to meet people that you wouldn't otherwise meet. You still have to be a person if you want to meet people, regardless of method.
posted by davejay at 12:27 PM on June 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

(In my experience, many people reserve their friendliness for people who are as good-looking as they are.)

posted by Toothless Willy at 4:16 PM on June 15 [2 favorites +] [!]

Eponysterical!
posted by Anizev at 1:10 PM on June 16, 2010

I got this mail and my girlfriend (whom I met on OKC) did not. I have had better conversations with her than the one that began "Hey, did you get that mail from OKC saying you were in the top half?"

There's an easy way out of that sticky situation my friend. I'd just say "Well baby, you're certainly in my top fiftieth percentile!"
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:04 PM on June 16, 2010

Well baby, you're certainly in my top fiftieth percentile!

With a slight reworking, you might think this could be used as a pick-up line. Sadly, you are mistaken.
posted by davejay at 3:16 PM on June 16, 2010

Some guy once thought "Hey so, the bar is closing and you're one of the last people here, want to go back to my place?" would work, for some reason.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:22 PM on June 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Whoa, did you just feel like dropping some spiffy sociology jargon or what?

I recently finished a program in Incentive-Centered Design and Social Computing where we studied the relationship between people, technology and information. Specific examples included recommender systems and information retrieval, including research into building diversity into these systems.

So yeah, I did feel just like dropping some spiffy sociology jargon. Designing social software without taking into account the impact on the larger social system often has unintended consequences. It wasn't just to increase my chances of getting laid on Internet dating sites.
posted by formless at 3:54 PM on June 16, 2010

Cripes. I guess if I'm gonna hang around here much more I'm gonna have to start using those stupid emotioncons all the kids are talking about, so that people can tell when I'm being frikken facetious.

IT WAS A JOKE. And as someone noted, calling everyone dipsticks should have been yer first clue.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 5:02 PM on June 16, 2010

IT WAS A JOKE.

No... Jokes are funny.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:13 PM on June 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Tell that to Carrot Top.

He will benchpress your face off.
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:54 PM on June 16, 2010

IT WAS A JOKE.

Well, then, so are our responses.
posted by Jaltcoh at 6:09 PM on June 16, 2010

It's now on the Huffington Post [OKCupid Hides Good-Looking People From Less Attractive Users]
posted by special-k at 6:29 PM on June 16, 2010

Luckily then, everyone here agrees about what's funny.

Etc.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:17 PM on June 16, 2010

Tell that to Carrot Top.

He will benchpress your face off.

He is fucking frightening.

Pareietc, we are all in agreement that what you said wasn't funny. Rather than being pissed off that we didn't get your 'joke', you should maybe realise that in a thread dealing with online dating and people being made to feel ugly, calling everyone a bunch of losers might not be funny when it's not done with nonverbal cues that you only get face to face.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:22 PM on June 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

This all you reference? I think that "all" might not mean what you think it means.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:45 PM on June 16, 2010

For those of you who didn't get the email, it's still being sent out.
posted by aloysius on the mixing boards at 8:03 PM on June 16, 2010

IT WAS A JOKE. And as someone noted, calling everyone dipsticks should have been yer first clue.

A beginner’s guide to communicating with the Internet:

Rule #1: This is not your living room. People don’t know you well enough to read tone and attitude. You words will be taken at face value unless you somehow indicate using direct language that they are not meant to be.

Ways I have seen that accomplished on this site (arranged in order of frequency):

What this would have looked like applied to your post. = WTWHLATP

Emoticons: rarely people on mefi seem to look down on this

WTWHLATP: If you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot. ;-)

HAMBURGER: This is new, but when people don’t feel like being subtle in their phrasing or don’t feel they have enough meta street cred sometimes folks will drop an all caps HAMBURGER into the bottom of their post to indicate sarcasm. This comes from this metatalk thread.

WTWHLATP: If you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot.

HAMBURGER

The sub tag: Sometimes people will add a * followed by a footnote in their post to clearly communicate their actual attitudes.

If you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot.*

*_{kidding, kidding}


It is unclear from your it was just a joke comment whether it was meant to be just a joke at our expense or just a joke depiction of an obnoxious person’s attitude.

If a joke depiction of an obnoxious person’t attitude careful phrasing:

WTWHLATP: If you dipsticks spent even half the energy engaging with real people, in real life, that you spend participating in noxious social cess-pools like that internet gene-dump OK Cupid you'd all get laid way more often, and be way less irritating, to boot. However my usage of metafilter is completely productive and healthy element of my completely normal healthy social life. No problems here nosiree bob. (Goes to check favorites counts).

If a joke at our expense:

WTWHLATYP: Yeah, there’s no way to phrase this appropriately. You don’t know us, so we’re not going to take your casual dismissal lightly. The expectation that we would is strange. It also makes you a representative target for similar less dramatic attitudes expressed upthread, which leads to slamming, from people who’ve been trying to counter those arguments.

Rule #2: See Wil Wheaton’s PAX speech. “Don’t be a dick.”

_{This is literally meant as a helpful guide. (Okay the Rule 2 thing is slightly douche-y but it's meant to jovial punch on the shoulder douche-y). I’ve seen tons of people make the same mistake, and it leads to roiling confused MetaTalk threads in the worst cases. I feel like their utility of the site would improve if this was more clear.}
posted by edbles at 7:26 AM on June 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

....wow.

(P.S. I just got my email. Which doesn't change how negatively I feel about this, and now I'm even more inclined to believe it's some kind of lame experiment or spam.)
posted by naju at 8:28 AM on June 17, 2010

This is new, but when people don’t feel like being subtle in their phrasing or don’t feel they have enough meta street cred sometimes folks will drop an all caps HAMBURGER into the bottom of their post to indicate sarcasm.

Yes, and they should probably be punched in the throat for doing it.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:12 AM on June 17, 2010

Alvy: You seemed upset and I wasn't sure why so I made you a bouquet of HAMBURGER.
Hope this helps!

    {\}{\}
  {\}{\}{\}
{\}{\}{\}{\}
  {\}{\}{\}
     |:   |
    /::'   \
   /:::     \
  |::'       |
  |::        |
  \::.       /
   ':_____.'
posted by edbles at 9:42 AM on June 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Ai! The GRAR inspired by your HAMBUORQUET has ruined my schmoopy SAIT hope me HURF DURF plate of beans you owe me a new keyboard pantfish Todd Lokken.

.

MetaFilter: Ai! The GRAR inspired by your HAMBUORQUET has ruined my schmoopy SAIT hope me HURF DURF plate of beans you owe me a new keyboard pantfish Todd Lokken.

.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:50 AM on June 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'll ruin you, Ampersand. I'll ruin you but good.
posted by Schmoopy at 10:06 AM on June 17, 2010

Proper use of HAMBURGER is as punctuation, in lieu of a period, dipstick.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:36 AM on June 17, 2010

Also, gay elves.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:36 AM on June 17, 2010

and hugbucket, jr
posted by infini at 12:35 PM on June 17, 2010

I shit in your hugbucket! 2 Schmoopy 1 hugbucket! It's so vile!
posted by Schmoopy at 12:36 PM on June 17, 2010

*sniffles*
posted by infini at 12:53 PM on June 17, 2010

erm, i just got the email. what the hell!!?!

i still feel majorly icky about this whole thing.
posted by capnsue at 1:45 PM on June 17, 2010

I got one of these and I have a beard, therefore it's all lies.
posted by Quantum's Deadly Fist at 3:18 PM on June 17, 2010

I finally got one of these. Yep, it's all a sick joke.

If a porpoise carved from a banana is more attractive than 50% of OKCupid users...
posted by porpoise at 8:04 AM on June 18, 2010

I just got one of these too. While I was (and mostly still am) inclined to believe it's part of a social experiment - I don't see why the cutoff is 50%. A more "exclusive" club would be like 20% at most.

Anyway, one thing I've noticed is that using QuickMatch has been showing women who appear to be slightly more attractive than what I normally saw, HOWEVER they're way less compatible. Like 60% and below. In the past, most of the people in QuickMatch were 65% and above.

Not sure if that lends weight one way or another, but it's interesting.
posted by revmitcz at 5:05 PM on June 18, 2010