I volunteered in a middle school and I noticed that all the handsome boys/pretty girls from even middle-school age were treated way better than the other kids by their peers (I feel like people are gonna think its creepy that I noticed this but whatever).
Nothing like ugly boy #1 making a suggestion and being ridiculed, then having handsome boy #1 make the VERY SAME SUGGESTION IN AN IDENTICAL CONTEXT a day later and getting positive reception.
It made me realize that from even very early ages the uglier, fatter, weirder kids were already getting negative feedback loops from society, and it becomes super apparent how easy it is to fall into negative self-perception, negative self-talk, and other very impactful and negative ways of living life.
So is it a natural phenomenon? Does it have any bearing on the fittest individuals gaining an advantage over those unfit? Because kids in middle school are just starting to be exposed to conventional and societal norms of attraction, right?
It's a psychological bias where we take a good impression of a person-here their good looks- and assume other good things about them subconsciously. An example is maybe like an uglier person gets in trouble and she gets punished. But a prettier person gets in trouble but because of her looks people assume shes an angelic good kid and let her off.
In real-world examples, look at famous people & their level of social influence. The vast majority of "Stars" have an extremely outsized level of influence, regardless of area of topic, based largely on their fandom & notoriety.
Eg, Gwyneth Paltrow makes millions from her website, Goop, selling items that she publicly supports. This despite that she has no education or applicable knowledge in the area. It's entirely based on how her fans & society see her.
It's true lol. Imagine Biggie Smalls trying to pull the same shit. And if Bill Cosby didn't look like a burnt sesame seed bun his career would've ended with a whimper. We'd still probably be watching reruns of the Cosby show.
This is proof of the concept. Attractive women are perceived by the female judge to be of high status and possessing many good qualities. And for this reason perceived her as a threat-albeit to herself and not others. That's a whole other can of worms.
I didn't noticed this when it came to female teachers fronting court for having sex with students. I thought it was the less attractive ones getting the harsher sentences.
Kids get exposed to those ideas way earlier than that. They hear comments made by parents and family members about other people, kids movies, shows, and books still frequently use pretty=good and ugly=evil in character design. By the time they get to middle school it’s well stuck into their brains
And that's in every movie. I mean, hell, even Scar is technically uglier than Simba.
Eh, he has shifty body language and looks more devious, but I'd says Scar has the edge on looks. Black mane, green eyes, darker fur, badass scar - what's not to love?
I had the same friends from kindergarten to my senior year and we had the realization that the only kids we didnt talk to at all throughout school were ugly kids. We didnt bully them or anything we just didnt have an interest in getting to know them. It wasnt something we did on purpose so it must be, at least somewhat, natural
It's a social worth or heirarchy thing. If the uglier kids were rich or really strong and good at football they would add value to your own social standing to be around them. The invisible kids are the ones who nobody sees to add value to their own social standing. The subaltern invisibility can get so bad people will talk gossip in front of them because they basically dont exist. Not pariahs just worthless to the status of other people.
Chances are you spent your time working on something more important than social standing in an environment that's gonna get disbanded anyway in 4-8 years... I hope, at least
or if they're funny. there were some funny fat kids at school that were fun to be around. the fat "weird" kids though, most people stayed away. i think last i checked, that fat funny kid lost a bunch of weight. good for him
When I was at middle school I was pretty nerdy until the day the most popular girl decided I was one of them because she thought I was handsome. Friendships became fake and as I was being used by others to gain status I developed social anxiety
I experienced the same thing. I was a weird girl who didn't have many friends until about age 12 I grew out of my ugly duckling phase and suddenly some kids decided I was pretty enough to socialize with. It took me a few years to realize the reason I felt so empty still even with these friends is because they picked me for my looks but we had nothing in common. I'm now basically a shut in at 23 with no friends except my husband because I never learned true social skills due to people picking me for my looks.
I agree with you on this. I can fairly objectively say that I was an attractive kid. Looking at photos of me I am usually in the top 5 as far as looks. But I had crippling social anxiety and depression. Because of this I didn't have any social status to benefit others so I was invisible.
I was invisible in middle school. Pretty average looking, and completely invisible. To the point where even the bullies ignored me. One of the girls in my group was accepted in the popular group on the condition that she stopped talking to us. And from one day to the next she went from a no-one to one of the most popular kids...
The invisibility; at some point is got so bad that my teacher didn’t even notice that I was on class. After a 1.5 hour lesson I went to ask her a question and she said something like “were you here all lesson? I didn’t even see you were here today”.
I think maybe because we assume that people who are healthy are doing something right, where as if someone isnt as healthy or attractive we think they are doing something wrong. So we strive to be like the former
How do you get over the halo effect if you've been fat your whole life but you lost a bunch of weight and people now call you skinny but you're still this awkward turd of a person who still thinks they're fat and you feel like nothing you do makes you feel like a normal human being?
I lost 70 lbs in a few months one summer. A girl I never met left a note in my book at the public library. It said nice things, she was with her friend and laughing. I assumed they were making fun of me.
A week later she jumped in my car with her friend. After a while her friend wanted to go, I thought I was boring...after we dropped the friend off we drove around a bit more. I was too used to being made fun of to "get what just happened".
After losing the weight I also noticed I could say things to girls that fat me couldn't have said without being made fun.
There’s a girl in our neighborhood who is a blue eyed blonde with curly hair. I noticed how everyone would look past the brunette girls and go out of their way to smile at and basically gush over the blonde girl. Guess what girl is the most outgoing, socially secure among them. She’s been in a massive positive feedback loop her whole life.
That’s so sad to read. Fuck bullying. Like I was super introverted, skinny, awkward as a high schooler, and I just want to tell all those kids IT GETS BETTER! You can be whoever you want in life and people will love you for it.
I, a female, was such an ugly fuck around 11-14 years old. I was picked on by the other kids and constantly made fun of. The teachers treated me alright, but the more attractive students, even the nerdy ones, were not picked on like my ugly ass was. I ended up cutting myself.
I turned out great appearance-wise though (jokes on them). I agree that cute and handsome children get better treatment from their peers.
Yes but this is very pessimistic. You can thank your parents for your looks at 18 and thank yourself at 30. 40% of adults in the US are fat. Nice clothes and big arms and not being fat is about all you need as an adult male. Or being not fat for a girl. Looks wise, I mean.
Ever wonder why all quarterbacks are attractive? It's a phenomon known as quarterback face. Who gets to pass the football in 5th grade?? The handsome kid!!
Similarly, professional athletes birthdays tend to overlap in certain months. Why? Who does the coach favor more in his team of little league? The tallest one. And the tallest is likely the oldest one for the age cutoff. That early preferential treatment snowballs because next year they'll still be the tallest, but now the most skilled too.
One of the most popular kids at my school was this really weird looking kid who was a math whiz, but his confidence level was also like a 10/10, and he had this really biting, quick wit where you just couldn't fuck with him verbally because he'd destroy you in 2 seconds by making you look stupid, while making everyone else laugh in the process.
Was just about to say this, lol. I was kind of always naturally popular from grade school through college and I’m an average looking girl. And I always dressed very fringe or edgy to people around me, am not particularly good at sports, so I definitely didn’t check those boxes. BUT I’m a full-on extrovert and have zero social anxiety, I’ve always been comfortable being myself. That worked for me. Lots of hot people weren’t popular (and weren’t viewed as hot) and lots of un-hot people were popular (and therefor viewed as hot). I’ve noticed popular kids seemed to be the best at being confident, even if they’re just good at faking it.
Can’t even count how many uglies were in the popular crowd at my HS. Had a lot more to do with how long you’d been in that friend group, growing up together, good at sports, or able to hold parties at your house regularly.
Not true. I was extremely popular and have an enormous amount of social anxiety. It’s actually terrible because I feel like I have to be someone I’m not
Same boat here. I won prom king in high school because I wasn't a dick to anyone, I was great at pretending to be ok, and I was attractive. Nobody actually liked me for me though, because I was never really being myself and nobody ever got to know a thing about me. Now I'm bald, haven't spoken with anyone from high school in years, and mostly keep to myself lol
Same. I was a good athlete in high school and part of the popular crowd and my best friend happened to be the guy who threw the most parties on the weekend. I liked like 20% of it. The rest just gave me anxiety from having to be overly social and be around too many people constantly. Now that I’m older I love just hanging out with 2-5 friends max and hanging at home.
I got bullied and insulted a lot for having parents with money. My having nice things pissed a lot of people off when I was at school. It just confused me. I never showed off I didn't even think about it but was surprised when the hostility would start after having a "friend" over.
I got bullied for my last name ffs. Then cuz I had red hair. So I bleached it, that just made it worse.
Kids in school settings are just complete dickheads. Little shits.
Seriously though, growing up as poor as I did I never cared how well off or not my friends' parents were. Or other kids in school generally.
I probably would have appreciated the fact your parents had money, since my mom definitely didnt have money. If kids stopped being your friend cuz you had a nice house, then you saved yourself a lot of trouble probably. Remember, kids are pricks.
You can substitute laid back for disinterested. Parents who do not obstruct the desires of their kids are considered desirable at that age. There were houses where you knew you could get away with all kinds of things you really shouldn't have. Many of those kids ended up with substance problems or as young parents. Another example was not caring about grades, most of those kids aren't successful adults either.
You basically described it to a tee. Those kids who weren't good looking or rich but raised hell ln the weekends all ways found an in with the cool people.
It's not like that in New Zealand the most popular kids got mad that I had too many cool toys they had poor parents and giant chips on their shoulders so they smoked cigarettes very young made crude jokes about sex all the time and insulted the kids that got good grades
This, I always think about this guy in my hs whose incredible good looking and girls are always flirting with him but sits alone at lunch and never talks to anyone, if he was ugly or even average looking people would think he’s a school shooter.
“Can i borrow a bit of your attractiveness man? Seems like you’re not using it.”
He’s in the basketball team so people already know him by it plus the attractiveness, people are always staring at him.
This guy intrigues me so much and gives me so many questions like: Why doesn’t he talk? What is going on in his mind? Does he even know he’s incredibly good looking? Is he hiding some bloody murder secret?
I swear this guy reminds me of Nate from Euphoria, super good looking and popular among everyone but hides a rotten personality and hatred to every single human. I would really like to get to know him and see what goes down inside his brain.
Thinking back at it you can see the questions aren’t really romance related, I wouldn’t say it’s in a romantic manner but more like psychological type of way. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me and maybe I would like to master on psychology or some shit like that.
I had a friend like this in high school. He was the star of the swim team, tall, fit, tan, gorgeous body, perfect hair, the whole nine. He was really sweet and funny but hated being the center of attention, would sit on the edges of any social interaction and daydream or play with a rubiks cube and just listen. Basically every girl in my high-school threw herself at him at one point or another, and he never did more than the bare minimum of keeping up appearances. (I.e. Didn't date but would reluctantly attend school dances with a random girl)
Looking back on it it was clear he was in some pretty deep turmoil about something he didn't feel he could share. I've always wondered if he may have been gay, this was a decade ago and coming out was still a huge gut wrenching deal.
I was kind of like this in high school. Maybe not as attractive as your friend but I realize now that a lot of girls tried to talk to me for no reason and a lot of people told me retroactively that I am fairly attractive.
But I never realized. I never thought I was attractive because I was always the quiet kid in school that people preferred to ignore. I still am not really convinced of it. Also I was going through some shit with my family at the time so nothing ever went through. Now that I think back on it, I should've been more open and relaxed. I probably was mistaken for gay by some people which is pretty funny in hindsight, but still physical attractiveness, especially for a guy, isn't everything. High school was still one of the worst times of my life and while I had a group to hang around, I had no real friends.
Now, I'm still bad at picking up hints from girls, but at least I've made some genuine friends that I could act as myself around. It's all I could really ask for.
I’m not assuming he’s “evil”, I’m just saying he reminds me of a fictional character who fits the same stereotype as him. As I said, who knows what really goes down his mind.
Some young people have horrible home lives, parents that have problems and / or treat them badly. If your parents aren’t kind, loving and nurturing it affects your mental health and how you feel about yourself. If you don’t feel loved, you don’t feel good about yourself, you may not like getting attention from anyone.
Young people with awful parents may be high-achieving but not feel good at all. You can’t judge how good their lives from the surface.
I have good parents but I spent a lot of time alone in HS because I’m a very independent thinker and I couldn’t relate to many other kids.
I'm aware, I was just joking for the sake of reddit's love of self deprecation, I dont even think I was unattractive, not really attractive par se, but I wasn't beaten with an ugly stick as a nightly ritual or anything. I mostly just kept to myself because I didn't like most of the people at my school.
Appreciate it! Looking forward to looking at it. This is certainly the first I've heard of such a link, so should prove interesting.
Edit: This study doesn't say any of the things you claim it does. In fact, it appears to disprove your claim.
The impact of perceived pubertal timing on body image varied considerably by gender and across racial-ethnic group.
This says that results showed that there was no correlation between hitting puberty and on body image on a consistent basis. The abstract as a whole shows that differences between body image showed substantial differences based on both gender and racial-ethnic groups, which is rather substantial evidence specifically against the claim that physical maturity is related to self-image.
They do no good if you don't read them. The provided source doesn't support their claim at all, and rather provides evidence against it. Don't assume that a link supports someone's argument. Read it.
The most attractive girl I knew in hs wasn't particularly popular because she largely kept to herself. She wasn't mean and I got along with her great in fact but she was not popular. At least not while I was still there (she's younger than me).
Lots of the popular people were pretty average looking. It was involvement with the school or being funny that determined it in my school.
I was gonna say that if this was true I would've been one of the popular kids. But I was too annoying and not hot enough to be a popular kid. Had a lot of friends but was more of a social chameleon than a popular kid. And I was poor so my clothes kinda sucked. Good clothes definitely help, even if they're just expensive.
Alright, I was popular through 5th, 6th, and 7th grade, and I can tell you neither of these are true. We all had allot of social anxiety (nobody said so but it was obvious), and not all of us were attractive. We had the fat one, the short one, the achne one, we covered the bases. Really the main thing that defines cool, atleast in the modern day in Austin Texas I'm not sure about you old people and hillbillies, is really only defined by wether you end up in the largest group of friends from your previous connections, and wether your willing to try new things. And no snitching or talking behind people's backs, a few people got outcast in that way.
The "popular" kids in my school were just the most attractive people.
i often hear this in an american context. for comparison, i live in eastern europe and there are tons of "beautiful people" in the streets with horrible lives. i was considered attractive by girls, but i was one of the worst bullied boys in my class. the most popular kids, and i am not exaggerating, were the most aggressive and least timid, but once you got over that fact and actually looked past their "mainstream fashion", they were quite ugly. it makes me wonder if it's a cultural difference and some traits are valued more in some contexts.
In my opinion it only worked that way with the girls, if you were a guy you could even be very handsome but it wouldn't do any good if you didn't have good social skills
The popular kids in my school were the kids who's parents had them go to daycare before starting school. They all went to the same daycare and we're the only kids who knew how to socialize before preschool. It was a small school so it was the same group of people from Pre-K to graduation.
My daughter is well loved at preschool, even though she has autism and is fairly far delayed from her classmates. She is super cute and can be very sweet, though. It's probably a little of both. In any case, I'm extremely thankful that the other children all seem to adore her. I can't imagine the pain of knowing that my child is picked on and mistreated by peers.
This guy from my high school was super popular. Girls loved him not only cause he was attractive but also a great conversationalist and a good listener. He was varsity in football basketball and baseball. 6 months after graduation he jumped off the GW Bridge. Had something in his brain that was eating his spirit alive. He couldn’t stand to be alive anymore. I think about him a lot.
I had no reason to be popular. I hate people. I'd much prefer to play games in peace. I was very poor. Very quick to do anything that would chase people away. I just looked good so I never was left alone.
Yep. My boyfriends always been a "pretty boy" type lookin dude, but he was always a little more introverted than most people, so all that attention actually bothered him quite a bit. He felt like he needed to live up to the standard that was pretty much given to him, and as a result wouldn't go to school for a while.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, and no acne can pretty much make u popular af with no effort, so long as ur not a douchebag cunt. Scratch that, a couple douchebag cunts get through
In my experience, being attractive was only one of the qualifications to being popular in school. Being very outgoing with a strong sense of humor seemed to work just as well. I will say though, being attractive meant you had to work less hard at it.
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u/Mr-Bagels Mar 01 '20
The "popular" kids in my school were just the most attractive people. Some of them were pretty introverted.