wedrifid comments on Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: NancyLebovitz 17 September 2010 01:44AM

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Comment author: Relsqui 25 September 2010 12:03:50AM 3 points [-]

While OKTrends does contain a lot of interesting, well-explained, and often entertaining statistics, I would be very cautious about mentioning it in the same breath as anything to do with how to attract people. The folks at OKC can describe the kind of photos which get a user lots of messages--basically, pointing the camera down your cleavage if you're female, cropping your head out in favor of your abs if you're male--but a fat lot of good that does you if you have a small chest or a belly. (Or if you want to get messages other than "UR HOT WANNA GO OUT 2NITE.") Similarly, knowing that "vegetarian" is a first-message keyword which disproportionately leads to conversation is not all that helpful if you aren't one.

Relatedly, their data is collected from a large and surprisingly mainstream userbase; if LWers are as atypical as we say we are, very few of those users are going to be similar to whomever you're trying to attract. Maybe you know a geeky, intelligent woman who wouldn't roll her eyes at the headless ab shot, but I don't. If you don't believe that the target audience of OKC is very different from LW's readerbase, read the comments on any OKTrends post. They're not all inane, but ...

(I suppose I'm making the assumption there that LWers looking for dates are more interested in someone smart and with common interests than someone who relies on having tits to get attention. If I'm wrong, feel free to disregard.)

By the way, just in case you don't feel insecure enough yet, OKC claims to be quietly segregating its users by hotness. I've seen it theorized that that was a publicity stunt or a sneaky way to pull back inactive users, which seems quite plausible to me, but doesn't make the stunt any less scummy.

Don't get me wrong; I like and use OKC. Just remember that, no matter how clever and statistically sound their algorithms are, most of their data still comes from people who think that what checkout stand magazines say about people, dating, and sex is actually the gospel truth. The site's judgments are based on that standard. So don't take them too seriously.

Comment author: wedrifid 25 September 2010 12:30:35AM 3 points [-]

cropping your head out in favor of your abs if you're male

Does that help? I would have expected leaving the head there to go with the abs would work better. If I see pictures of just breasts then I wonder what is being hidden (and aside from that find the expressions on a girls face and the style of hair to be potentially attractive.)

Comment author: Relsqui 25 September 2010 01:18:09AM 4 points [-]

Does that help?

I thought they'd mentioned that in OKT once, but I just went back and looked and didn't see it. So maybe I made that up.

If I see pictures of just breasts then I wonder what is being hidden

Her personality. >_>

Comment author: [deleted] 25 September 2010 02:26:22PM 2 points [-]

As I recall, "body" as opposed to face pictures actually hurt your chances, statistically.