[hairofadog]

When I saw the headline I thought maybe it was an essay about how to think about your own mental state, which would have been super interesting to me – I'm desperate to know whether the little goblins running around in my head are part of the human condition or are my own customized baggage – but alas, they juts wanna tell me if I'm hot, which I already know the answer to.

I didn't give it access to my camera but it sounds like it's giving "attractiveness" ratings, but jeez, that's super complex. I imagine this thing is measuring symmetry and proportion, but that'll only get you so far; the "hottest" A-list actors usually have a kind of wabi-sabi quality, with oversized teeth, or an interestingly shaped nose, or a crooked smile. There are also obviously all kinds of attractive, and emotional baggage that factors into what's attractive to people (they're reminded of a parent or childhood crush, etc.)

The most interesting attractiveness-measurer I ever saw was a subreddit where you'd post your own photo, and members of the community would post photos of people who are equal to your own attractiveness, so it effectively threw ego out of the equation.

[indiv0]

Do you remember the name of that subreddit, by any chance?

[sundarurfriend]

/r/EqualAttraction seems to be it (I just searched for 'similar attractiveness' on reddit, was the third or fourth result). Now my problem is I don't know any of the celebrities they are naming, so I'll have to google around to see if I agree with the commenters.

[hairofadog]

I'm pretty sure that was it – when I saw it years ago, there were a few posts that were pretty remarkable, in that somebody "average" looking had uploaded a picture, and someone else would upload a pretty good (non-celeb) match, and in most cases the op would say, "Oh, that's way better than I thought!"

Looking at it now, however, it seems like it's mostly a "what celeb do I vaguely resemble" thread, which isn't nearly as interesting.