The Downsides of Being Beautiful

Beauty is both subjective and objective.

Objective beauty has to do with biology. We are attracted to people that look physically healthy because they appear to our animal selves to be good for breeding.

There have been multiple studies done on objective beauty.

Here are some examples of objective ugliness which are based on poor health which will probably be hard for anyone to say they like:

-Morbid Obesity. Anyone that is 400 pounds overweight, in other words, 400 pounds more than they should be is not attractive. That is not natural.

-Moles all over the face.

-Deformed limbs.

-Cataracts on the eyes.

-Broken nose.

-Extreme overbite/underbite

-Facial Hair on women.

-Warts all over the hands.

-going bald/thinning hair

-varicose veins

-liver spots

-saggy skin

originally posted by: Bluesma

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk

For one person to say "I am beautiful" is one thing, but for a person to say "I belong to the group defined as beautiful people" is something altogether different. The former is a statement of self worth; the latter is a statement of elitism.

My first response in reading these statements is - the first is a statement of evaluation according to your own individual values and preferences.
The second is a statement of evaluation according to the current values of the collective you are a part of.

Well, not exactly; both statements are opinions. The first is merely a statement of one's own personal opinion (of themselves in this case). Right or wrong it is merely a self-affirmation. The second is a far more arrogant opinion which predisposes an assumption. This assumption being; 'surely all people accept there is a group defined as the beautiful / better people, and I am a prominent member of this club'. They are wholly different.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk

Well, not exactly; both statements are opinions. The first is merely a statement of one's own personal opinion (of themselves in this case). Right or wrong it is merely a self-affirmation. The second is a far more arrogant opinion which predisposes an assumption. This assumption being; 'surely all people accept there is a group defined as the beautiful / better people, and I am a prominent member of this club'. They are wholly different.

Okay. That is an interesting view.

I think there is an assumption that most people accept there is current cultural modes and values in any society,
beauty has certain definitions at any point in time in any society.

What is interesting in your view is the association you've made between collectively held values as "better".

The evaluation of better or worse is relative to intent....

Whether the intent is to comply with the collective values,
or with their own.

Just acknowledging they have certain traits which are part of the current collective modes,
does not automatically mean they consider that "better".

They just might have drives for self actualization and individual expression, which influences the direction of their intents and desires, and impacts their evaluation of what is better or worse....

a reply to: Bluesma

That's the whole point; perceived collective values do not automatically make them 'better'. This is the flaw in the thinking, and frankly the whole point. Positive affirmation is one thing. Self aggrandizing elitist behavior whether through physical appearance, wealth or social status leading to a perceived feeling of superiority over others is a disorder...not an asset.

Turning this superiority around 180 degrees and characterizing it as a detriment is a manifestation of insecurity and a plea for self-concurrence.

"Whoa is me, I'm beautiful / rich / popular; don't you feel sorry for me / us (beautiful people)? We have it so hard...being beautiful." - really translates into 'please tell me not only are you not sorry for me, but you are green with envy you are not like me / us' In other words, it is a plea for reaffirmation of their own perceived self worth, a plea to have their ego stroked and a plea for acknowledgement (concurrence) from others that they are, in fact, a member of the (elite) exclusive group.

Case in point is the very title of this thread...The Downsides of Being Beautiful.

I guess my last thought here would be this...

I suspect the OP is a young gal, just coming into the age of her own independence. Many of the words and concepts we are talking about here are probably foreign and not lexicon familiar to her world.

In a simpler way; there is a concept called the "princess syndrome". A child is raised, indoctrinated, into a world where they are conditioned to believe they are a 'princess'. Many children are like this today. As they become more mature they begin to realize their real world does not align with the world they have been conditioned to believe they live in.

It's a bit ironic actually; I went back and scanned this thread from the beginning and I saw the FB references. I hadn't seen this before. Why am I not surprised? I used the FB analogy (before I saw the references).

I think this thread should stand at face value, for those who are willing to read the entire thread. I implore you to make your own conclusions.

I'm out...

a reply to: rukia
Sorry I think your all making stuff up, probably for who knows what reason. But my guess is attention, which again for some reason, anyways since there is no walk off or way to judge or compare and contrast on what exactly you all are talking about. I will take this as another joke thread, so ya, not that far off form being some sort of hoax.

a reply to: tigertatzen

Are you trying to assert that the OP article was a proven hoax somehow?

Well ya! Its obvious a joke. Sometimes people take jokes serious, it happens all the time. I can say I have never seen any of these beautiful people your talking about, oh I seen some good looking people, but online, offline, in media, in everything. Nope not a one, just peoples of different shapes and sizes and makes etc etc.

So as you can see I am quite curious on just what this thing you all are talking about looks like and is and all of that. And all i get from the op is a bunch of writing on a bunch of enclosed theories. Ya! I call shenanigans on that.

I think you all are all deluded. It is good, people need hobbies and such. But please keep your delusions to a minimum. You may continue on with your case somewere else dude. But sorry I just don't see it. Which leads me to come to the conclusion that you all are trolling or this is a joke, or a hoax.

a reply to: rukia
What the hell are you talking about?

No offense, but some pages ago I have long concluded that your opinion is mute and has little to say on the matter. As such I must be right...Right?

But if your talking about jealousy. I think in the category of female on female jealousy of others over looks and such. It happens, get over it. Besides I am not saying that there are no down sides to looking good or whatever your talking about, which I am pretty sure your pulling that out your wazzo. What I am saying that even in females who seem to constantly judge themselves by those standards, that the down sides to having good looks are overshadowed by the ups sides.

As such its not an issue.

As for men. Its a none issues good looks in men dont matter all that much, so it a none issue. In fact as others have said it does not necessarily enter into the equation in a lot of cases as there are hunreads of other things which would take priority over that.

As for the rest, the science and all that. Symmetry of faces and all that, well its kind of hard to tell which would be which by the pictures in this link.
Symmetry faces
You could ask hundreds of people which picture they would find more attractive and you would likely get a whole lot more diverse of an answer then you would think, if anything if they take a poll of over 10, thousand people on a single face or a few faces even on the link bellow, its likely that it would be pretty split down the middle on just which one is more beautiful. And for the whole golden pi or whatever, seems kind of iffy as well, not even going to bother with that as it seems equally as silly.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: Bluesma

That's the whole point; perceived collective values do not automatically make them 'better'. This is the flaw in the thinking, and frankly the whole point. Positive affirmation is one thing. Self aggrandizing elitist behavior whether through physical appearance, wealth or social status leading to a perceived feeling of superiority over others is a disorder...not an asset.

So you are assuming that anyone who asserts openly that the features they were born with are currently of the collective ideals, is automatically and systematically to be assumed as saying that it is better to have those?

In the Elizabethian era, white skin and red hair was the ideal of beauty and women with those traits would be LYING to say they were not regarded and treated in a specific way, by the people around them.

That doesn't mean they LIKED that way of being treated- that is YOUR interpretation, as the listener.

An interpretation which requires rather complex assumptions of dishonesty and psychological illness, in order to explain the complete discordance of your interpretation with what is actually being said. (which is, "I don't like this, I don't feel comfortable with this")

I find it somewhat troubling that this subject has stuck to sexual attraction and desires for a mate so much.

I mean the "halo" effect does not apply to sexual attraction in particular,

It is observed in the way adults treat children, for example.



When I was a young child, I lived in a section of Los Angeles that was primarily mexican. I was the only white skinned blonde and blue eyed english speaking kid in my classes from Kindergarten to fourth grade.

The teachers were all white and english speaking too. Because much emphasis had to be made on teaching them to understand english, I was sent outside by myself for the first few years, while they did that, and the third year a teacher had the nice idea of building me a cubby hole to curl up in and read books while the class worked on speaking english.

The teachers made a lot of effort to increase the kids confidence in their cultural heritage- we did shows where we did traditional mexican dances, in big dresses, or learned how to mexican foods. The teachers pointed out to the children that I didn't come from this wonderful culture, and so they are lucky.

The study linked to earlier by another poster, on the counter effect of internalizing stereotypes when identifying with a group is relevant here- the intent was to keep these kids from internalizing negative stereotypes about mexicans by increasing their sense of solidarity as a group and collective identification.

This was hoped to cancel out the way these little girls all had Barbies, who were long legged, white, blond and blue eyed, for example. It was a time we were making efforts to give the kids heros like Zorro, to balance out the influence of ones like Superman.
White self hatred was all the rage, and my parents were all about it. I remember my mom getting that tight perm and dying her hair black, to get that "ethnic look", hoping to become "good" in appearence.

These kids were AWARE that there was a cultural theme of beauty valuation in their society, yet learned to reject it as BAD. No, not all people get sucked into the cultural values just because they recognized they exist.

And I can tell you honestly, I did not feel having those culturally valued traits was a good thing. There was absolutely no benefit to it. Not at an age when friendship, comraderie, and social security is important.

Another interesting case was that of a childhood mate when I moved at age of eight. Then I found myself in the midst of a higher financial class, a lot of rich kids, and no mexicans at all, except the many gardeners and housekeepers busy around us.
I was one of a small group of kids who were not rich- we lived on the campus of UCI, because our parents were students.

It was a strange contrast. But one of the kids in our group was Zack De La Rocha. He was actually from a slightly more affluent family than I, though we lived in the same apartments and were part of the same gang that was tpgether for many years.
He was mexican, and he was sort of serious and quiet, most of the time, except with the company of good friends. At the time, I never noticed he was mexican, but he has spoken in interviews about it since. I know he had to constantly see what I did- mexicans were the workers cleaning the paths and cutting the grass. His inability to identify and interact within a group of people who shared this in common made for a development of some real internal conflict about these characteristics.

Was he treated subtly different from his comrades? Not that I saw, but I was a kid, I wasn't on the look out for stuff like that. I was under the impression he had a much better life than I- he went to private school, and had parents that were not divorced, and wore expensive brand name clothing. But his features were not very stereotypically mexican either- he had curly dark hair, but it had highlights from the sun, as we all did because, hell it was the coast of So. California. Sun happens.

The question of how we each develop our attitudes towards the collective ideals and values is not as simple and easily defined as to throw a general net over everyone, in attempting to interpret their deeper internal meanings behind their statements.

It's all an illusion. I just read what Carrie Fisher had to say when she was treated badly by young fans on her 'aging'. I had to laugh because she's right. Everyone ages, and the only ones who give a # about being gorgeous are narcissistic people. I've been regarded as 'hot' too, but i don't particularly give a flying f'ck because none of this B'llshT is even real. Honestly you're young and you live in a plastic universe, or hollywood. None of this rubbish here on planet fake even matters, just live let live and be happy you don't look like the hunchback of notredame. /the end.

a reply to: Bluesma
I do believe this whole thing is a symptom of people wanting attention for whatever reasons. Case in point, you.

The question of how we each develop our attitudes towards the collective ideals and values is not as simple and easily defined as to throw a general net over everyone, in attempting to interpret their deeper internal meanings behind their statements.

Ya! End of story. So can we move on now, randomness of life has a much more influence in our life and in every human on this planet then anything else does, in fact I would say its many times manifold much more stronger and a force then beauty is or even love or even hate.

In fact you could say that this and every system and everything else humans create is a constant fight against the randomness of life and everything in said life, one being nature, from caves, to towns, to cities, it is no different in essence. And to better quantify it and to better structure there place in there realities in the very real sense of the word.

Generalizing is just a tool and symptom of that. It is for the most part all people know. Structural necessities in constructed mental projections to better help understand the world around them. Which they created, both over generations and even over mass opinions.

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
a reply to: Bluesma
I do believe this whole thing is a symptom of people wanting attention for whatever reasons. Case in point, you.
Ya! End of story.

My dear Galad, your opinion is so predictable though. In almost all topics you make the assertion that none of it matters, humans are all this way," it is a non-issue".

I respect your right to your opinion, and even to feel that there is no social issues in the world that are worth discussing or exploring at all.

I don't feel that way though. Lots of social issues seem important to me because I am a mother, and a grandmother.
I am involved with the deepest conditioning and personality development of some very young children, who will become adults, who will have their choices and behaviors influenced by that early education and nurturing they recieved by me.

It would be in MY basement my sons would live, playing games and hollering up for me to buy some chips at the store, if I didn't spend some time being very mindful of attitudes and values.

It would be my daughter calling me to say she is leaving her mate because he isn't treating her as a princess, and I'd be housing her until she finds the next baby daddy.

See, I think the reason that didn't happen is because I didn't wave off questions of values and ethics as "non-issues".

If you see no reason or place in your life for such questions, I totally respect that. It is not the same for everyone.

In this subject, a deep concern for me was my retarded sister. The repeated claims in this thread about nasty superficial people keeps pinching me, though I refrain from arguing because I am aware of what they mean to refer to, and are not thinking of the exceptions.
My sister focuses on beauty and considers it very important. She is moved by beauty more than intellect, or skill; social acceptation is a very serious matter for her, one of survival instincts. We could call her superficial, but for me, she provides a wholly different view of objectification and the sense of vision, which is not the evil stupidity being refered to.

When the photographer at her wedding kept turning around the more photogenic and commonly accepted idea of beauty someone else was, and I saw her eyes fill with tears and her head hang low (all with perfect love and forgiveness for the object of that attention) ,
no, my attitude was not "screw her and her superficial stupidity, it doesn't matter".
Yes, it was easy to do something about, pulling the photographer aside and having a talk with him, asking him to change his behavior.
But events like that spur the thought in me that maybe some effort could be made to make SOME people more sensitive and aware of this effect.
No, the problem will never go away, but if even one time, an event like that can be avoided, I say, it would be nicer for everyone.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Argh, boymonkey, thanks for the intent.... but before I take on the reactions to that,
let's be clear - I am not, at this time, good looking. I am a middle aged woman, with a nose that is becoming crooked with time for some reason..;my symmettry days are way behind me, as are my rosy cheeks, full lips, smooth skin.
I proudly sport a head of pure silver without any dye, wear glasses, and according to my daughter I have been wearing ugly comfortable old lady shoes lately.

a

a reply to: boymonkey74

Thank you. But Iets not encourage the conversation to go further into judging who is pretty or not.
It isn't constructive for anyone.
I'm sure you understand.

With total respect, I think it would be appropriate to remove those comments as off topic.

a reply to: Bluesma

yea no you are beautiful nuff said. cheers and btw i agree with what you are saying over all in this respect

a reply to: TechniXcality

Everyone is beautiful tbh I see beauty everywhere!! .
I think it is also to do with mood.
If you are happy you see the beauty in life and everything but when down everything is grey .

There is a moral to the movie Shallow Hal.

True beauty comes from within, from heart.

There are actresses that people adore and think they're the most beautiful in the world that I find very repulsive.

It's a conspiracy by the corporations to increase profit by telling you what is beautiful. What is considered beautiful changes over time.