Paul Eastwick

Mostly wrong.

The point that I always want to make, I will agree with that sentiment and point out that for these things to be true, it really relies on this thing we call consensus, is people have to agree that people possess a certain thing.

And when we think about attractiveness, we think, obviously, like we agree about who's attractive and who's not.

It's just right there.

You can see it on their face.

But when you look at the studies, when you look at the science,

Consensus is not as powerful as we think.

I like to start with first impression context.

If we had to make a judgment about whether this guy in front of us here was hot or not, or this woman in front of us was hot or not, and we'd never met her, we'd agree like 65% of the time.

That's it?

I'm surprised because you remember the website, Hot or Not?

Remember that?

Yes, I was a happy user of that website.

I do remember.

Doomed to die in 2002.

Yeah, that's totally how it went.

You know what would have made that website less of a bummer for your friend?

If it showed you more than just the mean, if it showed you the variability, because in real life, especially when we're interacting with people face to face.

That is what we experience.

So some people might think that you're exceptionally unattractive, but some people are going to think you're attractive.