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Why does society treat people they consider unattractive poorly? Are these social hostilities, dejections, prejudices & discrimination causing unattractive people to flock to lookmaxxing communities?

https://lemmy.world/post/48431130

Why does society treat people they consider unattractive poorly? Are these social hostilities, dejections, prejudices & discrimination causing unattractive people to flock to lookmaxxing communities? - Lemmy.World

- Who should get the largest share of criticism society or individuals? Please be civil in the comment.

Jun 21 at 1:41amWeb
Show threadCrocodilloBombardino2d ago

The wealthy surround themselves with beautiful people, get blood transfusions from young people, get cosmetic surgery. In our stories, good characters are usually portrayed as beautiful or handsome and often young. Successful characters, whether good or evil, are often beautiful or handsome. Regular-looking folks more often appear as side characters or comedic characters instead.

this view is encouraged by the fashion, skincare and cosmetics industries (not that there’s anything wrong with fashion, skincare, or cosmetics per se).

So we are all being conditioned to worship or favor beauty and youth.

Show threadsblxck2d ago
I agree on the conditioning aspect but is there not some biological imperative as well? Generally attractive traits deemed desirable from an evolutionary perspective
Show threadCrocodilloBombardino2d ago

What we view as attractive is socially constructed and varies over time and place. See e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738081X23000251

Youth and health are probably a proxy for fertility, so that would be related to physical attraction, but why should that affect how we treat people? That’s not a reason to favor the young or to disfavor the old. Not only that, but community care of children meant everyone had a role in the greater sense of “fertility”.

Show threadwhen2d ago
Thanks for replying and it provides proper answer to my first question. But I would like to know your opinion on the 2’nd question, “Is negativity of lookism causing people to incline towards lookmaxxing?” (to aquire pretty privileges)
Show threadCrocodilloBombardino1d ago

I’m no expert, but if we have a hierarchy of beautiful/youthful looking people above regular folks, then yeah people are going to do some wild, desperate stuff to try to get that edge. capitalism and hierarchy pressure us all to get every advantage we possibly can.

looksmaxxing itself is based on incel delusions about how women choose men, taking societal hierarchies and pressures I’ve been talking about and viewing them as biological/evolutionary (which is nonsense)

Show thread∟⊔⊤∦∣≶2d ago
False premise. There are plenty of examples of vice versa. It’s class prejudice. A super hot prostitute is treated much worse than an ugly oligarch. This is because of trickle down mechanics, the oligarchs treat everyone and the world like shit, establishing a heirarchy based on who you get to treat like shit to establish you place in it.
Show threadwhen2d ago
Poor treatment of attractive sex worker compared to unattractive oligarch is not based on appearance. Your example doesn’t help solve the problem of lookism.
Show threadCursed_Fig2d ago

Theory: a lot of uglieness is just lack of personal care and grooming, which is indicitive of mental unwellness, which can be a predictor for unhinged or antisocial behavior.

“The difference between and ugly man and a handsome man is a haircut.”

Show threadwhen2d ago
The problem with lookism is that it takes someone’s appearance as face value and judges based on it which is just prejudice. There’s more to a person than its face.
Show thread∟⊔⊤∦∣≶1d ago
Heuristics. You can’t get to know every single person you see, so you make some judgement calls based on the information you have access to, to determine if it’s someone you feel is safe and worth interacting with
Show threadwhen1d ago
Heuristics is a good device but it doesn’t work with lookism. For example - Baldness isn’t a conclusive evidence for a person to be considered unsafe or ill natured. We can’t determine everyone’s nature by just their looks. “Looks can be deceiving” is a good phrase.
Show threadFleppensteyn3h ago
Once I started looking more like a bum, people actually said I looked better. Didn’t get a haircut in years and i stopped shaving. Even got a girlfriend who admitted she was with me because of the long hair.
Show threadnotsosure2d ago
I’ve just asked my aunt, who lives next door, she isn’t exactly a picture with her crooked teeth, hump and hairy legs. Auntie, I said, here’s this junior with this intriguing question on lemmy, can you answer it oh wise one? As a reply, she threw her half empty beer bottle at my head.
Show threadMadzielle1d ago
go off auntie
Show threadqueermunist she/her2d ago
This isn’t even new. Women and girls have been starving themselves for a lot longer than guys have been hitting themselves with hammers.
Show threadwhen2d ago
Yes, beauty standard is historically pretty high in the case of women. The whole women beauty industry make profit off of manufacturing insecurities about their appearance. Worse happen when Aesthetics becomes priority over Health. News related to ozempic (weight loss drug) death has become a common occurrence in the recent years.