the beautiful people

I'm watching the late night news yesterday, when this segment comes on about a website called BeautifulPeople.com. According to the website's ranking, Brazilian women are the fourth most attractive nationality, while Brazilian men came in third. The Scandinavians got all the top spots for most good-looking males and females.

The Brits were amongst the least attractive, both women and men.

BeautifulPeople.com is, in their own words, "the largest network of attractive people in the world." You submit a picture and your level of beauty is voted on by members of the site from the opposite sex. If you get enough votes, that means you're pretty. And you're in the club.

They also write that "the concept and site was founded on one very simple principle of human nature - the fact that people want to be with someone they are attracted to."

Really? Just physically? Is forming complete sentences not a big requirement? But then, by saying this, am I not also suggesting that "beautiful" people have no substance, just looks?

What bothers me about this website's concept is that they attempt to simplify beauty and attractiveness, when in fact, it is much more complex and intangible than we think. But there is an army of people who agree with this credo, that physically beauty is paramount, that it will get you far... and, most disgustingly, welcome ways through which the pretty ones are segregated from the ugly ones.

I would say that this is a step backwards. But, in truth, defining, obtaining and measuring beauty is a quest that the human race has been on since always. And we're gonna keep on it until we are blue in the face.

As a tribute, here is Marilyn Manson's The Beautiful People:

And, finally, a note to the founders of BeautifulPeople.com, who think we prefer the physically beautiful over the ugly:

"It may not be politically correct to say so... but it is honest."

It may very well be, who am I to say.

But that still makes you all assholes.