Fitsort.com: Who's the fairest of them all?

Sometimes, when I’m sat on the tube after a long two-hour day of lectures, I literally judge a book by its cover. 45 year old Maureen is reading ‘Twilight: New Moon’ and I deem her a sex-starved maniac with a vampire fetish and borderline paedophilic tendencies. A balding man with a tie tighter than his lips frowns over Barack Obama’s autobiography but to me he might as well be reading ‘I’m not racist but I don’t have black friends’. Other times on the tube, I metaphorically judge metaphorical books by their metaphorical covers. That is to say, I notice Boris’ bald spot and Maureen’s multi-layered tangerine foundation.

It seems it is human nature to judge others- and for this first judgement to be made at mere appearances. Ranking, too, is human nature. Look at the class system, or religion, or…Hitler. Perhaps that is why the new internet phenomenon www.fitsort.com is so successful, as it taps into this basic desire of humanity. 

Fitsort.com is a website which asks you to provide your Facebook details (not a scam) and then allows you to compare two friends and click the one you deem most attractive. It will then show you each individual’s statistics, in numbers of losses and wins, which are then calculated to provide everyone with their own score. You can see your own ‘stats’ and click on a link which takes you to a leader board of all your Facebook friends, beautifully organised in order of attractiveness.

I don’t know where to start with how disgusting I find this concept. It’s destructive for self-esteem and constructive for narcissism. The local teenage Susan Boyle isn’t usually aware of her status as biggest minger, but position 506 out of 506 might give her a clue. Kandi usually knows she’s the hottest thing since her morning Venti Caramel Macchiato but 97/97 wins risks damaging the size of her perfectly proportioned head.  It’s addictive. It’s cruel. It’s pointless. But perhaps most disgusting is my success rate- 6/20- pah.

Fitsort is potentially very dangerous, especially for younger users. Firstly, it is based on comparison, so you don’t have to be Su-Bo to come out with low stats if you are consistently compared with the Angelina Jolie of sixth-form, who conveniently lets her G-string peek from her leopard print hot pants.  Secondly, (and I am guilty as charged) people don’t necessarily click on the most attractive of the two people that pop up- but rather may be more inclined to click someone because they like them or not click someone because they don’t like them. Younger, more naïve users may not realise these basic facts. Younger users may also not realise another crucial fact: looks change. If 13 year old Amelia was being ranked, her wins would be at a 0. Not only did no one shear me (I had hair down to my ribs that was as bushy as it was long), or tell me about contact lenses, I also insisted on wearing clothes designed for menopausal women. If fitsort had existed then and I had discovered my hideousness in the eyes of society, I would have committed suicide (well, probably not, but there would have been some pretty angsty poetry I can tell you that).

I was reluctant to write about this phenomenon because I in no way want to contribute to the site’s popularity (altruism be damned, I don’t want my stats to get any lower). The site allows students to partake in their two favourite activities- bitchiness and procrastination- and with a new android app soon to be released, I can only see its popularity growing exponentially.

The consequences of this are yet to be seen. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not the mouse-holder; the ratings are essentially worthless. Or maybe I’m just saying that because my mum has a 100% success rate and position 75 on the leader board. 


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UPDATE: Wins 7, losses 18. Ouch. 
UPDATE 2: Wins 36, losses 40. Youuu Guyyys. 

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