Your makeup is a tragedy. Four out of 10.” “Hair is awful. Four out of 10 with makeup. Maybe five out of 10 without.” “Not sure why women think this kind of lipstick looks good.” “What’s going on with those eyebrows? Four point five out of 10.” “Smile!”
This is the constructive advice offered to me on Reddit, a discussion-based social media platform, where I am (willingly) seeking opinions from strangers about my appearance. I’m on “Rate Me”, a sub-page with more than 200,000 members. Here, adults post their best selfies and users ruthlessly score their looks on a scale from one to 10. While some comments from the responding 30 faceless Redditors are more delighting than others – some are, admittedly, mortifying – the overall gist I get from the crowd roasting my appearance is that I’m bearable. Not totally horrendous. On the hot-o-meter – one being grimly grotesque and 10 being an absolute knockout – it’s been decided that I’m a solid four.
