Beauty and the beastly business of quantifying it

The speed and temporary nature of social media feeds lead to some interesting contrasts.

In my Facebook newsfeed yesterday, I first took note of a Design Taxi link posted by Marc from Osocio about "The World’s Scientifically Most Beautiful Woman".

Here she is:

18-year-old student Florence Colgate has the most naturally perfect face, according to a British lifestyle show's nationwide search.

“Florence has all the classic signs of beauty,” Carmen Lefèvre, of The Perception Lab at the University of St Andrews’ School of Psychology, told The Daily Mail. “She has large eyes, high cheekbones, full lips and a fair complexion. Symmetry appears to be a very important cue to attractiveness.”

Along with — apparently — blonde hair, blue eyes and light, unblemished skin.

I won't even get into the Nordicism of all this. (The Mail actually called her "'Britain's most beautiful face".) There have been enough blogposts about that issue already. I'm more interested in the parts that sociobiologists have tried to rationalize.

For example, symmetry is seen as a sign of good genes and good health. Maladaptive mutations, as well as childhood disease and injury, can affect symmetry. It's seen as a way to advertise good health and disease resistance — in other words, that person is a good source of healthy babies.

The other features are ethnically specific. Blonde hair and big blue eyes are what are known as "neoteny" — that is, babylike features kept into adulthood. All humans are very neotenic apes, retaining our round-headed juvenile chimp features throughout our lives.

Via pbase

The loss of pigment that gave northern people lighter skin is also an adaptive mutation to absorb more vitamin D from less sun exposure. I personally believe that lightening of skin and eyes in parts of those populations came along for the ride, then got amplified by sexual selection because youth is attractive.

But Darwin I ain't.

The other link I was going to mention was actually directly above Marc's "beauty" link. It was a CBC story titled, "Ugly Meter app worries cyber bullying activists"

A smartphone app allows users to assess their own symmetry based on some unknown standards. It's like "Hot or Not", but without the subjectivity of human feedback.

According to uglymeter.net:

"How ugly are you? For over 3 million users, Ugly Meter has been the go-to iPhone App that won’t lie when it comes to determining how attractive or ugly you are. Just snap a picture of yourself (or someone else) in the app and hit the scan button. The Ugly Meter will scan your face and determine just how ugly you are and dispense advice accordingly. Ugly Meter then allows you to post the results to Facebook or Twitter."

I wonder about the ethnic standards of beauty behind this, too. Although my own northern Euro ancestry doesn't seem to have helped much:

I blame the lighting.

I tried a few more times, and found that the insults got pretty creative.

To test the baseline, I tried scanning a screenshot of Miss Colgate:

Clearly, the creators of this app and the people behind the British talent search read the same books. Or something.

But then what happens when I scan a head-on glamour pic of Iman, a woman so ethereally beautiful, she got David Bowie to settle down:

I must have held the camera funny. I'll try again:

Ummm...

But hey, there was nothing scientific about this (mostly because I don't have all day to fart around with my iPhone). If you don't mind giving them your 99¢, you can find out for yourself what "beautiful" really means.

(I'll update this post with more scans, as I get a chance.)

Adriana Lima

Grace Park

George Clooney (a reader request by Rachel)

Barbie

Sometimes, it just seems random. Watch what happens when I scanned the face of late-'70s David Bowie, two different times.

Was it the misplaced cursor that made all the difference? (Good thing I didn't shoot him in full Aladdin Sane makeup.)

These messages brought to you by #WorldWaterDay

It's World Water Day today, and I'm up to my baby blues in "real" work, so here's a compilation of classic water-related PSAs to remind us all of what's at stake if we don't keep our water resources clean and safe (hint: we all die).

Matt Damon's viral PSA "making of" freakout (contains F-bombs, via earthfirst.com)



Jennifer Connelly has to fetch water from Central Park to live (via search)



Wasting Water is Weird (via Osocio)



Sweden's controversial "dirty water" mom via (Adfreak)



A strikingly similar (and earlier) PSA from the UK (via The Next Good Idea)



Yet another execution of the same idea, again via AdFreak



And again, for UNICEF (via Ads of The World)



And, now for something completely different...

Surfrider Foundation: "Butts" (found via search)



The message is clear: Never take clean water for granted.

Good Books - Bad Ripoff?

Thompson by Steadman. Via Printed Editions.

Marc shared this hallucinogenic animation for Goodbooks International, featuring "a loving homage to the High Priest of Gonzo, and one of the most original talents to ever put ink to a page, Hunter S. Thompson" on Osocio:


Good Books "Metamorphosis" from Antfood on Vimeo.



I should love this. Dr. Thompson was one of my favourite American writers, despite (or perhaps because of) all of his personal flaws.

But it's a ripoff, plain and simple. Some writer at String Theory has stolen the dead writer's voice, and some animator has stolen Ralph Steadman's style, to promote a bookshop. (One that donates all profits to charity, but still...)

Dr. Thompson isn't with us anymore, so he can't comment on the homage. But during his lifetime, he was notoriously hateful towards those who would co-opt his image. He couldn't stand the fact that Garry Trudeau turned him into a Doonesbury character, once stating "I might set the little bastard on fire." (He reportedly gave the character a grudging acceptance by the end of his life.)

Many English writers want to emulate Hunter S. Thompson, especially if they discover his classic books and articles during their formative years. I speak from experience here. But there comes a time when you have to find your own voice, not indulge in mimicry.

By calling this video an "homage" the writer and animator have given themselves permission to indulge in faux-Gonzo. But, as often happens with Dr. Thompson portrayals, it focusses only on his extravagant recreational drug use and tries to approximate his obsession with making the written English language keep up with his resulting visions and thoughts through obscure and excessive description. That was the character he played, sure, but he was a deeper thinker than that. He was, in life, a passionate believer in American libertarian issues, and 60s-style social justice. When you try to recreate Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but skip the bleeding-heartedness of the chapter "Genius 'Round the World Stands Hand in Hand, and One Shock of Recognition Runs the Whole Circle 'Round" you are simply engaging in parody. And not very smart parody, either.

Sound designer Antfood writes on their Vimeo post, "DISCLAIMER: What you will see is an entirely fictional and completely unendorsed representation. [Though we humbly suggest Hunter S. Thompson might have liked it.] We are devoted fans paying homage. No disrespect is intended." I'll take their intention at face value. But I still don't like what the video stands for.

If you want to honour the writer, read his books for yourself and let him rest. Or watch the movie version of Fear and Loathing, which was made with his participation and is fairly loyal to the spirit of the print. (I'm not sure about Dr. Thompson's late-life BFF Johnny Depp's continued efforts to put the legacy on film, but I haven't seen The Rum Diary yet.)

And don't muck up a great American voice with shallow "homage", no matter how cool it looks.

Dutch model goes green for WWF. Literally.

"Nature. That's you."

Marc shared this lovely video, for WNF (Dutch World Wildlife Fund) on Osocio.

The model is the Netherlands' own Doutzen Kroes, a supermodel/actress who is one of the Victoria's Secret Angels. Marc added that the campaign, which is actually quite tasteful (even if it reminded me a little too much of "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" from Creepshow) generated tons of advance buzz because it was reported that Ms. Kroes did it in the nude.

With all the obsession these days about clear-cutting the bodily undergrowth, I suppose some of them might have been disappointed.

"Oh no! Not THERE!"

The ad is part of Dutch WWF's 50th anniversary campaign.

The Return of Purity Bear #FdAdFriday

How can you make a terrible pro-abstinence ad even worse? Add some racialized stereotyping into the mix!



The latest amateur video from Day of Purity manages to be even more awkward than the first one, stopping the horny and lovestruck teens from having sex using a sassy African American vernacular.

Reposted from Osocio

Bloglove is in the air... #saveadland

When I started this blog, in early 2009, I decided I had better carefully study the style and success of some of the more popular ad bloggers. Quickly, I realized that there was a small group who I ended up reading most often: AdFreak, Copyranter, Adrants, Adland, Osocio and (of course) Ads of The World - the place everyone goes for content.

As I found my voice and my niche, I also found that these blogs were run by a close-knit fraternity of ad nerds who were completely modest and approachable. Tim Nudd of AdFreak is an Anglo-American family man who balances being edgy and fun with the demands of representing a corporate brand. Steve Hall of Adrants is an apparent ad convention junkie who also writes for Playboy's "I just visit it for the articles" blog. Åsk Wäppling of Adland is a Swedish design nerd and single mom who is the veteran of the group (having blogged since 1996). Marc van Gurp of Osocio is a Dutch family man and digital designer who has a passion for great work that inspires social change. Ivan Raszl of Ads of The World is a Hungarian family man, designer, and now New Canadian. Even the anonymous Copyranter, the cynical Rorschach of the group, is surprisingly humble and accessible and on his comments thread.

It has been a pleasure to find myself accepted into this group, even though I'm a noob and don't have a massive following. All of the above have shared content from this blog, from time to time,  and have respectfully linked back. Tim and I chat frequently on Google. Steve runs a Facebook club, of sorts, for fellow enthusiasts. I flirt shamelessly with Åsk on Facebook. Marc and I are now good friends (although we've never met in person) and collaborators on Osocio. Ivan and I just recently had a meet-up at a pub when I was doing focus groups in his new home base. And Copyranter, he occasionally gives me a nice shout-out.

But the real sense of community occurred to me just today, when Åsk found herself at the business end of an unpayable server bill. She put out an appeal, and... well... I'll let her tell it:

"We've raised $1,287.15 for the $2,658.50 so far, but that's not even the best news here. The best news is that so many of you care enough to retweet and donate and post blog posts and tell your friends. I honestly wasn't expecting this much love, and I am humbled by it.

@Adfreak asked everyone to please help save us, @agencyspy put a link in their tuesday morning stir to longtime adgrunt Purplesimon's appeal post. I didn't ask @purplesime to do that, and I didn't ask @imperica to post this appeal post either. I'm grateful they both did. 

Turns out that Imperica have a good grasp of how much I do here (read: everything), and some readers revealed they had no idea. Thus came the tweets showing me building hardware (acme, apex and acme again) which was quite fun for a bit. At least for me. :)
Even the End days of advertising joined in making a special sarcastic toon just for adland. Sweet. 

And to top it all off, my ex-ex hosting place Memset contacted me over twitter to see if they can help. They must have forgiven me for almost taking down their network a few superbowls ago. 

And today, Amazon in Ireland phoned us up, they've not just extended the deadline, they're going to help figure out how to make a better setup that won't cost a fortune each month."

It's a Festivus miracle!

So I'd like to do my part to give back some blog love as I entreat those of you who also love reading or writing adblogs to donate now to keep the lights on at Adland. (I hear those Swedish winters are really damn dark, too!)

And thanks to all my adblogging friends for teaching me the ropes.