Why is My Face Being Rated?

“On a scale of 1-10, what would you rate this person’s attractiveness?”. 

For a period of time, this question seemed to be trending on countless social media platforms like Tiktok, Youtube, and Instagram. Though seen as only fun and games to influencers and those who both ask and answer, it reflects a growing problem especially in my generation (Generation Z): the influence of social media in reducing people’s value to a number, and skewing how young adults perceive self-worth. 

The very purpose of social media is to share to the world a little bit about your life through photos and text, but what is not told is the “algorithm” of online popularity. Media success is shaped by a specific “algorithm” that varies across platforms. In other words, videos are more likely to be shown to users on their discovery page based on a series of rules and signals that would filter, rank, and select these videos to be recommended to users. This is where beauty comes into play. 

It cannot be a coincidence that the most successful videos on Tiktok are made by, in plain terms, attractive people. This “algorithm” of interactivity on social media platforms creates an emphasis on physical beauty and is now shaping the way my generation perceives themselves and others. This emphasis on physical beauty is creating a new mentality that is crawling its way into our everyday lives, a value on beauty and the idea that without it, we are nothing.

Tiktok is an app that needs no introduction— its name having been featured on nearly every news channel because of the national security concerns raised by Donald Trump. With the amount of money, exposure, and fame tied to making it big on the app, it’s no surprise that it has its creators and audiences easily addicted. Popular tiktok creators such as Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, and Noah Beck— all of whom who share the similarities of being Caucasian, their most successful videos gaining millions of views with 15 second dancing videos, and all reaching the height of their success in their late teen years— have even gone on to become luxury fashion brand ambassadors, actors in films, and to even grace the cover of magazines. Because of this level of success that can come from a 15- second video, it is more important than ever to really understand how these algorithms work to create an emphasis on beauty that is crawling its way into our lives. 

Algorithms used to assess human beauty are nothing new. Several Chinese universities have used the same datasets and built upon each other to produce more and more refined algorithms. And after years of perfection, machine learning algorithms have been successfully trained by humans to differentiate between “attractive” and “unattractive.” In a research study conducted by the South China University of Technology, scientists pointed to the failures of Tiktok’s current software and promoted its own, using more accurate technology that could be used instead. The main difference in this research study was that scientists used both facial recognition and a scale of 1-5 to evaluate beauty. With a “landmark” for the facial recognition technology (FRT), and by allowing the algorithm to measure and evaluate a degree of fit (length from ideal facial averages), a “beauty score” was thus provided. It is worth noting that this algorithm fails to recognize skin tones other than those of Asian and Caucasian ethnicities, likely because the darker skin tones had a greater range of “contrast that the algorithm penalizes'' (Quoves Studio). This could possibly infer that the algorithm does not recognize these skin tones because it deviates from the “average” skin tone color, and with greater deviation from “averageness” comes a “lower beauty score” in proportion to a rated beauty scale. This lack of representation for darker skin tones raises the argument that Western beauty standards (which favor pale skin and Eurocentric features) has a strong influence on the type of beauty that is recognized by Tiktok and thus, further creates a quake in the perception of what it means to be beautiful to TikTok users.

In the world of Social Media, views equal money, so it is not surprising that the ultimate goal of content creators is to optimize viewership. Under the guise of “high quality content”, creators can get greater views under the virtue of simply being “good looking.” This raises the question of to what extent, in the age of digital technology, success in life is contingent upon being “attractive.” As people are constantly being exposed to algorithm-defined , I have to wonder how in the long run this would harm us.

The continued use of these technologies drive our generation down a path of insecurities and unconscious bias. Often, I find myself staring at the mirror and wondering what I could change about myself. Should I do my hair like this? Should I do my makeup like that? Should I buy that shirt? Under normal circumstances, these questions don’t deviate from what most teenagers ask themselves, but the move from my mirror to the streets of NYC, my classroom, or even the lunch rooms, is where I find the destruction. These are questions I constantly find myself asking as I scroll down the infinite void of videos, and no matter where I am, who I am with, or what I am doing, it is in the sea of those videos where there are more ways urging me on how I can change my hair, buy a new shirt, or do my makeup. Often times, I even ask my own mother what she would rate my looks on a scale from 1-10, and if I could be prettier by changing my features to cover up any “flaws”. 

As scrolling led to more thinking, more doubting, and more inadequacy, I felt a horrifying thought creep upon me: without physical beauty, what is my value? This way of thinking has been the direct effect of this growing emphasis on physical beauty, be it unintentionally or not intentionally, via the algorithms of social media. And let’s face it— this is messed up.

We are the generation of the future and its technology, and yet there is an immense, inconspicuous harm that underlies this digital revolution. Social media is so slyly impressionable, making its way into our everyday lives without us even knowing it. At this rate, we are being swept under the guise of “quality content, heading down a path of superficiality without even stopping to wonder about the morals of the very question— “On a scale of 1-10, what would you rate this person’s attractiveness?”