8 ms·

OKCupid has a graph of reported height for men[0]. It's both shifted 2 inches to the right of average, but also slightly flattened at the normal peak of 5'10".

by lkbm 7y ago

OKCupid has a graph of reported height for men[0]. It's both shifted 2 inches to the right of average, but also slightly flattened at the normal peak of 5'10". It's not nearly as pronounced as the graphs in this post, but it's still notable. [0] https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-online-dating-a9e3990d6ae2 https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-onli...

hammock 7y ago
Both men and women showed height above the national average. As a result I am more inclined to believe that there is selection bias in OKCupid audience (more white people, less minorities) than that there is such widespread deception going on.
- birdyrooster 7y ago
  Exactly. Not to mention short people may have opted out of dating because they lack a perceived fitness for dating.
  - gowld 7y ago
    Or tall people opt out of OKCupid because they can date offline.
    - birdyrooster 7y ago
      Or since it's so easy for tall people to date offline, they choose OKCupid because it's even easier due to the asynchronous model and network effect. They get more out of the algorithms than shorter people since more people are attracted to them.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- opportune 7y ago
  Or it’s self reported and on average people fibbed up their height a smidge
tracker1 7y ago
I really miss the more technical blog posts that OKCupid used to do like this... then after selling out to Match Inc, they wen't through that weird woke period... and radio silent for over a year... The technical insights were far more informative in terms of dating trends.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  The technincal insights were great but man I loved the writing, too: > Apparently, an online dater’s imagination is the best performing mutual fund of the last 10 years.
- abvdasker 7y ago
  If you liked OkTrends, one of the founders of OkCupid, Christian Rudder, wrote an entire book full of fascinating social phenomena using data from social media and dating sites. It's called Dataclysm and it's great.
lordnacho 7y ago
It would be interesting to see if the discontinuity was 6ft in the imperial units countries vs 180cm in SI countries.
robocat 7y ago
Average height changes significantly depending upon your age cohort. If few older people sign up to OKCupid, that would be a sample bias and the average height would be noticeable higher. Edit: “Adjusting for age, adults ages 18-74 years with an annual income of $15,000 and over were observed to be 1.2 inches taller than those with an annual income under $4,000”, amongst other serious biases (whiteness, education) that affect average height the would be expected to be in OKCupid sample. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_224.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_224.pdf
- hammock 7y ago
  The difference in height for US age cohorts (among adults, obviously) is driven by ethnicity- and younger cohorts are shorter on average.
  - robocat 7y ago
    Where did you see that? From the link I gave it looks like the average 25 year old is about 2” taller than the average 55 year old. Even anecdotally, the height difference is noticeable (although I am in NZ, the variation between cohorts depends strongly upon what country you are in).
    - mdorazio 7y ago
      The dataset you linked is from 1971. The older cohorts were born near the turn of the century when nutrition wasn't exactly the greatest for large segments of the population. It's most likely that the skew is due to environmental factors rather than ethnic ones there. See [1]. Age related height declines don't even start until age 40 and are quite small for some time, so it's unlikely to be a factor in dating-related data sets. See [2]. [1] https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/136/2/473/4664347 https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/136/2/473/4664347 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2807265 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2807265
      - robocat 7y ago
DavidVoid 7y ago
Slightly off-topic but this reminded me of what is perhaps their most depressing pair of graphs. Look at "A woman's age vs. the age of the men sho look best to her" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617445469356.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617... and then compare that with "A man's age vs. the age of the women who look best to him" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617563564204.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617...
- manicdee 7y ago
  Given that magazines and movies are full of young women pretending to be old (skin care products especially) is this any surprise?
- lostmsu 7y ago
  Why is it depressing? Biologically this must be tuned to the best age for having kids, and men's age hardly matters.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    This is depressing to people who expect the dating and sexual marketplace to be some sort of meritocracy, or equality to be exhibited. It's more of a free market than some care to admit. The gritty truth is: people are depreciating assets, and some lose their value (perceived or actual) faster than others. One of the founders of Okcupid (a data scientist) wrote a book, Dataclysm [1], using data from Okcupid's platform; I highly recommend it (this is where the above comment's [2] graphs are sourced from). You get other "interesting" observations, such that most people don't describe themselves as racist, but a surprisingly high number of people are [3]. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offline-Selves/dp/0385347391 https://smile.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offl... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22379741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22379741 [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/380086/the-uncomfortable-data-behind-online-dating/ https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/380086/the-uncomfort... (In Online Dating, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist)
ehnto 7y ago
Anecdotally I saw that skew in real life before online dating. Women and men would all tell me I looked "About" 5'10", which I decoded as shorthand for "You're definitely not 6 foot"
CydeWeys 7y ago
Can confirm. I'm 5'9" but listed myself as 5'10" on dating sites. Adding that extra digit really seems to matter, and when I'm wearing shoes I am that tall anyway. Because of heels women often come off as much taller than they actually are. Rounding up to 6' definitely would've been stretching the truth too much though.
- WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago
  I'm also 5'9". After I listed 6'0" on my Tinder profile, I immediately got more matches AND those matches were much more responsive and willing to meet. Many wanted to come over immediately (without meeting up at a bar beforehand).
christiansakai 7y ago
I did not know that people actually added 2 inches to their actual height in dating profiles, a practice I discovered later when actually meeting the people. Nevertheless, I always use real height (5’3”) in dating profiles, thankfully my current wife didn’t care (we met on OkCupid). Given that me and her only put exactly 1 or 2 profile pictures and zero description and we still able to meet, should be considered anomaly.
Reedx 7y ago
Noticed that they've removed data from that page. You can see a version from 2017 here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170307114207/https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-online-dating-a9e3990d6ae2 https://web.archive.org/web/20170307114207/https://theblog.o... Always found their blog posts an interesting look at the underlying data and user behavior. But now they're scrubbing them?
- pfranz 7y ago
  If memory serves, it was shortly after they got acquired (in 2011 by Match.com owners?) they started scrubbing their blog. The most noticeable was old posts with criticisms of their new owners and the poor incentives around subscription dating websites.

by lkbm 7y ago

hammock 7y ago

Both men and women showed height above the national average. As a result I am more inclined to believe that there is selection bias in OKCupid audience (more white people, less minorities) than that there is such widespread deception going on.

birdyrooster 7y ago
Exactly. Not to mention short people may have opted out of dating because they lack a perceived fitness for dating.
- gowld 7y ago
  Or tall people opt out of OKCupid because they can date offline.
  - birdyrooster 7y ago
    Or since it's so easy for tall people to date offline, they choose OKCupid because it's even easier due to the asynchronous model and network effect. They get more out of the algorithms than shorter people since more people are attracted to them.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
opportune 7y ago
Or it’s self reported and on average people fibbed up their height a smidge

tracker1 7y ago

I really miss the more technical blog posts that OKCupid used to do like this... then after selling out to Match Inc, they wen't through that weird woke period... and radio silent for over a year... The technical insights were far more informative in terms of dating trends.

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
The technincal insights were great but man I loved the writing, too: > Apparently, an online dater’s imagination is the best performing mutual fund of the last 10 years.
abvdasker 7y ago
If you liked OkTrends, one of the founders of OkCupid, Christian Rudder, wrote an entire book full of fascinating social phenomena using data from social media and dating sites. It's called Dataclysm and it's great.

lordnacho 7y ago

It would be interesting to see if the discontinuity was 6ft in the imperial units countries vs 180cm in SI countries.

robocat 7y ago

Average height changes significantly depending upon your age cohort. If few older people sign up to OKCupid, that would be a sample bias and the average height would be noticeable higher. Edit: “Adjusting for age, adults ages 18-74 years with an annual income of $15,000 and over were observed to be 1.2 inches taller than those with an annual income under $4,000”, amongst other serious biases (whiteness, education) that affect average height the would be expected to be in OKCupid sample. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_224.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_224.pdf

hammock 7y ago
The difference in height for US age cohorts (among adults, obviously) is driven by ethnicity- and younger cohorts are shorter on average.
- robocat 7y ago
  Where did you see that? From the link I gave it looks like the average 25 year old is about 2” taller than the average 55 year old. Even anecdotally, the height difference is noticeable (although I am in NZ, the variation between cohorts depends strongly upon what country you are in).
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    The dataset you linked is from 1971. The older cohorts were born near the turn of the century when nutrition wasn't exactly the greatest for large segments of the population. It's most likely that the skew is due to environmental factors rather than ethnic ones there. See [1]. Age related height declines don't even start until age 40 and are quite small for some time, so it's unlikely to be a factor in dating-related data sets. See [2]. [1] https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/136/2/473/4664347 https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/136/2/473/4664347 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2807265 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2807265
    - robocat 7y ago

DavidVoid 7y ago

Slightly off-topic but this reminded me of what is perhaps their most depressing pair of graphs. Look at "A woman's age vs. the age of the men sho look best to her" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617445469356.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617... and then compare that with "A man's age vs. the age of the women who look best to him" https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617563564204.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1439100617...

manicdee 7y ago
Given that magazines and movies are full of young women pretending to be old (skin care products especially) is this any surprise?
lostmsu 7y ago
Why is it depressing? Biologically this must be tuned to the best age for having kids, and men's age hardly matters.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  This is depressing to people who expect the dating and sexual marketplace to be some sort of meritocracy, or equality to be exhibited. It's more of a free market than some care to admit. The gritty truth is: people are depreciating assets, and some lose their value (perceived or actual) faster than others. One of the founders of Okcupid (a data scientist) wrote a book, Dataclysm [1], using data from Okcupid's platform; I highly recommend it (this is where the above comment's [2] graphs are sourced from). You get other "interesting" observations, such that most people don't describe themselves as racist, but a surprisingly high number of people are [3]. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offline-Selves/dp/0385347391 https://smile.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offl... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22379741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22379741 [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/380086/the-uncomfortable-data-behind-online-dating/ https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/380086/the-uncomfort... (In Online Dating, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist)

ehnto 7y ago

Anecdotally I saw that skew in real life before online dating. Women and men would all tell me I looked "About" 5'10", which I decoded as shorthand for "You're definitely not 6 foot"

CydeWeys 7y ago

Can confirm. I'm 5'9" but listed myself as 5'10" on dating sites. Adding that extra digit really seems to matter, and when I'm wearing shoes I am that tall anyway. Because of heels women often come off as much taller than they actually are. Rounding up to 6' definitely would've been stretching the truth too much though.

WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago
I'm also 5'9". After I listed 6'0" on my Tinder profile, I immediately got more matches AND those matches were much more responsive and willing to meet. Many wanted to come over immediately (without meeting up at a bar beforehand).

christiansakai 7y ago

I did not know that people actually added 2 inches to their actual height in dating profiles, a practice I discovered later when actually meeting the people. Nevertheless, I always use real height (5’3”) in dating profiles, thankfully my current wife didn’t care (we met on OkCupid). Given that me and her only put exactly 1 or 2 profile pictures and zero description and we still able to meet, should be considered anomaly.

Reedx 7y ago

Noticed that they've removed data from that page. You can see a version from 2017 here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170307114207/https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-online-dating-a9e3990d6ae2 https://web.archive.org/web/20170307114207/https://theblog.o... Always found their blog posts an interesting look at the underlying data and user behavior. But now they're scrubbing them?

pfranz 7y ago
If memory serves, it was shortly after they got acquired (in 2011 by Match.com owners?) they started scrubbing their blog. The most noticeable was old posts with criticisms of their new owners and the poor incentives around subscription dating websites.