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On a tangentially related note, I've noticed that many heterosexual men imagine the comedian Felix Kjellberg (AKA Pewdiepie) must be the height of attractivenes

On a tangentially related note, I've noticed that many heterosexual men imagine the comedian Felix Kjellberg (AKA Pewdiepie) must be the height of attractiveness for women, while few heterosexual women find him particularly attractive. I found this very confusing, but after a few discussions with heterosexual female friends of mine we've come to the conclusion that the kind of playfulness and disinhibition this persona consists of is looks like vivaciousness in a woman but immaturity in a man. I imagine some similar dynamics must be in play there.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
If you are heterosexual, "opposites attract." What is attractive for a woman will almost by definition not be attractive to a woman.
graeme 6y ago
Do you mean personality wise? Physically, I just googled and found he won a most beautiful faces award this year and consistently ranked on the same list. Never heard of TC Candler but their youtube lists have millions of views. I doubt he’s actually objectively #1 but clearly they don’t think he’s unattractive. There’s a lot of variance in female taste, so you frequently see comments along the lines of “[Objectively attractive celebrity X] is not attractive AT ALL”. And the comment is true, for that woman. But it’s very risky to generalize based on a small sample, especially if it’s all from your personal bubble. I guarantee that if Pewdiepie wasn’t famous and you put his photos on Tinder they would do well. He’s lean, young, 5’10”, has good skin and a reasonable fashion sense, and there’s nothing obviously wrong with his face. That alone more or less puts him in the 90% percentile. https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/pewdiepie-most-handsome-2020-trending/ https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/pewdiepie-most-handsome-20...
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  >He’s lean, young, 5’10”, has good skin and a reasonable fashion sense, and there’s nothing obviously wrong with his face. That alone more or less puts him in the 90% percentile. Well yes, not to mention that he's a completely self-made multimillionaire with a charming accent. He's certainly what I imagine going for were I attracted to men. Having anyone who is into men say they're not interested is noteworthy, such a large percentage of even a fairly small sample size was definitely pointing to something unusual.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Have you talked to women about attraction? It’s extremely common to hear them say “ugh celebrity x is not at all attractive”. No woman universally finds all celebrities attractive. Okcupid had an excellent blog series on attractiveness ratings by gender. When rating women, men used more or less a normal distribution. Whereas the default female rating was “unattractive”, and only a tiny fraction are rated extremely attractive. And from my own experience the variance is high: different women find different types of men attractive. Check out okcupid’s graphs here, see the chart female messaging and male attractiveness: https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyo... I don’t follow pewdiepie and I certainly wouldn’t claim he’s the most attractive man in the world or anything. I’m pushing back against the idea that he’s unattractive or against the idea that some women saying he’s unattractive means he doesn’t also have a ton of women who find him attractive.
    - SuoDuanDao 6y ago
      My point wasn't really about absolute numbers so much as how consistently men overestimate his attractiveness to women. I'm not saying he's the only one or would be considered more unattractive than the average man, just that it's surprising how poorly we understand what the opposite gender finds attractive. If you doubt that is an objective observation, it would be quite easy to test and I'd certainly be interested in the results. One possible protocol would be to select several celebrities, make pairs of them at random, and ask your friends both which of the pair they find more attractive and which of a different set of pairs they imagine the other gender would find more attractive.
      - graeme 6y ago
        That’s fair, I suspect you might be right that if you to make some sort of index of “male overestimates of universal attractiveness of a celebrity to women” he might be high on it because he’s so popular with men on an emotional level.
randycupertino 6y ago
As a heterosexual female, Matt Bomer is the height of peak male attractiveness. I'd say Charlize Theron would be tops for females. Pewdiepie - ha. I actually find him repulsive, but you are right it's the personality - too loud, too awkward, too ... zany. I think I'd find that offputting in a female as well.
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  Interesting, Theron is certainly an example of someone whose attractiveness I've mostly heard affirmed by people not sexually attracted to women - there seem to be a fair number of people who possess what we might call beauty without much in the way of sex appeal. What's strange is how unconsciously we'll imagine that someone is highly desired without ever encountering a reality check.
  - kridsdale1 6y ago
    Agree. She has all the metrics (symmetry, blonde, tall, in shape) and yet she does nothing for me at all. She activates the sense in me of "That is like my mom: Female but not a sex object". As I get older the more I come to terms with the most attractive women being those who Hollywood never tried to push on me: slightly thick, introverted, and grumpy.
    - randycupertino 6y ago
      ha! I think we're a love match but sorry not on the market :)
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I dunno, if he wasn't such a prick I'm sure he'd be considered attractive enough. Not everyone's cup of tea, but then, who is?

DoreenMichele 6y ago

If you are heterosexual, "opposites attract." What is attractive for a woman will almost by definition not be attractive to a woman.

graeme 6y ago

Do you mean personality wise? Physically, I just googled and found he won a most beautiful faces award this year and consistently ranked on the same list. Never heard of TC Candler but their youtube lists have millions of views. I doubt he’s actually objectively #1 but clearly they don’t think he’s unattractive. There’s a lot of variance in female taste, so you frequently see comments along the lines of “[Objectively attractive celebrity X] is not attractive AT ALL”. And the comment is true, for that woman. But it’s very risky to generalize based on a small sample, especially if it’s all from your personal bubble. I guarantee that if Pewdiepie wasn’t famous and you put his photos on Tinder they would do well. He’s lean, young, 5’10”, has good skin and a reasonable fashion sense, and there’s nothing obviously wrong with his face. That alone more or less puts him in the 90% percentile. https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/pewdiepie-most-handsome-2020-trending/ https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/pewdiepie-most-handsome-20...

SuoDuanDao 6y ago
>He’s lean, young, 5’10”, has good skin and a reasonable fashion sense, and there’s nothing obviously wrong with his face. That alone more or less puts him in the 90% percentile. Well yes, not to mention that he's a completely self-made multimillionaire with a charming accent. He's certainly what I imagine going for were I attracted to men. Having anyone who is into men say they're not interested is noteworthy, such a large percentage of even a fairly small sample size was definitely pointing to something unusual.
- graeme 6y ago
  Have you talked to women about attraction? It’s extremely common to hear them say “ugh celebrity x is not at all attractive”. No woman universally finds all celebrities attractive. Okcupid had an excellent blog series on attractiveness ratings by gender. When rating women, men used more or less a normal distribution. Whereas the default female rating was “unattractive”, and only a tiny fraction are rated extremely attractive. And from my own experience the variance is high: different women find different types of men attractive. Check out okcupid’s graphs here, see the chart female messaging and male attractiveness: https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyo... I don’t follow pewdiepie and I certainly wouldn’t claim he’s the most attractive man in the world or anything. I’m pushing back against the idea that he’s unattractive or against the idea that some women saying he’s unattractive means he doesn’t also have a ton of women who find him attractive.
  - SuoDuanDao 6y ago
    My point wasn't really about absolute numbers so much as how consistently men overestimate his attractiveness to women. I'm not saying he's the only one or would be considered more unattractive than the average man, just that it's surprising how poorly we understand what the opposite gender finds attractive. If you doubt that is an objective observation, it would be quite easy to test and I'd certainly be interested in the results. One possible protocol would be to select several celebrities, make pairs of them at random, and ask your friends both which of the pair they find more attractive and which of a different set of pairs they imagine the other gender would find more attractive.
    - graeme 6y ago
      That’s fair, I suspect you might be right that if you to make some sort of index of “male overestimates of universal attractiveness of a celebrity to women” he might be high on it because he’s so popular with men on an emotional level.

randycupertino 6y ago

As a heterosexual female, Matt Bomer is the height of peak male attractiveness. I'd say Charlize Theron would be tops for females. Pewdiepie - ha. I actually find him repulsive, but you are right it's the personality - too loud, too awkward, too ... zany. I think I'd find that offputting in a female as well.

SuoDuanDao 6y ago
Interesting, Theron is certainly an example of someone whose attractiveness I've mostly heard affirmed by people not sexually attracted to women - there seem to be a fair number of people who possess what we might call beauty without much in the way of sex appeal. What's strange is how unconsciously we'll imagine that someone is highly desired without ever encountering a reality check.
- kridsdale1 6y ago
  Agree. She has all the metrics (symmetry, blonde, tall, in shape) and yet she does nothing for me at all. She activates the sense in me of "That is like my mom: Female but not a sex object". As I get older the more I come to terms with the most attractive women being those who Hollywood never tried to push on me: slightly thick, introverted, and grumpy.
  - randycupertino 6y ago
    ha! I think we're a love match but sorry not on the market :)

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

I dunno, if he wasn't such a prick I'm sure he'd be considered attractive enough. Not everyone's cup of tea, but then, who is?