If you are somehow unfamiliar with the site HotOrNot.com, you should check it out before reading more, or this won't make any sense.  Not that I'll let that stop me.

AmIHotorNot.com, the original name, was a brilliant idea.  Actually I've no idea if it was the first site of that type, as there are dozens of them now, either parody sites with similar names, ALA AmIGothOrNot.com, AmICal.com, GeekOrNot.com, or more direct concept rip offs like AmIHot.com, SayImHot.com, RateMyPicture.com, etc.  Who was first is perhaps of interest to someone, but that someone isn't me.  And I'm sure the rest of this page's content would apply more or less to every site of this nature.

They are even in non-English tongues! A similar page in German can be seen here, and thanks to maik for the email. I like having a "New Frauen" picture sorting option, it seems more exotic than "view women only".  The oddest thing is how low the average scores are.  Really hot pictures, ones that would be guaranteed 9.9's on hotornot.com are like 6's there.  Picky Germans?  Screwy voting script?  The site script doesn't seem to be as well done, since you can't get links to the individual pages with their scores very easily, and I can't make fun of the bio's since they're in German.

The Hot or Not site concept is very simple, just a small voting script and pictures that load remotely, for the most part (this saves on bandwidth), and that's it. The fun is that you get to see endless pictures of total strangers, not professional models (for the most part) and you can rate them.  It's hypnotic, addictive, amusing, voyeuristic, and judgmental. You can view only women, or only men, and specify an age range also, though the age part doesn't seem to be real accurate.

What I find most interesting about it is wondering where the hell these people come from, and also seeing how other viewers have voted. 

Many of these sites have now added in dating type services. where if you submit your own picture and set up an account you can be contacted by others who have accounts.  You both have to click "yes" to agree to that first, and then you get the other person's email, or some way to send them a message through the site.  I've never signed up for one myself, though I might have to, if only to have more info to add for this page.

I only look at the women when I'm on such sites.  Well, not "only", I do look at some men or mixture at times, but 95% of the time I click "women only".  I don't really care what guys look like or how they were scored, and I have no ability to judge if women will find a man attractive or not. Elephant Man and Brad Pitt I can predict, every guy in between I think looks average.

Who the Hell Are These People?

By "these people" I mean both the people in the pictures, and the people voting.  I'm natural cynical, and therefore assume that all/most of the really hot women are fakes.  Some guy found a picture of them somewhere on the net and saved the shot to his Geocites page, and set up a fake account.  Usually it's pretty obvious when you view the personal page, and the message is something like, "HI ALL HOT GUYS!  I LIKE 2 PARTY.  SAY YES TO PARTY TO ME, AND WE'LL FRIENDS1!!1".

So who are the voters?  That's the real question I'd like to know, and those sites get enormous traffic, but I don't know of any stats or figures on their average visitor.  Male or female?  Age? Looking to meet or just curious surfing?

My impression, based on the voting results, is that their primary visitor is male, generally young male.  The men on the site have far fewer votes than the women do, so it seems mostly guys are surfing, viewing mostly women, which is what I do, I must admit.  Which also feeds into my theory that most of the female pics are posted by men, as spoofs.

That's a 9.7?!??

What really drives me nutty about Hot or Not is how high the average scores are for some of the more average women.

Do most guys have a woman scale of 1-15, and when 1-10 is the only option they click 10 for any woman who is more than moderately-attractive?  An amazing amount of average women get 9.5's, and virtually any female that's even slightly above average can count on a 9.9.  There are often 3,000 or 4,000 votes on a woman, and she'll have a 9.9.  Do the math, if you vote a 1 on a woman, she'd need 89 perfect 10 votes to average that back to a 9.9.  So if there are 3000 votes and an average of 9.9, she's gotten probably 2500 10's.

The funny part is that so many beautiful women are stuck up about their appearance, and dismissive of any man with less income than an Orthopedic Surgeon, so if any of them were actually posting their own pictures there (which I doubt), they'd see their 9.8 and become even more stuck up!

Guys, here's a tip: "Those little people in the computer screen can't see you, and the woman you are giving a 10 to doesn't know you exist and wouldn't care if she did, no matter what you voted her." I get the feeling most guys surf the chick-shots with their clicker on 7, and maybe drop to a 4 or 5 on any picture that gets a "horffff" sound from them, but immediately click 10 on any decent shot.

My theory to combat the grading inflation is that a valid score is 1-10.  Not 6-10, or "1-5 = hideous", "6-8 = okay",  "9-10 = pretty+", which seems to be how most of the guys viewing the women there vote.

In my scoring I keep my clicker on the 5 or 6, and most women are average, which means they get a 5-6.  Ugly women, or those with really poor picture quality (if it's too blurry to see them, or too small) get lower scores, hot women get 7 or 8, uber hot gets 9, and only ones that light my inner fire get a 10. In theory a 10 is perfect, like she couldn't be more beautiful.  Economy of scale must be observed too.  If it's a shot of a woman's face, you can't really compare that to what you'd vote her if you could see her naked in green jello.  Otherwise the best picture on hotornot would be a 5, and the worst picture on any decent porn site would be a 9.

Oddly enough, the ugly women shots I tend to vote very near the average.  If I see some poor fat ugly woman, in a bad picture, and vote a 3, she'll usually have a 2.7 or 3.1 or something like that.  The grading inflation only kicks in once you get to the objective 7's, who all get subjective 9.2's or something on hotornot.com.

What is this Page?

• This is not a collection of the hottest women.
• This is not a collection of the ugliest women.
• This is not a collection of the funniest shots there.

This is a collection of shots that I found interesting, usually since the score seems much higher than it should be, or the bio is outrageously phony.  This page is about the psychology of people who vote and post shots there, not so much the shots themselves.

All shots on this page were seen on hotornot.com. Links go there when possible, some shots are no longer there, so links go to versions of them on this server.

On with the vivisection!

Everclear, English Beat, Phantom Planet, Esthero, Cure, Coupland, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Capote, Linkin Park, Uberzone, Lush, Lemonheads, Dealership, Dookie, Deltron3030, Tom Robbins, Tosca, STP, Spoon, Sublime. Beats. Books. Bliss

Keywords: apples in stereo, b-boys, ben folds, beulah, bis, bjork, chemical brothers, chopin, creeper lagoon, dancing, dj db, dj food, downtempo, frank black, glenn miller, groove armada, hooverphonic, incubus, ltj, old 97s, olive, patsy cline, paul van dyk, perry farrell, plump djs, pod, radiohead, stray cats, strokes, weezer, 311

Cute girl, and such a wide variety of interests.  I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about.

Hey boys, check ME out..what do you think I deserve..HOT or not..hmmmm. Fun Trans sexual girl, like to party and have fun. give me a shout...hmmmm yum yum ,kiss kiss for now and some thing better letter

Keywords: chocolate, hip hop, sushi 

A quote from Merriam-Webster:

trans•sex•u•al noun (1957):
a person with a psychological urge to belong to the opposite sex that may be carried to the point of undergoing surgery to modify the sex organs to mimic the opposite sex

It's obviously a profile posted by some guy, making no particular effort to sound like a girl.  I think.  And he just didn't know what transsexual meant?  Or did and was making a joke?  Or maybe it really is a guy who chopped it off and got implants (looks like it) and is just very open about his/her status. Besides, the longer you look at this image, the more it looks like a man...

In either case, it's pretty funny that the typical horny guy cruising HotorNot.com has give this... thing... enough 10 votes to get its average up over 9. How many of those 10-voting guys do you think would drop their beers (or cokes, given the average age of a hotornot reader) if they found out they'd just given a 10 to a guy in a dress? 

Hey everyone!! This picture is almost 2 years old...I'm into most anything, especially trying new things and surrounding myself with awesome people. I'm totally up for meeting new people...so go ahead, meet me...I dare' ya!! :) Peace

Keywords: anything, being a goof, dogs, driving, imports, laughing, music, osbournes, roadtrips, shaggy hair, shopping, skaters, stars 

This one I saw today, when I clicked to Hot or Not by accident, aiming for the bookmark above it.  She was on the main page, and I found it funny that she was in a picture from her wedding, on Hot or Not.  Obviously not looking for a guy, eh?

And then I read her profile out of curiosity, and it cracked me up.  It sounds like a "I want to date." profile to me, which doesn't exactly go with her photo.  So I take it the 2 years were plenty for the wedding to fade to nothing more than a bitter squabble over the silver-plated fondue forks...

No profile page, tragically.

"Michael posed, his smile fading.  The wig was perfect, he'd shaved twice, he'd caked on the makeup... but still he didn't look a bit like a woman.  Perhaps another nose reduction surgery, and a few more de-blackification treatments would finish the job, and he'd be able to pass for Lisa Marie, at last.

No profile page for her, unfortunately, but for once we've got a high score who deserves it. Perhaps not a 9.9, but this girl is very, very cute. Too young, of course, but your laws can't hold me, the heart wants what the heart wants!

I'm assuming that curious lump in her shirt is her arm, pulled inside the sleeve.  Or her Cocker Spaniel.  Or something.  If those are really her breasts, she's got some sort of reverse Quasimodo syndrome, or else about 64 D's in a push up.  Or a neck at a very weird crooked angle.

I'm kinda shy & I am not sure what to say so if you wanna know more then send me a message.

No keyword!?  I'd bet this one is a legit profile.  The fake ones seem to put more effort into sounding slutty, and of course are almost always in wretched AOLese.  As I've been known to drop in "kinda" and "wanna" in my daily updates, I can hardly criticize her writing.

The score is of course far too high.  She's okay, and nice swell of breast and blonde hair, but let's keep some perspective.  9.8 means that almost everyone is voting 10.  Ten is the highest possible score.  So you've never seen a woman in your life, or at least pictures on hot or not, who was more attractive?  She looks pudgy to me, and about 16.  Maybe at 20 she'll be thinner and with some blush and eye shadow could earn the score she's got now?

You can click this photo to see her new picture at full size, and very crooked.  I rotated this one 20º since I just couldn't stand the uncropped and diagonal original.  I swear, people take no pride in their amateur porn anymore.

Hey My name is Kayt (pronounce Kate) Swimming, soccer, and dancing or some of my hobbies. I absolutely love Music! I couldn't live without it! I'm fun lovin gal and I love to meet new people! Laterz!

Keywords: dancing, i love music, perogies, soccer, soup, swimming

I think the score is way too high, but I don't have anything too mean to add here.  She looks like a nice girl, very all-American™, it's not her fault she's about as curvy as a bookcase.  Pretty smile though, just the face would be very nice.  Looks slightly like a young Elle MacPherson.  My fashion tip would be more wonderbra, less tub top.  Lift and squeeze, not drop and separate.

Hi.I m Alexa if u want to meet me came on here MO(missiouri)i love to have funn and i love dancing

Keywords: love, soccer

Maybe it's me, but is she not at all pretty?  I mean she looks angry, confused, and sort of sad.  The hair is pretty bad too; roots are sorta cool with dye, but if you're going to dye for roots, shouldn't the dye be really really white, or something?  Hers is sort of mousy blonde.  I mean she's a 7 with a decent outfit on, maybe an 8 for the mini skirt and cleavage, but 9.6?  Her hips look to be about six inches too wide, to my jaundiced eye.

The bio is obviously pretty pathetic, which makes one think it has to be fake, I.E. posted by an 11 y/o boy who found the pic somewhere.  It's odd how illiteracy works, that he capitalized a few things correctly, but never "I", and he can't spell his home state at all.  Interesting keywords too, sparse, and yet unevocative, with a dash of immaturity.

Hi, Im bi curious. Im looking for females to explore possibilities with. I like to watch movies, read and just kick back. I can be quite adventurous. Im going to school in Buffalo and Im 22. Click yes to learn more.

Keywords: college, dancing, girls, horror, kittie, meeting people, metal, movies, nyc, partying, sevendust, sleeping beauty

Not much to say about this one, just found the picture sort of funny.  She's not shy, anyway.  No idea if the bio is real; it's possibly legit, I guess.  Sort of surprising how low the score is, for a young woman with a double-handful of tits.  Even if they are her own.  Black chicks get no love on hot or not, in my observation.

5.3 Score -- 139 votes, Mar 4, 2002.
Her/it.

Dear lord.  Click at your own risk, she's missing more teeth than a pawn shop piano.  Looks sort of like Mother Teresa's evil twin, eh? And no, I'm not putting a thumbnail of that on my website.  Not even on this page.

The biggest mystery is the score, as it's clearly about 5.2 too high.

waz up ladies and guys my name is amanada i am 21 bi and i look to meet some hot and sexy people out there to chill with. i am leanin towards men for relationships but hit me up.....peace out yall

Keywords: chillin, food, gurls, guys, kids, liftin weights, mall, modeling, sports

She has perhaps the fakest bio ever, eh? At least I hope it's fake (as in some 13 y/o boy posted the shot and made up the bio info) or god help us all.  She's got a shovel-face, awful stringy poorly-dyed hair, way-too-big floppy tits, big hips, and a death rictus grimace/smile.  Other than that I find her very attractive.  I clicked a quick "6" to get her snarling face off my screen, and almost fell over upon seeing her average score.

Hello Thank you for taking the time to learn more about me. Some of my hobbies include attending formal parties, balls, the opera and so on, yes i may be rich but love is worth more than money

Keywords: camaro, clothing, corvette, dresses, ferrari, gentlemen, limo, money, mustang, opera, princess, viper

The picture is a bit ridiculous, I mean look at the full size one, could she be a bit more of a sex pot?  It was mostly the bio that I found amusing, as it could not be more absurd.  It screams of some kid trying to be clever (probably about 15 from Oklahoma, given the car choices), but not having a clue.  That bit about rich and money is just nonsensical.  I also hope that if this were a real person, rich, into "attending formal parties" and the opera would have better taste in automobiles than little boy toys like a Camaro or a Mustang.  Not that Corvettes are a big step up, IMHO; and it's insulting to throw Ferrari in with such kiddy sports cars.

As for her, she's ridiculous and packing a very weird facial expression ("Smile or the kittens die!"), but at the same time, Little Flux likes. Nice legs, no cottage cheese on the thighs, reasonably busty, silly costume, but still... *grunts*  I'll give her and 8 and hope with her hair down and a real expression she'd be even better, and whatever kid wrote her bio is nowhere to be seen.

Hey boys... I'm a hot 23 year old model from California and looking for a sweet, sensitive, sexy man to share myself with. E-mail me if you fit the description and want to know more about me.

Keywords: clubbing, expensive cars, jelly beans, men, modeling, traveling

For a change, this one seems potentially real. I can't really argue with the score, I gave her a 9 myself, and if the pic were larger (the thumb here is hardly reduced at all) or her suit were a bikini (though the cut out back is very sexy), showing some of her flanks, I'd have gone 10.  Since the average score is usually 2 or 3 higher than my vote, any woman I think is an 8 or more is virtually guaranteed to be a 9.9 average.

The bio, you think it's real?  It could be, it's not an obvious fakery like the first two examples, and it's not totally superficial or way too flirty, with just enough realistic touches; the expensive cars is honest, and jelly beans is cute.  She also spells correctly, and even uses the shift key when necessary, which is virtually unheard of in the male, 15 and under, fake-pic-posting hotornot set.  If I had an account there I'd click yes and see if she would reply, and if I could divine further her true reality/gender.  I need to get a good picture, either of me or better yet of some real hunky guy, put a stupid frat boy type bio on it, just to see if any of these women were actually real.

hi i like to have fun and im wild and very horny all the time and im les so if you want talk click yes

One of the faker bio's you'll see.  At least put some effort into it.  Every wanking little weasel who posts a fake chick shot/bio seems to think they have to mention "horny", "hot", "bisexual" or all of the above.  They also just can not get the hang of that tricky shift key.  Either that or they're all huge fans of ee cummings, and somehow that seems less likely.

As for the score, I guess she's attractive in a superficial, eye shadow by Tammy Faye, Christina Aguilera without the scarecrow hair fashion.  Looks sorta like one of the Brady Bunch girls, with the style-less, middle-parted, hippy hair.  Still, 7 at best, I mean if the hottest women on there, in a tiny bikini,, is a 9 or 10, just a shot of some young girl's face can't deserve more than a 7 or 8 at most, can it?

I dunno what 2 wright here extualy... I'm just looking 4 nice girls... You like me? Click "Yes" Lots of kisses, Eva

Keywords: etc, girls, going out, party

How about that bio?  Hate to be her English teacher, eh?  "extualy" is maybe the most misspelled word I've ever seen.  But it's not logically wrong enough to be hacker or internet slang, so it's just AOLese, I guess. No idea if this is by her.  Probably not, but at the same time, maybe she's this illiterate.  When I see typing like this I often wonder how someone so lacking in grammar can even know enough to operate a computer.

As for her picture, it's not bad, I mean nice belly, pierced navel is sorta cute, tight top, but the pose is awful, and she's just semi-pretty, certainly nothing approaching beautiful, or even more than a mediocre cute.  Plus the image quality is dire, totally flashed out, and from a lower angle than it should be, so her belly looks like it's sticking way out.  The quality of photos on the internet (in terms of pose, composition, angle, lightning, etc) is a topic for another day, and anyway, can't fault a quickie hotornot snap shot too harshly for that.  But a 9.5?  I mean who in the hell would give her more than a 7, being generous?  Belly-fetishers perhaps, but even then, you'll find far better female belly on hotornot, and if you give this a 10, what do you give a woman on hotornot with a perfect belly?

This one has nothing to do with the rather unfortunate woman(?) in the shot.  I just found the symbol on the wall behind her, over the "Fort Meade Museum" text amusing.  What is it with the army and phallic symbols anyway?  Well, I guess no men allowed inside the museum.  Or at least no aroused ones.  Not that I imagine that's very often a problem.

This page will be updated over time, and newer shots added on top.  If you see a shot on hotornot that you think merits inclusion here, let me know.

Conclusion/In Defense Of

Yes, this sort of website of course contributes to the objectification of individuals, especially women, which is exactly what "women's libbers" say about porno, etc etc.  I actually agree with this, it does depersonalize.  When I view HotorNot, I find myself just automatically using terms like, "anything decent", instead of "a semi-attractive woman", since after all, I'm referring to an anonymous image, not a human being.

Whether this is a problem of enough importance to do anything about is open to debate. It's just basic human nature, I wouldn't recommend losing any sleep over it.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.