A Vulnerable Conversation About Attractiveness

do you think you're an attractive person sorry that question might have been a bit too off-putting might have been a bit too direct but hold on that's not fair it's already been 10 seconds in this video and you've already subconsciously made a decision whether you think I'm attractive or Not In fact when you meet anyone it's one of the first judgments you make of them so actually I will ask you again do you think you're an attractive person I know sounds crazy but that term attractive is something we all think about constantly but no one

really ever talks [Music] about but what's there to talk about anyway why does being attractive matter is there even a legit way to increase your [Music] attractiveness you've probably grown up hearing that beauty is in the eye of the beh older and for centuries we've believed this but today as more statistical models come out better quality research is conducted and cultural standards increasingly overlap we're learning that statement is wrong we're learning that attractive individuals receive more positive attention better job prospects and actually get off crimes easier has Skin Care on their Christmas wish list everybody

we're learning that more people today than ever are willing to spend money on becoming more attractive and we're even learning that infants prefer attractive faces suggesting that beauty is more nature than nurture today we're finding that there is an element of objectivity in attractiveness so what are these Truths Behind what makes someone beautiful transparently this topic was meant to be a one video project back in February but it slowly evolved into my biggest project ever because the information is fascinating now let's just say like you did take this off in this four-part docu series I

undergo a series of tests and transformations to figure out how to become more attractive according to science so everybody has a little drop of fat here and about here is about as big as an egg Yol but like any good journey things didn't go as planned watching a yoga class I get out of my class and I see a 911 text from pages that says are you free I need to talk which I know is never good the last 6 months have been the most revealing experiment of my life all right first tell me tell

me what you like tell me what you don't like yeah it's take that whole line right here people are going to notice you once you walk in the door judges you will rank how attractive their followup questions I'm going to selectively remove the fat from these areas so without further Ado welcome to how to become more attractive scientifically [Music] Jordan what's your least favorite thing about [Music] Vela say his hair is way flower than mine okay I have another question if you had to rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 and how attractive

you think you are what would you say Matt you go first this was a question that my freshman your dorm friends asked other on the very first night at welcome week yeah wild times I remember the question went around the room I don't know like a seven I guess how the hell do you even answer something like that you answer too high you sound cocky but if you answer too low you sound not confident I'm an eight um 8.4 but worst of all let's say you are attractive and answer too low man do you seem

like an okay Tes your turn short answer a six but I guess it depends sometimes what does that mean today is December 31st 2019 growing up I was always the tiny nerdy kid so 7 more hours and it's the start of the new decade I was a 56 and 115 lb ball of Joy Shir but I remember always being labeled as cute and like little brother so we are here from our official sponsors and although I embrace this this by putting on a show of being a confident guy that looking back I definitely had my

insecurities what up guys you know we're just doing our thing um you'd see people like my friend Daniel who was a varsity basketball player have girlfriends since the sixth grade and in the back of your head you question how the heck is he doing that so I think Starbucks my Smiley personality and those around me oh man don't even get me started on the fear that would arise the weeks before homecoming documentary finding a date so what am I doing here I always felt like if I could sit down and talk to a girl I

was pretty good I had some charm but again it's if I could all right we're here with Vicky Vicky what do you have to say on the Vlog aming but not only did my size and stature play a role but you also start questioning things when you're one of the darker looking fellows walking around in a pretty white school so when I say it depends what I meant was sometimes I feel good about myself but most times I feel like I dock myself because of my physical looks sometimes I can feel like a seven or

even an eight but most times I feel like I see the look in someone's eye and feel like a three but what are we talking about this is crazy to say out loud Vince what what class you got tomorrow [Music] okay let's lay some groundwork humans have cared about beauty ever since our species has existed it's actually what's helped us survive as mentioned before on this channel we have to make 35,000 decisions in a day and we can't process all of them so we create these mental shortcuts one of these mental shortcuts is called the

halo effect in simple terms it explains why humans will take a positive trait of someone's and just assume other traits of are also positive if someone is attractive we also assume that they are healthier that they carry good genes and that they'll live long enough to produce Offspring and from a biological standpoint that makes total sense because the one thing we still have in common from our cave people back in the day is that one of the goals of the human race is to repopulate in fact there's evidence from a 100,000 years ago that early

humans used clay pigments as cosmetic paint and some prehistoric sites even show skeletons next to Ivory beads suggesting that even the earliest humans focused on looking beautiful so back in February when we first decided to research this we came across this organization called Co they have this incredible YouTube channel and a bunch of articles that list rules on what makes someone more attractive and before all this I never saw Beauty in that way that there's actual actions we can take to make us objectively more attractive and the more I looked into this the more I

realized that this isn't a new phenomenon in fact the conversation today around attractiveness is roaring if you've been on Tik Tok then you've heard of this term looksmaxing which is the maximization of your physical appearance for beauty standards this trend emphasizes many things like moisturizing and Hunter eyes and something called meu have you ever wanted a better jawline sure like you see those like chiseled guys um have you ever heard of meeing yeah like like one of those like your tongue we're about to watch a tutorial oh so what exactly is mewing meu is a

tongue posture technique where you position your tongue against the roof of your mouth to improve facial Aesthetics and jawline development yeah just look that way keep it going ready before before yep and after this is before okay oh my God you look good right now you got dimples well look at that thank you man I've known you for two years I never knew that so the question naturally arises outside of just jabbing my tongue in different places of my mouth what is an easy step that I can do to look better and that's when I

thought about hair and your hairstyle I'm sure we can all agree that a drastic change to your hair can change your impression it can change the way people perceive you so when I first met you this is how you looked yep there's a major difference between the cult today and the cult over here what is that difference um yeah look at this I got long hair now I was hanging out with Mr Kelly Waka a lot and he said bro you should grow out your hair and it honestly changed my life it kind of like

grew me up a little bit cuz I look like a little kid in that photo a lot of things started working out when I grew my hair out got a girlfriend the money's up the subs are up dude we're up we up we up more hair on top I don't okay a banana and I'm come to say bananas have to ripen in a certain way when they are flexed with brown and have a golden you bananas taste for years I struggled with figuring out my own [Music] hair in high school I always had this side

part sometimes it was really messed up and other times it was fine but I never really liked it then I tried some Fades here's one done by my mom she's great at many things but uh yeah not this good afternoon my name is then in college I started to grow it out and either would have to put a crap ton of product in my hair so it would be this crusty mess or if I got lazy I'd let it be this fluffy mess then I went full Tik Tock F booy ERA with this quiff looking

thing or this messy Fringe don't judge me too hard long story short I never found a hairstyle that I was confident in one that fit well on my head one that gave off the right impression and one that was sustainable to keep without using an absurd amount of gel and every morning that was until one evening in December of 2022 where I went into a barber shop and had an experience unlike any other in fact it's the first stop of this docu series good morning world we are headed to a popular place here in New

York City called 12 pel and it's a place that offers something called a hair consultation it's a service that's all about educating you on what hairstyle works best through things like your head shape hairstyle density all these things to give you a more tailored look as you can tell from my hair this is the most unraveled disheveled chaotic my hair has been in a minute so yeah hair is something that can really affect your attractiveness and if the goal is to maximize my attractiveness what should I do let's go to Pete what's up how we

doing blond I am dude you haven't seen me since huh no yep yep oh my god wow this feels official pleasure pleasure Mee and you how would you describe the difference between going to a regular Barber and coming to you all in the barbering space communication was definitely not the most prevalent in barber shops other than maybe talking about the game or like talking about what happened during the weekend when it came to the hair you would usually sit down and say leave it up to you or I don't really know what to do with

my hair and that became such a generational way of getting your haircut that we realize now people want to look customized people want to feel like their haircut is theirs I was one of those guys that struggled with figuring out what hairstyle fits my face so I'm going to have Pete live roast me so this is one of the first what do you think of that haircut bro you know whenever I see like these type of hairsty it's just like a throwback into what was trending back then honestly it's not bad I will say it

just it just gives you such a different vibe ultimately not to gas you up or anything like you have a very symmetrical face and very sharp and masculine already so most hairstyles work on you this just it's not your Vibe anymore my hair doesn't natural like the side part so it's taking a lot of like goo and just going that's what I'm saying so this is a great example of showing silhouette so if you like compare this photo to your yellow tie photo the the slight difference in just how much bulk right here sharpens up

your face a ton so like you see how this this already cuts down into your face and your jawline a bit more but the other one was curved in so that just makes you look so young and and and round as opposed to Sharp most Barbers I think should be doing this they look at the entire silhouette instead of just your features initially right cuz you're looking at the hair I want you to treat me as if I'm a new person that you've never met Pete I'm lost I've been growing out my hair for two

months three months my goal is just to look better okay [Music] cool first time client I always try to make sure that there's like a little bit more of a goal established here right it doesn't even just start from the second you sit in a chair like it starts from the second you come in I look at your outfit I look at like do you have tattoos what type of accessories do you wear cuz that gives me a good idea on like what type of look that you've been exposed to and also what look makes

you feel confident all right so like what this gives me off is like this Vibe of like athleisure but also a little bit of street wear when it mixed into it and also just the fact that like it's a pretty decent balanced fit you take care of yourself enough right it goes deeper into now the questions of like what does your lifestyle look like that's something I see in your videos all the time when you ask people like are you working corporate in New York City like are you trying to like are you in a

suit and tie or what do you do we want to make sure that what you're wearing is good for you in terms of the way it looks but also there's a lot of social aspects into this right because the way somebody looks at you determines like what they think of you it shouldn't matter but it does so I'd say yeah I'm like a creative guy I would say I'm a YouTuber I like to make educational videos so there's a level of professionalism like I I would say that I like to uh I like to keep

if I'm going out to movie I love tucking in a nice button down like a fancy button down trying to trying to make things look a little bit more uplifted I like that context because you have your uh your business side and professional but also you like to you know you you like to be a little bit funky creative I wanted you to have like a fun look but also can be styled in a way if it needed to be form fitting for like a suit then you have the ability to do that right now

obviously it's been such a long time since you got a haircut so this is now the balance is off the harmony is off right so if I looked at you now it would be like oh like this guy's creative but smokes a lot of weed yeah I mean hey like he's like really he's really creative you know what I'm saying he's putting on that suit a little less yeah exactly that's what I mean like I think that's the harmony I'm talking about like like you're going like more 80% creative and like 20% business you know

I mean we want to it back down get [Music] back are there any objective rules to how hair can affect someone's attractiveness the number one thing for me is making sure that the haircut is well balanced to their face shape and also working with how their hair type is or right some people have longer faces being oblong some people have wider faces being either more square like mine uh because your hair is very voluminous uh the nature of like your curls um we're going to shrink this down so the head doesn't become too long if

you have straight hair if you have low density or high density the last thing is also just the way that the hair growth pattern is uh completely changes the way that you would just cut it down to make sure that it lays properly going back to Silhouettes and also how it frames your face I think it's interesting too like I always do this where if I just like from my front framing if I just covered This and like this is the frame I feel like I look way different your eyes immediately gravitate towards the top

or at least where is most heaviest right but when you have this kind of framing out this way guess what now the silhouette it goes down to your face or the entirety of everything cuz this now connects into this Bas Harmony silhouette balance is all kind of similar things for me but you want it to be harmonious between your hair type your face shape and also like your own personal goal so [Music] yeah in talking with Pete I came across a major finding to the question of how to become more attractive objectively here we go

mhm and it's that the answer is paradoxical these hairs love to shoot backwards but the bottom pieces luckily they shoot forward on yes we all want to be more attractive and we can all recognize When A change is more attractive but if there was a single answer for everyone wouldn't we all look the same think about it what if every guy had a combover side part it kind of takes away the art behind what makes us human it's been 2 years since I've had this modern mullet look and genuinely it's the first time I've felt

an answer to the haircut dilemma it's a haircut that maximizes my attractive traits and hides away some of my weaker ones wear like it's one that represents My Playful fun side and best of all I don't have to use any product it's the natural growth of my hair at one point I did try and force Pete to answer this paradoxical question and in it we did come up with a single word answer that got my wheels spinning harmonious that's the word that's a a good hairstyle at minimum should be harmonious meaning well balanced proportional and

pleasing as a whole and a little foreshadow this won't be the last time you hear this word cool nice come here come here full hug thank you man all right well he doesn't need posi surer anymore so I don't have to do that I think there's two things that you that's really interesting I think one is there's not like one answer to everyone it's like how anyone wants to be presented is the first question you always ask first and then to that answer what are the steps to take right and then two when it comes

to haircuts you're right it's like most of your face is like fixed right you're it's literally to your bone and the one thing that can change is your hair and how much it can affect the silhouette and like how you basically add to that overall impression someone wants to make throughout this whole experience there was one line that Pete said which really stood out to there's a lot of social aspects into this right because the way that somebody looks at you determines like what they think of you it shouldn't matter but it does so earlier

we mentioned the halo effect basically how us humans will take a positive trait of someone's and just assume that their other traits are also positive but there's something about it that we didn't mention yet and that's how we perceive someone also affects how we treat that person and this phenomenon can be divided into two buckets pretty privilege and pretty penalty this this comes up in job opportunities salary amounts and even treatment in Criminal Court like lower bail requirements hey Robin you know this guy has sparked this hash Felon Crush Friday his wife is reportedly Furious

about all of the attention and she's not alone Attractive people are getting something that most others aren't because of the way that they look there was a study where 60 students were given an envelope of three faces one that was deemed attractive one that was deemed average and one not so attractive the students were then asked to assess these people based on their personality traits and then predict some of their life experiences and in summary the results showed that the students believed that the attractive individuals got the higher status jobs got married and were overall

more happy additionally studies showed that pretty privilege is really apparent in the workplace Attractive people were more likely to be promoted and have better performance evaluations and this was true amongst men and women but the second bucket of all of this is pretty penalty surprisingly being attractive can actually be a disadvantage for example research shows that attractive people may be seen as more Vain and less modest also crazy fact studies showed that women perceive attractive men more likely to have an STI but what is it but doesn't diminish their willingness to engage in protected or

un protected sex with those wom there are downsides to these mental shortcuts that we take as humans specifically the halo effect to say that an attractive person is also a smarter individual a better parent or can be more honest is a bias that could do more harm than good so beware of it [Music] if you had to rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 in how attractive you think you are what would you say it's an uncomfortable question but we now know that how attractive you are matters in the world we live in

I'm not going to lie finding a good hairstyle might have bumped me up a point or two but why stop there [Music] um I have one more and also have you ever thought to yourself how far would you go to become more attractive I'm Doug stra and I'm a board certified aesthetic plastic surgeon here we measure your skin tone so I can compare your redness and yellowness we'll clean up the neck with lipos suction and what we call neck type you don't seem too happy no I'm more so curious it's just this is this color

is new to me in order to test everything about attractiveness non-physically we thought the best way would be to make a makeshift dating show I make an incision on the inside go in through the mouse and again I think it's because growing up I was like told not to and so like breaking a foundation that's been in my head so that that's that's that reaction so all right we're going to move to the body so first tell me tell me what you like tell me what you don't like okay um and what happens when the

journey you decide to take hits a little too close to home in the middle of making this docu series I got my heart broken hi [Music] hi yeah I mean firstly I've been through that too like I've gone through that the process of getting the other side of that