It has to be one of the most addictive sites on the Internet and if you haven't visited www.hotornot.com, you should at least take a gander.
For those of you who haven't been there, let me sum it up in a couple of brief sentances. Basically, you select who you want to rate as hot or not based on their age and sex. You are presented with a picture of a person fitting the aforementioned criteria and using a scale from 1 (being "not") to 10 (being "hot") you decide...well... if they're hot or not. There are millions of pictures and after voting you are given a average rating for the individual which you've just ogled. You really could spend all day trawling through thousands of individuals and assessing their asthetic qualities.
I pop in every now and again when I get bored and go through a few while I'm waiting for my food to cook or whatever. But recently, I've been led to ponder the moral implications of this activity. For the most part, the girls (or boys, but I'll stick to what I know) who score 9 or 10 know they're hot anyway and will get little more than an ego boost whenever they check their ample stats, but what of the girls who dwell in the merky depths of 2 and 3? Of course they knew the risks when they submitted their pictures, but in a world where so much emphasis is put on personal appearance. Especially for girls who actually do believe themselves to be beautiful ( thanks to people like Christina Aguillera who set out to make a quick buck with songs like Beautiful), how must they feel when they check back and see themselves with a mark of 2.4 or something of the kind. I do get a feeling of guilt when I click a 2 and see that I'm the only one to have marked the picture. They may have known the risks, but it's still a bit harsh.
And what about the younger girls who want to be in the hot 10s? Could such serious psychological problems as anorexia or bolemia be affected by comments made here? Or will those without hope in the eyes of the unfeeling marker turn to suicide and self harm? For those of us who think we're a bit of all right, how would we feel as we confidently checked our score to find the horror of a 3.5 or a 2.7? Could we cope? I don't want to be a kill joy, and I certainly won't stop popping on to the site, but these questions still arise. Could this site become a crutch for those with little else than their looks, or an inspiration for destructive behaviour those with everything but? Is this obsession with looks healthy?
This site grows in popularity every day and gets press space all over the world with everyone from all ages, races and places. Is it a site used for admiring or demening? Why is it so popular, and have you tried it out yet? Try it out, and decide for yourself.