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Monday, January 17, 2011

Looks matter, but not in the way that you think

People (self-righteous holier-than-thou free love anarchists) like to say looks don't matter to them. It's just an inevitable fact of nature that they do. Things that are more aesthetically pleasing are more attractive, and this applies to art, nature, architecture, people, everything. Looks shouldn't dictate our judgments about people -- they're part of a genetic lottery not everyone can win, but that's not the whole story. There are aspects of appearance that people can control very easily, and it is by this more than anything that people are judged.

I used to argue about this with my dad endlessly when I was little. He would yell at me to take off my chipped nail polish and cut my gross nails, and I would yell back with "I don't care! No one ever looks at my nails!" He would say "If you look like you just don't care, why should anyone care about you?" When I was eight, I thought this was ridiculous. Now that I'm 18, I wish I could time warp 10 years and tell myself to listen to Dad.

Your genetics are out of your hands, but the way you present yourself is your choice. It's shallow and unfair to judge guys on a scale from 1 to Chace Crawford, but they just ask to be judged when they voluntarily choose to look like a hobo. If they have the means to cut their hair, shave, and wear clothes that match, and they don't do those things, that screams to the world "I don't care what you think, so don't bother to think about me."

It's a matter of respect for normal social customs, and those who defy them only ask for judgment. People like to criticize those who judge by looks and label them as shallow, but looks can tell you a lot about a person. Everyone makes a conscious decision about their appearance when they get dressed in the morning, and this choice can immediately tell you how lazy or apathetic they are. It doesn't mean spending an hour doing your hair or wearing pounds of makeup, but looking clean is just a little thing anyone can do to respect themselves and everyone who has to look at them.

Don't judge a book by it's cover? The cover is not the whole story, but we shouldn't ignore the choice that went into it. Someone chose that cover to represent the book.

Love,
Juliana

1 comment:

  1. It's only unfair to every guy other than Chace Crawford to judge by that scale xD
    I hate when people put on so much makeup that it's like whoah but I agree that people should put some effort because no matter what we say some part of how we judge people are based on looks.

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