This is way off anything I usually write about here, or my normal range of interest, but I ran across what seemed to be a good explanation of how being an attractive female has benefits recently, here.
That's a Facebook video post of a Tik Tok video, not posted by that content producer (@victhepath, it looks like).
Her account is pretty simple; there are tiers to being pretty / attractive. She's a 6 or 7 (on the familiar 10 point scale), and at level 8 a woman tends to be the prettiest in the room almost all of the time. 9 or 10 relates to models and actors, or I suppose also more successful influencers.
She is claiming that the level of privilege, the benefits that come from being attractive, vary by attractiveness, and she broke it all down. She can get better treatment from people for being pretty, but at those higher levels people give women free things without them even asking, or can get hired more easily, can work in modeling, and so on.
It all rings fairly true. It's interesting seeing it broken down in such a clear way like that, as those levels. She says that at her level she needs to use strategies to get the most out of it, because her degree of privilege is limited, but then at higher levels it's all relatively automatic. She needs to associate with other women who are as attractive or more so to get the most out of it, eg. access to things others normally can't do.
All of this is so basic it almost goes without saying, that the most beautiful women benefit the most from being attractive, and just being above average has less advantage. To me it's interesting hearing it spelled out though.
I can't help but notice that women promoting all sorts of online profiles tend to gather followers much faster than any other types of interest pages I see (related to tea, running, health, whatever the subject is). Again one of the most obvious possible conclusions, right? Both men and women are interested in attractive women, at times for two different reasons, but it could be the same ones, so posting Instagram photos or Tik Tok commentary could lead to drawing 10,000 followers for an attractive woman, and more like what most men experience for an average looking one, very limited interest.
A very beautiful woman talking about tea online could gain 10 times the following that I ever would very quickly.
This reminds me of Youtube recommending a video of a woman explaining that she felt loneliness (here), probably a solid 8, if I can guess that number scale, or if it even makes sense. Or a 9? She's a model.
That video has 100k views now, even though that's essentially the whole point, that she lives a normal life, works a normal job, and does some modeling, and her social life lacks the depth she might've expected. Half of everyone experiences that, or maybe more. So it's a common theme that might resonate with others, but it was being shown because it picked up traction with the algorithm, for that one reason.
I suppose that human nature always was like this, and it's only evolving in form now because of online / social media exposure. There would've been similar privilege in the 1980s through 00s, but not the part about being a successful influencer, drawing advertising sponsor support for creating light independent content. You couldn't record a short video explaining that you are lonely and reach 100,000 people, or couldn't draw an income just for wearing a specific brand of yoga pants.
It's interesting in light of me having earned almost nothing related to tea, except for receiving an awful lot of free samples, sent for review. I've done some paid writing, and helped host a corporate tour once, and did a little consulting, but it all added up to around $1000, over a decade. Maybe just over that, and that seemed significant to me, for enabling a few tea orders, even though it kind of wasn't much.
Should I be bitter, or should we unpack this as highlighting something new about human nature and society? No. It's very common ground, just interesting for it being so explicitly stated.
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