The OK trends blog to me cannot be read as serious social statistics analysis. It’s intent is to get hits and keep their sky high google page rank. It is almost entirely a marketing ploy, and I find it impossible to source them on topics like “what makes a good picture?”, “what makes a good message?”, “are you all a bunch of racists?”, &c.
One of the reasons that instrumental rationality is hard is that acquiring good data is hard. Imperfect data is generally better than no data however and there are other sources where you can find research into some of the same questions that OkCupid covers. Most of the advice in their ‘Don’t Be Ugly By Accident’ post is just standard stuff for portrait photography for example which any book on photography would cover in great detail.
I agree about OKT, as I noticed elsewhere. I also agree with Alicorn about the glasses, if that’s practical and if at-a-glance attractiveness is sufficiently high priority for you.
(SarahC and Relsqui’s profiles are very far above the OKCupid standard.)
Thanks for that. ; ) I don’t feel I can remark on the way most women use their OKC profiles, because I don’t read many of them and I try to stick to the extraordinary ones. But I can say that there are tons of men out there who are clearly parroting what they’ve been told will attract women, trying to come off as the perfect knight in shining armor while successfully avoiding showing any hint of personality. The effect is to make it seem like they’re trying to attract the similarly generic woman so they can get married and have generic children.
Yo estudie Espanol por cinco anos en a escuela. Mi Espanol no es florido. Yo quiero hablar con facilidan en el futuro. Mi vecindad tienen muchas personas que hablan Espanol.
I recommend looking up how to write the accents; some of these words change meaning without them. A common example is that “año” means “year” and “ano” means “anus.” Not that any sane reader wouldn’t know what you meant, but it’s worth knowing anyway. Some verbs change with accents in ways which are much more subtle: “estudio” is first person present and “estudió” is third person preterite.
A few specific errors, if you’re interested:
I’d use “estudiaba” rather than “estudié” because it refers to an ongoing process, rather than a single event in time. (By contrast, one might say “empezé estudiar español en el grado segundo,” because one began to study at one point in time.)
I think you made a typo writing “en la escuela”; I would probably have written “a la escuela” (at school, rather than in school), but I’m not sure you’re actually wrong. It might just be a style choice. Similarly, I’m guessing “facilidan” is meant to be “facilidad.”
Your “vecindad” is singular, so it “tiene” many Spanish-speakers, not “tienen.” And while “muchas personas” is technically correct, it’s the equivalent of saying “many persons” in English—more common would be “mucha gente” (many people).
I’m not fluent either, so I can’t promise that’s exhaustive, but I’ve studied Spanish for many years and used to use it at work a lot. :)
I have a theory that most of the women on OKCupid put almost no effort into it; they are not genuinely interested in meeting any of the OKCupid men; they are participating by some complex motivation somewhere between playing around in a virtual world and window shopping what might be out there on the off chance, extremely remote, that they decide they want to buy; and also to compare what is advertised in the virtual world with the reality that they see around them in the real world.
There are fun quizzes and they tell you stuff about your personality. That’s why I registered; my half-assed profile explicitly says I’m with someone and to message me only if you’re interested in platonic friendship. I have made friends with one really nice couple, though.
xxxxx
One of the reasons that instrumental rationality is hard is that acquiring good data is hard. Imperfect data is generally better than no data however and there are other sources where you can find research into some of the same questions that OkCupid covers. Most of the advice in their ‘Don’t Be Ugly By Accident’ post is just standard stuff for portrait photography for example which any book on photography would cover in great detail.
I agree about OKT, as I noticed elsewhere. I also agree with Alicorn about the glasses, if that’s practical and if at-a-glance attractiveness is sufficiently high priority for you.
Thanks for that. ; ) I don’t feel I can remark on the way most women use their OKC profiles, because I don’t read many of them and I try to stick to the extraordinary ones. But I can say that there are tons of men out there who are clearly parroting what they’ve been told will attract women, trying to come off as the perfect knight in shining armor while successfully avoiding showing any hint of personality. The effect is to make it seem like they’re trying to attract the similarly generic woman so they can get married and have generic children.
I recommend looking up how to write the accents; some of these words change meaning without them. A common example is that “año” means “year” and “ano” means “anus.” Not that any sane reader wouldn’t know what you meant, but it’s worth knowing anyway. Some verbs change with accents in ways which are much more subtle: “estudio” is first person present and “estudió” is third person preterite.
A few specific errors, if you’re interested:
I’d use “estudiaba” rather than “estudié” because it refers to an ongoing process, rather than a single event in time. (By contrast, one might say “empezé estudiar español en el grado segundo,” because one began to study at one point in time.)
I think you made a typo writing “en la escuela”; I would probably have written “a la escuela” (at school, rather than in school), but I’m not sure you’re actually wrong. It might just be a style choice. Similarly, I’m guessing “facilidan” is meant to be “facilidad.”
Your “vecindad” is singular, so it “tiene” many Spanish-speakers, not “tienen.” And while “muchas personas” is technically correct, it’s the equivalent of saying “many persons” in English—more common would be “mucha gente” (many people).
I’m not fluent either, so I can’t promise that’s exhaustive, but I’ve studied Spanish for many years and used to use it at work a lot. :)
I would advise you to wear smaller glasses if that is possible given your eyesight.
There are fun quizzes and they tell you stuff about your personality. That’s why I registered; my half-assed profile explicitly says I’m with someone and to message me only if you’re interested in platonic friendship. I have made friends with one really nice couple, though.