#Survivor Borderline is essentially my own take on the idea | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

funkymbtifiction · 5 years

Text

How the general public views types vs. How I *personally* view them

INTJ: Genius who’working on taking over the world or on curing cancer depending if they’re good or evil.

Me: Much more community-serving than the misanthropic stereotype thrown at them. Insightful idea people who actually want to make it happen.

ENTJ: Definitely trying to take over the world, but most likely a ruthless CEO

Me: Not a ruthless CEO, but rather a bit more of a life coach. Doesn’t mince words but can be quite fun and inspirational under the right circumstances. My most enviable type because other than the nasty repressing of feelings, they are usually super well-rounded at seeing everything and adjusting accordingly.

INFJ: Mystic, saint, wasn’t born but rather hatched from a pod in another dimension

Me: Essentially an ISFJ but with more of a spiritual/esoteric edge to them. Not concerned on focusing with your every day problems but rather the life path you should take. Incredibly smart but sometimes overshoot their ideals.

ENFJ: Oprah/Bono

Me: Actually more over-dramatic than ESFJs but once you can get passed that, you can see how insightful they actually are.

INTP: Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast

Me: I think the nerd stereotype is actually kinda true? Although they are often more (surprisingly) artistically inclined. Super smart, probably more than all types, but do indeed tend to be lazy.

ENTP: Charming troll

Me: Heretic troll, except…..sometimes we kinda need that to put things back into perspective? Has this weird ability to constantly shift back and forth between being super realistic and day-dreamy. really good at giving advice, but go off and run with it before they go too far down the rabbit hole.

INFP: INFJ but without the whole “wanna change the world’‘ thing. Because they’re too emo.

Me: The true ’'artists” of the MBTI family IMO. I do believe that most world-famous artists are actually ISFPs because A) They are more common and B) They usually know better than INFPs how to cater to a large populace. But I think INFPs are usually more unhinged artistic types, more difficult to comprehend but in a good way. Same as INTP though, they are subject to being lazy (sorry).

ENFP: Any anime or manga character

Me: The ultimate SJW type (those stereotypes are true) but way more grounded, realistic and business savvy then they give themselves credit for.

ISTJ: Boring suit and tie guy, not openly racist/homophobic but probably is. His only wild side was a brief fling with the secretary

Me: Stick in the mud, judgmental, but surprisingly rebellious and artistic. Seen as the ultimate conformist but actually has their own thoughts and views of things, which believe or not, can go against the popular consensus.

ESTJ: Drill sergeant

Me: Way more fun and zany then people give them credit for (what with all that stiff authority figure stereotypes) but do indeed have a tendency to point fingers and tell you they’re right and you’re wrong.

ISFJ: Mom who read 457 Danielle Steele novels

Me: Actually one of the more mysterious MBTI types. People love to lump them into the predictable “mom” or “nurse” category. But I find them to be sleeping rebels whom at anytime will do something that you’ll never see coming. Much more secretive than the stereotype suggests. When they snap, all hell breaks loose.

ESFJ: Soccer mom if over 30, basic white girl at Starbucks if under 30.

Me: I believe to my core that they actually are the most well-meaning type. They really are the nurturers of this world and WAY smarter than people think (because socially smart is actually very much a thing and they have that in spades), but they simply struggle with boundaries, which is why they are often considered as being overbearing.

ISTP: Car mechanic if held under low esteem, apocalyptic survivor if held in high esteem. Wishes “The Purge” would come true.

Me: One of my personal favorite types. I love dark and uncalled for humor and they are one of the few types who actually get off on it. Super practical and helpful BUT yes, they have trouble taking accountability for their own actions, always blaming others, even the fricikn’ government for sh*tty things they do, and that does get annoying over time. The concept of personal responsibility seems to be lost on them.

ESTP: Annoying jock/frat boy, passed out on booze every night

Me: The ultimate realists who don’t mince words. They are extremely inspirational leaders, but sadly don’t realize or don’t want to put their energy into it. By far the most popular people you will encounter and thus you will try to copy them, until you sadly realize their swag/sass in 100% natural whereas yours is probably forced. The unhealthy ones however will range anywhere from jerks to borderline sociopaths.

ISFP: Chosen to defend the realm of Earth from the evil Aganor and his dark army,

Me: The true “rebels” of the MBTI. They simply do NOT give sh*t what you think. Tell them that jumping off a bridge is stupid and will kill them and they……will probably do it. Just to prove you wrong. But in all seriousness, these people balance the artistic and realistic like no other type.

ESFP: “Like, let’s totes party! Like 4 realz!”

Me: Often portrayed as the least intelligent type, and that may be true if they are young, dumb and full of c*m, but most of the mature ones are so driven and business-focused that they make your typical ENTJ blush by comparison, BUT yes, they are often slaves to their values and can make dumb decisions just on the basis that they won’t cross a subjective line in their morals. Just like ESTPs, if you’re looking to boost your stock through appearance, they know how, but won’t be as much jerks about it.

SUBMITTED BY STEVE

#submission #fun stuff #mbti #entj #intj #enfj #infj #entp #intp #enfp #infp #estp #istp #esfp #isfp #estj #istj #esfj #isfj

739 notes · View notes

fromthedeskofelizabeththird · 6 years

Text

So Here are the Spoilers -Volume III

AKA I have not been this mad at Cheritz for ages. Let’s deep dive.

Warning: this post contains spoilers and mentions of abuse and p*dophilia.

Also Rika.

So much Rika...

I am mad, yo

Not even mad, I am furious.

As I usually do when I give my thoughts like this, here is what I wanted from V after end and Rika DLC

V moving on with his life and having a happy ending with MC

The RFA healing and also moving on

A focus on MC and V!! And their love???? You know?? The point of him having a route in the first place.

An exploration of Rika’s past and Mint Eye, to fill in all the blanks we have so far

Rika facing justice and seeking redemption.

I’ll be honest.

If you want fluffy V and MC content, go ahead and play the existing ends. The after end is not really about V at all. It’s along the same lines as Secret Ends 02, where your LI isn’t really present and instead dealing with their own emotional turmoil and issues.

And, you know. To an extent I would have been okay with this in V content. V is the leader of the RFA and it would be weird if the fall out from Rika wasn’t even addressed. My beef about this is that we don’t get a secret end 01 where MC and V are together, repairing problems together. We don’t see V at all for 98% of the story. We get more Rika content than V...which is a whole other issue I’ll get to in a bit. Hell...I’m pretty sure we get more VANDERWOOD than V. (Don’t get me wrong...I like Vanderwood, but wtf??)

It’s honestly the same complaint I have for both Jumin’s after end and Valentine’s DLC, where he’s not even present for most of it and it feels like a waste of time and hourglasses. (And at 80 hourglasses per chapter, plus another 100 to unlock both endings, it doesn’t come cheap.)

V and MC’s ‘happy ending’ is an afterthought. V’s entire presence in the after end is an ‘oh by the way, remember V? The character whose after end you’re in I guess???’

Ugh.

Anyway.

It was good to see the RFA healing and moving on. I was so heartbroken by Jumin’s inability to cope with what was going on, even as he took extra care to make sure the rest of the RFA were fine. I loved Yoosung’s anger and conflict over this person he’d admired and respected for so long. I loved Seven’s complete breakdown over the potential loss of his brother.

I loved that they got reunited!

What I didn’t like?

The forcedness.

The after end gives you two choices: Judge or Forgive. I hoped that they would be complimentary to one another, like in Seven’s Valentine DLC, where both were good ends, just different in tone.

Well, boy was I wrong!

From the beginning of the After End, you are pushed towards Forgiveness, with the MC being portrayed as completely unreasonable and borderline hysterical if they show even an ounce of resentment and anger towards Rika. If you go on to unlock the Judgement ending, Cheritz not only spits in your face but every single one of her victims.

There is a short VN sequence called Rika Circus, where you are mocked for essentially enjoying torture porn and wanting Rika to come to a cruel end and suffer a horrible fate. It’s the judgement ending, but you the player are judged instead.

Just getting these screens made me feel physically sick:

I don’t know where to begin with this bs. Maybe with the preface that I am an abuse survivor and pushing the idea that victims have to forgive their abusers in any way shape or form and aren’t allowed to hold even a small amount of anger towards them is completely shameful? This ending literally borders on the same gaslighting logic that if a victim stands up to their abuser they are the shitty one and hyper aggressive. I wish I could explain how bad this ending was for my PTSD.

Actually no. I will explain.

The most important lesson I got from my therapist was how okay it was to be angry, because it was an acknowledgement that I was a victim and my abuser was in the wrong. That I didn’t have to forgive her if I didn’t want to. That it was important for me to feel valid in my emotions.

Maybe what bothered me was the cognitive dissonance (and gaslighting) that an MC wanting Rika to face justice must 100% want her to die or live out the rest of her days being mistreated and even sexually assaulted? Like??? How about no?? Are there no jails in Mysme’s universe? No community service? We know from the Judgement end that she got a life sentence, so it’s not like the MC sentenced her to death.

Maybe it’s because the player is given very valid choices e.g. being suspicious of the cult leader who stabbed their boyfriend and tortured numerous people, but are framed along the same lines as the MC being like KILL HER *knife emoji*.

Maybe it’s because this ending is the first time the player gets close to knowing Rika’s past and then is made to feel guilty about not knowing it?

I just

/inhale

right.

/deep breaths

okay

/breathe

my hands haven’t stopped shaking for hours haHA fuck my life

I can’t help but feel like this after end undid absolutely all of the highlights of V’s route. V only mentions his love being an obsession in the judgement endings.

Actually, all of the RFA’s reactions in the judgement ending are the same as their reactions to finding out the truth about Rika in V’s route. Jumin wants her to have a life sentence despite his conflict about it. Yoosung is upset and mad. Zen wants nothing to do with her.

And this is the ‘bad’ ending.

The forgiveness ending is pretty Rika centric and incorporates V’s good end. The RFA is back to normal, V comes back fine. It’s strongly implied that he and Rika both spent time in Alaska together before coming to propose to MC. Rika, as far as we know, never faced punishment for her crimes, which is framed as a good thing.

Perhaps the most abhorrent part of the forgiveness ending is that it’s the only one where Rika comes forward and confesses the truth about the twins...which... I’m not sure why C&R’s fate, the Chois being safe etc et al comes down to MC’s feelings about Rika. It’s a disservice to Rika more than anything, because it seems like she only comes clean because MC was nice to her and not because...you know.. it was the right thing to do.

And this brings me onto the treatment of Rika in the route and DLC and holy shit, it’s a ride.

No, Rika is not redeemed.

Yes, she is woobified to hell and back and then twice more.

We learn that Rika was adopted by Yoosung’s relatives, who were cruel and devoted to the Catholic church. Later she was verbally abused and assaulted by a priest. She later decided to take power in the fact that people would be afraid of her and thought she was Satan etc.

I’ll be blunt.

Rika’s DLC is just an expensive retcon. It’s seven chapters at 60HG each just to be told that Rika had a sad past and all of her terrible actions came from being treated badly. She does not even get to be held accountable for Mint Eye, because Cheritz gave her a sister who actually was the one to tell her not to trust V or the RFA and poisoned her mind.

Rika does not, nor ever, get a proper redemption because even in her own DLC it’s never admitted that she was in the wrong...which is some bullshit logic because...well..it’s really jarring to have it constantly reinforced that Rika did nothing wrong and should not be judged because of her sad past at the hands of her foster mother with cult-like beliefs... because if we take from it the fact that Rika became essentially the same, by extension shouldn’t we then forgive her abusers because we don’t know their story either? Should we shrug off any notion that the priest should be imprisoned because judging people is bad and we just want him to be tortured and forgiveness is the way to go?

I’m just

I don’t know what I expected but

they still managed to disappoint me

To summarise, the after end is bullshit, V isn’t even there for most of it, Rika gets no redemption arc and is treated like an uwu flower crown victim and it’s all very manipulative and rushed lmao. It’s a waste of hourglasses and time and literally undoes everything good that came before it

#mystic messenger #mysme #not tagging the rat lmao #spoilers #I JUST WANTED V KISSES ON VALENTINES DAY CHERITZ #WHY

204 notes · View notes

elstine-harboson · 7 years

Note

How about some more history on cavalry. Pros/cons, costs to maintain, uses and formations, the whole nine yards. I'm a tad disappointed I don't see more people play them.

Man, I can’t tell if it’s the coffee or the question that has me so jittery.

So what I want to start out with is how absurd Calvary initially was. What a lot of people do not understand is that evolution is a thing - we have selectively bred horses much like we have with dogs; initially horses were tiny - though I don’t know the details of their size I’d estimate like, pony size basically. It was not fathomable for people to think “I should ride this thing into battle!”

That’s why you see chariots being such a big thing in ancient times and not simply calvary which would be cheaper and easier to maintain. Horses were strong and large enough to pull chariots using the power of the wheel, but not strong enough to carry a human directly on its back at full speed for long periods of time - and especially not with the orchestra composed by a battlefield.

There is several ideas of where the generally modern horse originated from; some say Mongolian Region, but I believe it most likely came from the Middle East - either from Egyptian Region to the Fertile Crescent, or Persian Region or Anatolia. It is my belief with my current understanding and knowledge of history that essentially Horses were used much like mules, as pack animals. As such Horses grew more domesticated with time, and got larger and stronger to increase weight.

“But Elstine why didn’t they just use camels.”

Camels are infamous ass holes, they’re like the sand version of a llama. If a camel doesn’t want to go anywhere, it won’t go, and if you take your eyes off it, it’ll likely run away. Horses were easier to domesticate in comparison.

Anyway,

Generally speaking by the 4th Century BC, people were beginning to use light calvary, likely for raiding and scouting; reports suggest that ideally if combat became a thing calvary would dismount to fight or ride away rather than actively engaging on horseback, but that is also regional and of course not always the case. By this time Horses had been used as early as 5000BC in chariots, so Horses had a long time to grow domesticated, and get larger and stronger - in addition around the 4th century is when big innovations like stirrups and reins became relatively wide spread.

So, now there is this concept growing on tacticians, strategists, generals, kings… Horses are fast, fast is important. And bangboom, here come the calvary - literally. Horse-bound warriors became wide spread at this point, from Greece to Asia and beyond.

Now, this is more speculation, theory, etc more than anything but from my understanding and research, while calvary became a big thing the east and west developed two different methods of using the calvary. In the west is was more common to use a Hammer and Anvil tactic; which involves a strong defensive front line used to hold the enemy in place while a calvary unit pulls around to the back of the enemy, acting as a hammer as they ride into the rear - devastating moral and opening gaps in the line.

In the east things seemed to be more different, while hammer and anvil were likely used it seems calvary were generally kept to raiding, poking, and proding, or preventing flanking by engaging the enemy calvary, or attacking archers. There’s many cases I have read where the infantry engage the enemy, essentially distracting them while the calvary charge past and go raid the enemy camp or fort, or cut off supply lines. Whether this is a primary strategy of the east or not, I cannot say for certain but the majority of my reading involved these strategies more often than the Hammer and Anvil strategy.

Now that we’re in the 4th and 5th century lets zoom over to the infant Roma just getting her flag planted in the fertile lands of Italia. A lot of people are quick to point out that Rome had Calvary, which in that general area was fairly rare. There were only a handful of germanic and celtic clans that had horse riders and those were typically exclusive to raiding as horses were largerly ineffective in the large forest of Gaul and Germania.

Now the Romans had the Equites; which essentially were Nobles and these were largerly infamous for being borderline useless most of the time until further in roman history. Equites being Nobles and Wealthy, they were typically just there to serve their military duty before beginning their Political Career, in Rome a Politician was required to be a Soldier for a period during the republic. So Equites did as little as possible and generally did not risk much, and generals did not use them to avoid risking angering the Nobility and Politicians back home who likely had sons in the Equites. So, these units did scouting missions and such, and occassionally did low risk flanking or chasing down routed enemies.

This remained the case for quite some time and calvary for several hundreds of years generally stayed the same with a few exceptions throughout the world. Generally it was light calvary, for a long time. With advances in armor however we began to see heavy calvary beginning to form, most calvary were made of Nobility if Wealthy individuals no matter what part of the world - and thus as Nobility grew wealthier and armor advances went forward you began to see heavier armored soldiers and even armored horses and camels, with specialized weaponry for calvary such as lances and smaller bows (I believe composite bows or recurve bows? I can’t recall.) to make calvary more devastating while risking less due to armor.

So now you begin to really see wrecking ball calvary with more formations designed for charging and breaking lines, rather than relying on infantry people were beginning to rely on calvary.

Lets skip ahead a bit to the now crumbling Roman Empire, you have the Huns who are infamous for their calvary, specifically their horse archers - and these lighter calvary are able to generally outrun the heavier calvary, and also flank around infantry that kinda forgot about light calvary since it was not nearly as big as it used to be. So like the Greeks before them, you have these stiff roman formations that find it hard to adapt to these quick, long range calvary that typically soften up the infantry, lowering their moral and exhausting them, and then you’d have a hunnic calvary charge to route them, following up with chasing down the survivors.

So Rome is over expanded, it can’t seem to train the Legions to fight between the infantry focused Germans to the Light Calvary focused Huns, to the Eastern Heavy Calvary, and it’s losing a lot of manpower. But a biiiig thing is that Rome is taking in Germanic and Celtic Mercenaries, teaching them warfare - including calvary. Now that Rome is falling apart, these German and Celtic Generals return home with new strategies and tactics, with knowledge of Rome’s forts, military strategies, their weak spots, and a general idea where the Legions are stationed and who are leading them.

We all know what happens next; Western Rome rips open and is swallowed up by hundreds of years of Germanic and Celtic suppression.

The Franks are a big name, primarly because they have a lasting country named after them - you might know it, France. But the Frankish King during Rome’s fall was actually allied to Rome, so the King had an idea about Roman Calvary and such. Which is important for the future.

So, West Rome is gone, Frankia is soldified and expanded. I could talk all day about Frankia and the other formes German and Celtic Kingdoms, but not today.

The idea of calvary sticks around and involves, armor gets better, weapons get better and the world enters into an arms race of weapons vs armor. Making weapons that can break armor and making armor that can resist weapons and still be able to move. Calvary is now such a big necessity in Europe and other parts of the world that large portions of infantry are now Pikemen, who have specialised weapons designed to destroy any charge calvary. Some Pikes even had hooks designed to snag calvary and pull them off their horses.

Now, I bet you can see the ages moving along. You got pikes, and you got calvary with most battles being about who’s calvary can outflanks who’s pikeman; but ideally armies would just avoid each other and siege down keeps and forts instead because combat was largerly a matter of luck, where the battle was, and who was leading - much less risk in starving our castles.

Now you get the great equaliser; gunpowder weapons.

Rifles, mortars, grenades, pistols, cannons, even primitive missiles.

Now a new arm race comes about because now you have a weapon that requires next to no training, so a peasant can shoot and killed a heavily armored Knight who has trained half his life to be a Knight and has spent a small fortune for his gear and horse.

(Note, rifles started off slow due to terrible accuracy, misfires, and malfunctions. By the time Europeans really began the era of pike and shot, rifles could pierce through plate armor, or at least kill/hurt a horse depending on the range, angle, and quality of armor.)

So now armor is forced to change and adapt, Knights began to use only helmets and thick chestplates where it was common to be shot. Maximizing their defences over their vitals rather than their limbs as death via rifle became more common than death via sword. It becomes a new game of min/maxing. Being as fast as possible with the most defense to get around the Pikes and get to the Rifleman. Very devastating warfare.

Now it was either Sweden or Prussia, I can’t recall which exaclty but one of the two actually introduced rifleman incorporated into the Pike Squares; making it nearly impossible to take out the rifleman unless with your own rifleman or cannons; but this meant you’d have to get in range of the enemy rifles to be able to shoot them - and you couldnt have infantryman of Pikes in front unless their was a hill, and you wanted to risk you infantrymen getting ripped to shreds from ideal rifle ranges…. But if you don’t put any infantry up there to guard your rifleman, they are exposed to calvary.

So calvary went from Heavy Chariots to Light Calvary, to Heavy Calvary, to Light Calvary, to Heavy Calvary again, and finally light calvary. By the 1800s and early 1900s, calvary rarely had armor, and were typically only ever used as they were originally intended; raiding, scouting, low risk flanking.

Fun fact, Poland actually used Calvary against Nazi Germany in World War 2; the last mass Calvary Charge.

11 notes · View notes

kidsviral-blog · 6 years

Text

How I Rebuilt Tinder And Discovered The Shameful Secret Of Attraction

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/how-i-rebuilt-tinder-and-discovered-the-shameful-secret-of-attraction/

How I Rebuilt Tinder And Discovered The Shameful Secret Of Attraction

Why we swipe the way we swipe.

View this image ›

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

Suppose you’re a straight woman thumbing through Tinder while waiting for the train, avoiding your homework, or bored at work. A picture of a deeply bronzed man pops up in your stream. How do you swipe? More interestingly, if someone asked you to explain why, how would you answer?

Say that it’s this guy:

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

His location is exotic. He’s doing something that requires a wetsuit. Chances are, he needed a good amount of money to do what he’s doing in the place he’s doing it. But the dark tan, large tattoo, long hair, and name like “Kip” indicate a lifestyle that is probably not that of an investment banker. You can’t really see his face, but surprisingly that doesn’t really matter because the overwhelming reason that hundreds of men and women who swiped “no” in a full-fledged Tinder simulation I unleashed on the internet had nothing to do with attractiveness. Instead, it had everything to do with the type of person Kip seemed to be:

“He probably calls himself a â€˜humanist’ instead of a feminist and tries to impress people with how much he â€˜made friends with the natives’ when he travels. Barf.” –straight/white

“I love the tattoo, but he seems too skeezy in a way I can’t put my finger on. Scuba is pretentious? Longer greasy hair?” –bi/Hapa/Japanese

“close call, but i hate his sunglasses and also i am imputing all sorts of things about him. like he probably says namaste to the barista at the coffee shop and has a profile picture of him with a bunch of african children” –bi/white

“Lol he’s too old and it looks like the sea is his mistress already I can’t compete with that.” –straight/white

It’s possible these respondents are “overthinking” their response to what, on the surface, is a very straightforward question: Am I attracted to this person or not? Indeed, some would argue that there’s no reason to even explain: You can’t argue with your genitals.

But maybe what we call the argument of one’s genitals is, in truth, incredibly — and both consciously and subconsciously — influenced by the cultures in which we grow up as well as our distinct (and equally culturally influenced) ideas of what a “good couple” or “good relationship” would look like. Put differently, we swipe because someone’s “hot,” but we find someone “hot” based on unconscious codes of class, race, education level, religion, and corresponding interests embedded within the photos of their profile.

Essentially, we’re constantly inventing narratives about the people who surround us — where he works, what he loves, whether our family would like him. And more than other dating services, which offer up comprehensive match dossiers, Tinder appears to encourage these narratives and crystallize the extrapolation process and package it into a five-second, low-stakes decision. We swipe, in other words, because of semiotics.

“Semiotics” is, quite simply, the study of signs. The field of semiotics tries to figure out how we come up with symbols — even as simple as the word in front of you — that stand in for a larger concept. Why does the word “lake” mean that massive blue watery thing? Or how does the stop sign, even without the word “stop,” make everyone understand not to go forward?

But signs aren’t always static in their meaning — it’s all about context. Wearing a camouflage jacket can mean that you’re in the military, a hunter, a punk, a redneck, a misogynist; having a shaved head, as a girl, can connote that you’re a radical, a cancer survivor, or a lesbian.

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

I first noticed this “crystallizing” tendency in Tinder when a friend, let’s call her Katie, starting playing it for fun, three beers in, at a bar. She was thumbing through prospective matches’ profiles (usually comprising six Facebook pictures, authenticated Facebook age, and a brief bio line) for the table, yelling out her immediate reaction: too old, too manscaped, too short, too bald, too Jersey, HOT, too douchey, too finance-bro, too “ew,” too hipster, too boring, too CrossFit, TOTALLY HOT.

Katie’s performance is indicative of a larger truth: that most of the fun of checking people out isn’t actually talking to them, but thinking about whether or not you’d talk to them and how. Katie was using Tinder at a bar, but instead of squinting across the room, she got to look at well-lit pictures of each potential match attempting to present his best self, seeing what phrase he uses to describe himself and a collection of ironic bon mots or general pronouncements (“no offense, but no crazies”).

Tindering thus mimics the relationship of checking someone out on the street, in the classroom, or on the subway, but with the added tactile pleasure of physically swiping the rejects out of your field of vision (and your life). That’s the real difference between Tinder and sites like OkCupid, Match, eHarmony, and J-Date: The end game on those sites is an actual date (and a lot of times marriage!); the end game on Tinder is the web version of a low-stakes bar conversation, which may or may not lead to a date or relationship.

Katie’s verdicts were often based on obvious, glaring “facts” of the profile: A 5-foot-7 male was “too short.” A 39-year-old guy was decidedly “too old” for Katie’s 33 years. Another is bald; she decides him “too” much so. But other swipes relied upon more a more vague, albeit immediate, calculus. To be “too douchey” is to have a bad goatee, a shiny shirt, an unfortunate facial expression, or a certain type of sunglasses. “Too ew” could be any blend of traits that, to white, straight, middle-class Katie, read as repugnant.

But some judgments are too secret — and shameful — to say out loud, or even admit to ourselves. Katie never said “too not-white,” “too poor,” or “too uneducated.” We cloak those judgments in language that generally circles the issue: “Nothing in common,” “he wouldn’t like me,” “I can’t see us together.” Those statements aren’t necessarily lies, but they’re also not always full truths either — and often rely on overarching assumptions about what differences in race, class, education, and religion dictate not only in a relationship, but any interaction, romantic or otherwise.

After watching Katie and tinkering around on the app myself in a game-like fashion, I wanted to see if, relying on anonymity, I could get at the heart of the subconscious snap judgments behind each wipe. Why do we swipe the way we swipe? And are those assumptions “just human,” or indicative of larger, enduring, and possibly destructive cultural divides?

View this image ›

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

Since there’s no way to standardize Tinder’s in-app selections for all respondents (and because using and publishing the real identities of strangers poses more than a few concerns), I decided to make my own, somewhat crude simulation. The first step: Scour stock images to find a broad array of profile “types.”

The process proved fraught, as stock images for casually dressed black males, women over a size 4, and anyone who didn’t fulfill stereotypical understandings of what male/female looks like require some unsettling search queries and yield clichÃ©d and borderline racist results (try searching “curvy” or “fat,” for example, and you get a sea of women looking very sad while looking at food or standing on scales).

I winnowed the profiles down to around 30 men and 30 women, processed them through Instagram filters to make them seem more like something someone might actually have on their account, and put them in standard Tinder profile frames. I picked approximate ages and came up with a mix of names — some of which were intended to complicate or amplify the mix of signs in the profile.

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

The result is an approximation, but not re-creation, of what Tinder is actually like. The goal was to correlate each participant’s race, class, education, religion, and sexual preference to their swiping habits. For each Tinder “profile,” regardless of whether they swiped yes or no, the user was prompted to answer “What race/religion/class and education level is this person?” And, if they swiped no, they were asked to write a brief explanation for “why,” with a specific instruction not to simply note, “not attracted.”

The survey circulated via Twitter, Facebook, email, and among friends, amassing 799 seemingly earnest respondents. It’s not divided by the gender of the respondent, but by sexual preferences: If you desire men, you took the male simulation; if you desire women, you took the female one. If a participant identified as bisexual, he or she could take either.

View this image ›

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

The most swipeable woman — no matter if the user identified as straight, gay, queer, or bi — was Yasmin, with an 89% swipe-yes rate, a full 10% higher than her closest “competitor.”

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

But why? She signified as middle-class (85% believed so); she seemed as if she had finished a four-year college degree or higher (83%). She looks Christian (42%), spiritual (20%), or agnostic/atheist (17%), and reads as either “mixed race” (48%) or black (40%).

Look closer at this image: Yasmin’s teeth are white and straight and her skin is clear. Her shirt is nondescript, but doesn’t read, at least from what we can see of it, as “cheap.” The contrast between the shirt color and house in the background makes her look crisp and clean. Her overarching look is bourgeois, like a model in an issue of Real Simple.

Her eyes are “smizing,” which makes it seem like she’s actually happy, not just posing for the camera, all of which combines to create a feeling of “genuineness.” Her hair seems only the slightest bit unruly — hey, she’s not uptight! — but is also well-conditioned and cared for. She probably has means; she is content; she is educated; you will have something to talk to her about, and she will be pleasant.

But perhaps the most attractive thing about Yasmin, at least according to the simulation, is that her race is ambiguous. In his new book Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking), OkCupid co-founder and data scientist Christian Rudder asserts that “when you’re looking at how two American strangers behave in a romantic context, race is the ultimate confounding factor.” Working with star ratings and messaging data, Rudder found “two essential patterns” of male to female attraction: First, men tend to like women of the same race; second, men “don’t like” black women.

So why, then, do Rudder’s OkCupid findings not apply to Yasmin? It would appear she’s not black enough. Just contrast Yasmin’s profile with that of Lindsay, whom users read as unquestionably black (97%) and who received only a 43% swipe-yes rate.

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Most respondents explained their rejection of Lindsay based on height and race, or, in one straight white male’s words, because of “unconscious racism?” He continues: “Not that I don’t find black women attractive — and not just the BeyoncÃ©s of the world, either — but this woman’s aesthetic, which has definite racial and class markers, doesn’t appeal to me at all.”

Here, “aesthetic” seems to mean manipulated hair, more visible makeup, cluttered clothing, and a less-inviting facial expression. And those “definite racial and class markers” make users more likely to see her race. For Yasmin it’s just the opposite: The absence of those racial and class markers make her race recede in importance (only two respondents, both straight white males, cited race as their reason for swiping no).

The same holds true for Xavier, who had the most swipeable male profile.

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Xavier received a 79% overall yes rate — 10% higher than the closest “competitor.” Ninety-five percent of users read him as black — a similar percentage to Lindsay — but users also perceived him as well-educated (95% percent thought he’d finished a four-year college or higher) and middle- or upper-class (74%/24%). The business attire makes him look professional, but not overly boastful; he looks directly at the camera and his arms are folded, which makes him seem direct. You could read his lack of smile as menacing, but the shirt and tie soften the effect.

The 21% who swiped “no” were bluntly concerned with race: “Not into black guys” (gay/white), “I think I might be racist” (straight/white), “interracial dating is not for me” (straight/white). Some pointed to race-specific traits without explicitly mentioning race: “his lips are way bigger than mine. I have thin lips and the thought of always kissing gimungous [sic] lips is scary to me,” wrote one bi/white user.

Then there’s the cultural extrapolation: “Man, he’s pretty. And he seems really engaged and confident. But I can’t see him at the next big half Polish, half French, all judgmental family picnic” (white/straight).

But why was Xavier rejected for his race more than Yasmin? Both read as middle-class and educated; both appear clean-cut in their pictures. But Xavier reads as “more” black and he isn’t smiling; black men read, stereotypically, as more threatening than black women. Now, that’s all racist and speculative, but it also seems to mimic how our racist and speculative subconsciousness functions in the split second it takes to swipe a Tinder profile.

View this image ›

BuzzFeed

Here’s the religious breakdown of the simulation participants compared to national statistics from the 2012 Census:

View this image ›

Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

The discrepancy is fairly easy to explain — the mostly twenty- and thirtysomethings who took the simulation are less religious than their parents and grandparents. Participants were willing, however, to assign religious beliefs to the profiles they rejected.

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Take, for example, Junior, who garnered a paltry 7% swipe-yes rate. The stated reasons for rejecting Junior were variations on “he seems old school, like he’d be really patronizing to women” (bi/white) and “He’s overweight/doesn’t seem athletic” (straight/Asian). Eighty-one percent of users also read him as Christian — which could be correlated to the 70% who believed he was Hispanic, an ethnicity often associated with Catholicism. (Importantly, no respondent cited religion or ethnicity as their reason for swiping “no” on Junior.)

Same with Jimmy, who also pulled a 7% swipe-yes rate. Users didn’t like his truck and read him as “Southern” and working-class (84%). Seventy-five percent of users believed he was Christian, despite no physical indications of religiosity. A similar yoking happened with Chase, a man with a nice smile and a cowboy hat, whom 86% of users read as Christian.

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

By contrast, here’s Conor — who received a 56% swipe-yes rate. He’s holding a mandolin, he has a beard and long hair, and the reasons for rejection usually had something to do with said beard and the lifestyle it connoted. But only 10% of users thought he was Christian — while 60% thought he was atheist/agnostic, and 20% believed he was spiritual. Even though, like Jimmy and Chase, he’s photographed outdoors, certain hipster signifiers (not looking at the camera, long hair, mandolin) negate that reading.

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

When a profile includes obvious signifiers of religious belief, however, the reading process becomes more complicated. Thirty percent swiped “yes” on Kate, and despite signifiers that many interpreted as hipster, many signaled the cross around her neck as indicative of Christianity. A white, bisexual respondent wrote, “I don’t date people serious about their religion”; a gay Hispanic woman called the cross “a huge turn off”; and one who identified as mixed race and straight thought she seemed “a bit arts-y and sanctimonious (spiritual).”

That said, perceived religiousness is not an automatic “no.” Take Johanna, who had an overall yes rate of 64%:

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Eighty-seven percent of users read her as Muslim. The reasons for swiping “no” were almost entirely contingent on her perceived religion and its cultural extrapolations: A white male said, “I wouldn’t want to deal with cultural differences in the bedroom”; a gay Hispanic user said, “I have no patience for religious people. She’s hot, but sadly religion is the biggest turn off for me.”

Overall, however, Johanna had an excellent Tinder swipe-yes rate (58% of straight men, 75% of bi men or women, and 78% of gay women).

Johanna signifies as religious, but unlike Jimmy, Junior, or Conor, she also signifies as middle- or upper-class (71%/26%) and college- or graduate school-educated (64%/26%). Like Chase and Jimmy, she’s photographed outside, but she wears a women’s suit jacket. Even those who swiped “no” on her profile for religious reasons conceded that “she is very cute” and “she’s hot.”

Religion — even religion that would likely preclude a successful relationship — seems to matter less when the subject seems to belong to a higher class and educational level (especially if that subject is gorgeous).

View this image ›

Via Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed

Let’s examine Dave, one of the lowest-scoring male profiles. It’s an ambiguous profile — there are four men, and no sign as to which one is “Dave” — but that’s also the case with many Tinder profiles. But the rage directed at Dave wasn’t primarily due to the inclusion of his friends in the shot. Rather, it was his apparent privilege — communicated via the golf course, the uniform whiteness of himself and his friends, and the apparent gall to use a golfing photo as one’s profile picture — that led respondents to say the following.

View this image ›

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

It was bad. Like, really bad:

“NO NEVER IN A MILLION GODDAMN YEARS. This privileged fuck, first of all, which one is he? Does it even matter? No, because all polo shirts are interchangeable.” –bi/white

For the record, not interested in any of those white frat boys in that picture.” –straight/Asian

“I can’t tell which of these four dudes he is, but I don’t want to date The Man.” –bi/white

“they all look like finance bros which might be the worst subcategory of bro.” –straight/white

“Not sure which one of these guys is Dave, but that doesn’t matter, because they all seem like Republican d-bags. Also: Pleated khakis? No.” –gay/white

“SO WHITE” –queer/Asian

“golf. overabundance of white dudes. who is Dave? Dave is legion. a legion of golf-playing white dude demons.” –pansexual/white

Dave scanned as well-educated (71% believed he’d finished college; 20% thought he’d finished grad school) and definitively upper-class (73% believed as much, the highest of any profile). But unlike other white men of higher class and education level, users also overwhelmingly read him as Christian: a whopping 79%. (Compare with Kieran, another white, well-educated male, whom 64% of users read as agnostic/atheist.) Respondents read Dave’s hobby and whiteness as indicative not only of wealthy, but Conservatism — which is often associated, explicitly and implicitly, with Christianity.

Dave demonstrates how Tinder’s lack of information forces assumptions from its swipers, which is is a perfect example of what makes Tinder so unique and perfect for this experiment. On OkCupid or Match, there would be clear markers of one’s political views. But on Tinder, you have only the presence of a pair of pleated khaki pants to tell you if the person is, say, conservative, “a douche,” and thus unattractive.

View this image ›

BuzzFeed

No one wants to believe their attractions are racist, or classist, or otherwise discriminatory. We use elaborate phrasing to cover it up or explain it away, but it’s still there, even if not always to the profile’s detriment. The fact that the two profiles with the highest swipe-yes rate were both people of color seems to suggest something about shifting understandings about attractiveness, which makes sense given our respondents (overwhelmingly middle-class, largely white, and mostly urban and suburban denizens of the internet).

But “what we find attractive” appears to be far less about someone’s face and far more about the signs that surround that face. Think, for example, if a woman like Marit, pictured below, had the cheap highlights and unfixed teeth and name of Crystal?

Thinkstock / BuzzFeed

Though still anecdotal, Tinder rejection in this simulation appears to be more about class than race or religion. If a user self-identified as upper-middle-class and identified the male profile before him or her as “working-class,” that user swiped “yes” only 13% of the time; if they identified themselves as lower-middle-class, the swipe rate rose only slightly to 17%.

If those same users identified the profile before them as middle-class, that number rose to 36% and 39%, respectively. The same trend held true when judging female profiles: If the user identified as upper-middle-class and identified a profile as working-class, the yes rate was 26% — compared with 52% if they identified a profile as middle-class.

Whatever the signs that made someone think that a profile was working-class — McKenzie’s fishing pole, Renee’s dye job and pool pose, Ricky’s tattoos and piercings, John’s tank top, Toby’s camo, Jimmy’s truck — the swipe rates plummeted.

Which isn’t to suggest that poor people are ugly. The vast majority of explanations for the no swipes on all of the above profiles pointed to a perceived lack of common interests: “we’d have nothing to talk about,” “I don’t think our politics would mix,” “nothing in common.” Sometimes those assumptions stem from depicted activities — fishing, body modifications — but some are just the way the mind runs wild with class, weaving the narrative that a working-class person probably doesn’t read books for pleasure, or enjoy art cinema, or seek out microbrews, or go on hikes the way a bourgeois, middle-class person does.

Now, the results of a small sample-size Tinder simulation doesn’t mean that we’re all destined to marry within only our own classes. Data on the tendency to marry within one’s class is difficult to come by, but if relying on education level as an (imperfect) proxy for class, then the rate has decreased dramatically over the 50 years. Even as more and more people marry “across” lines of race and religion, fewer and fewer are willing to cross the education/class line.

Tinder is by no means the cause of this decline. It simply encourages and quietly normalizes the assumptions that undergird it. The Tinderspeak of “we’d have nothing in common,” taken to its natural extension, bolsters and reifies the idea of “two Americas” with distinct values and worldviews, two discrete factions with little impetus to support that which doesn’t necessarily personally affect us or our class.

It’s not as if race and religion aren’t still mitigating factors in our decisions about whom we find attractive, with whom we emphasize, or for whom we feel compassion. Race and religion do matter (and might always), but almost only when they intersect with a class identity that isn’t our own.

Ultimately, this admittedly un-randomized sample seems to suggest that the raw idea of attraction — that knee-jerk “thinking from the genitals” decision — has less to do with our unmentionable parts and much more to do with a combination of our deepest subconscious biases and with our most overt and uncharitable personal politics. And if that’s the case, it’s no doubt the reason why Tinder is so popular, addictive, and ultimately insidious.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/we-are-all-classists

#class #matchcom #okcupid #online dating #race #religion

0 notes