I was first introduced to Cut on social media years ago when I saw “Grandma’s smoking weed for the first time” on instagram (still probably my favorite Cut video). Last week I saw a few more examples of their work when Brooke played those two cringe-worthy videos. I was most moved by the one where strangers rated eachother to their face. This one made me feel really uncomfortable. I’m worried that hearing negative rankings will stick with those individuals for the rest of their lives. In the end, it seemed like the moral of the story they were trying to teach was that beauty is subjective and that everyone is beautiful in their own way. This was completely different than what I actually took away from watching the video. What the exercise showed me was the opposite, that beauty is objective. The same people were generally ranked the same by all participants across the board, particularly the long haired guy deemed “unattractive” and the tall short hair girl that was widely accepted as the most attractive in the bunch. I just felt bad for the people involved that got ranked lowest in the line-up. I think this sort of activity could potentially be traumatizing and really hurt their self-esteem. I didn’t like it at all.
While that video showed that beauty is objective and that beauty standards are societal, I want to imagine a video activity that can highlight the facts that looks aren’t the most important thing. My activity would involve 10 strangers, mixed gender. They would hear a 30 second audio clip of each contestant describing themselves, including their interests, life views, and self reported flaws. Contestants would then choose who they want to go on a date with based on hearing their voice only, without seeing what they look like. Once a partner is selected, they would actually go on a date and see how well they connected. Once the date is completed, both contestants would be asked how the date went and if they would go on a second date with the person or not. I think this would be a good test to see if personality is more important when choosing a partner than physical appearance.