If I told you someone was average looking, you’d probably assume I meant they were actually kind of homely.

And that’s ok, because I probably did. But combining the average features in a group results in what seems to be a universally more attractive prototypical face, examples of which can be easily found (all of them vastly less scary than my own), such as these homely women separated by race.
Symmetry is universally perceived as advertising good health/genes and promotes ease in processing when looked upon*, therefore coming across as more attractive. However, fret not asymmetrical friends! For whatever study you find that results in a certain unlucky-gene portion of the population, you can find discussions that introduce gray areas, complicating matters so everyone gets to feel like a princess. Its sort of like the gray areas regarding genes and dieting, ‘can’t help eating, I got them fat genes’** and also “your working out and dieting isn’t what keeps you fit, its your lucky genes”.***

As mentioned in the comic Sir Francis Galton discovered the average attractive face back in the day. At the time he was trying to combine criminal photos to see if he could find any universally criminal facial features. He had this kind of time. Surprisingly though he didn’t discover the bad guy scar. So he couldn’t have been doing that good of a job. When he processed the photo plates all he saw staring back at him was hot sexy man faces. Or at least that’s what he claimed. sorta. I mean, I don’t want to split hairs here, but this is all it took to get Franky G’s blood pumping. and if that’s the game we’re playing you can overlay my drawings with less contrast, quick silly line drawings though they may be, and you still end up with an average face:

I wouldn’t buy it a drink though.

Kinda fun. Whether you buy the averages-attractiveness theme or think that pretty faces have more to do with one’s culture and upbringing, there’s one thing that these experiments have exposed that no one is talking about and that’s this: No one, at any time in history, has known what the hell they are doing with their hair. Look at these jumbled messes! The compilation shots only go to show how terribly non consensual we are on what makes a good hair style. I picked my line drawings to have differences in eyes noses chins and hair. Everything but the hair averages out.  Men are hopeless to begin with, but ladies, even when you find a style that looks great, it only lasts a short while before you mess it up again. Either our evolutionary heritage has nothing to say about how we wear our hair, or we learned to ignore it long ago.

This post was brought to you by Oxygen (o).

*the proverbial ‘ hey baby, you’re easy on the eyes, what say we go back to my place so you can slip me into something more comfortable”
**this is me while eating the 6th slice of pizza.
***Blaming your genes will always make you feel better.