Are You Not Sure if You're Ugly?

Those of us who don't happen to know if we would terrorize small children just by looking at them (due to the absence of small children on whom to test the hypothesis) used to just have to guess. There was no empirical way to determine just how ugly we were.

We'd walk around, forever in a funk, unsure whether the reason women backed away from us slowly was because we have faces that could stop clocks or whether it was because of the two liters of cologne that we were wearing.

Damn it, there should be something out there to help us! Friends can be unreliable. I don't expect any of my friends to come up to me and say "Dave, you know I hate to tell you this, and you know I'm your friend and everything, right? Well, I just have to tell you that...well...your face sort of...makes me want to hurl." Though I have wondered why they've all started wearing dark glasses when they're around me.

Do you think that's a sign?

Anyway, for those of us who are still unsure, Dapper Gentlemen has come to our rescue. They have an iPhone app that has hit it big recently called Ugly Meter. It's not a brand new app, but they recently came out with a Pro version (for those who are professionally ugly?) and it was featured on the Howard Stern show. After that, it became the second most-downloaded app after Angry Birds (nothing can dethrone the birds!).

This app will scan your face, and weigh you on a scale of 1 (super-hot) to 10 (should hide away in shame), giving you compliments or insults depending on your rating.

But does it truly work?


Apparently not all that well, considering that while it gave David Cameron a 7 rating ("If ugliness were bricks, you'd be the Great Wall of China") it gave Brad Pitt an 8 ("You could walk through a haunted house and come out with a paycheck"). Really? Maybe Brad's picture was just having a bad day.

Parents are, of course, worried about kids using this app to bully other kids, though Dapper Gentlemen says that the app is just intended to be "good fun." Personally, I wouldn't worry about it if I were a parent. If some kid is bullying your child about their looks, they're already doing it. An iPhone app isn't going to make it any worse.

Besides, if the app says that a kid is an 8, he can loudly proclaim "I look like Brad Pitt!"

Really, that's all you need to know if you're worried about somebody with personal self-image issues stumbling upon this app and unfortunately having their bad feelings about themselves reinforced. If it thinks Brad Pitt is ugly (I'm not a Pitt fan, but I can admit that he is a handsome slab of meat), then anybody else who uses it shouldn't incorporate it into their own self-image.

The most outrageous thing about this app isn't self-image issues.

It's that it costs five bucks to get it! The original Ugly Meter cost 99 cents.

What do you get for that extra four dollars?

Beauty tips?