“We are all attractive” meme is nice but an unnecessary lie

This meme was posted in a group on Facebook and many of you will hate me for picking it apart and pointing out what a lie it is, but I can explain…

The image – clearly directed toward a gay male audience – is trying to make it a thing that there is no standard of what people find attractive – EVERYONE is attractive. Which is weird, because, if you’ve ever met a gay man (or preferably – for with to notice a pattern – several gay men across a persons lifetime) – that’s not typical of the community.

That is – men – and gay men in particular, verifiably *do not think* that everyone is attractive – they’re just as likely, or – if you accept the testimony of almost every gay person that I’ve ever known – much more likely to be harsher critics about peoples appearances, *especially* that of other gay men in context of how attractive or not they find them to be.

So of course when I saw this, I couldn’t *not* be like “eh… why lie?”.

Because you could express a very similar message without lying about it, so of course I’m gonna ask “why not do THAT instead?”.

None of this is a slam against the original artist who no doubt just wanted people to feel good – and that’s great! – but you’ll see that the meme version of the drawing and its message includes a caption of “Exactly” – meaning that it is being posted by a 3rd party to evangelize the message in the text and that is just gaslighting my autism since the message of the meme is not “exact” at all – it’s an abstract concept that doesn’t even mean what the words on it say. So someone saying “YES! Exactly!” to something that is “No… not exactly” is gonna trip some people up.

^That’s my reaction. Not to bash anyone or pick a fight over it. Just to point out that the imprecise wording of a general “love yourself / you are good” concept is not its best iteration.

Think I can get away with it?

-Thread Start-

Italics text is commentary for this post, not present in the original exchange.

Participants:
Defense: R/me
Prosecution: B McGee, Kyle C, and Lachlan

R:
Unpopular opinion: lying to people like this doesn’t help them improve and research shows, in most cases doesn’t even help them feel better about themselves.
We are all valuable. worthwhile. worthy of love. deserving of happiness.
We are not all attractive to others and there is little to no value in pretending otherwise.

-simple enough, right? Anything objectionable?

B McGee:
you really should take your internalised phobias elsewhere. This isn’t an “unpopular opinion” it’s an ill-advised statement that pretends to be fact when it is simply wrong. What research?

R:
Research is from suicide prevention and work with a mental health body-positive nonprofit, but it is a fallacy to claim that research is necessary to observe that all people are not attractive to all people. Ironic to your comment, it is actually an internalized phobia to operate on the premise you’re putting out here.
eg: when straight men think that EVERY gay man is attracted to them when that is not how attraction works.

-McGee never followed up. Instead, right after his came Kyle, saying:

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Kyle:
the point of the post is that it doesnt matter whether youre slightly chubby, ripped as fuck, an older guy, hairy or whatever, you’re still deserving of the same love and respect that “conventionally attractive” people are. People in the media often presents the ideal male as being some 6 foot greek statue type of bastard who leaves literally anyone else not checking those boxes as inferior or less than worthy.
it’s not a post about whether or not we are all attractive to others, its a post about that fact that despite our differences we are all attractive as people and need to recognize that instead of comparing ourselves to the ideal standard that society wrongfully thrust upon everyone.
It’s the exact same thing that women have been put through for even longer than us men and far worse, the only difference is that their voices have been louder because we live in a society where men are still taught not to be vocal about their feelings and insecurities.

-Sounds redundant and angry especially with the superfluous reference to “6 foot greek statue type of bastard” that no one brought up, but I replied:

R:
I understood the likely intent of the post. My comment is against the words that didn’t say or imply any of what you projected into the artists meaning. It literally is a post about whether or not we are all attractive to others. The more obtuse intent that we all agree with is better expressed in more honest terms – per my “unpopular opinion”.

Kyle:
The irony here is that you say this whilst being conventionally attractive so… i kind of take what youre saying with a grain of salt,
sorry mate

R:
It is big of you to admit that you filter the credibility of peoples opinions, facts, or lived experiences based on how they look, but rather than embrace that bias, we should all strive to overcome it and consider a message independently from the biases we hold about the messenger.

Kyle:
thats not what I was saying.
[then a **6 paragraph essay** saying the same exact thing as his original comment. It can’t be shared here because he deleted it after my next reply]

R:
with respect, that was a bit of a long winded way of saying what I already said but repeating that you didn’t like that I said it.
You haven’t made clear the purpose of extending that sentiment out so lengthily if you agree with my comment that everyone is valuable and worthy of love but evidently disagree on ____ ? I’m not at all sure what, but it appears to be that it was my pointing out that the words “everyone is attractive” does not convey the message of inherent value in the best way since the phrase is objectively untrue.
but, if I understand your words right, you said you think it *is* true because you think by quoting the only 3 words in the post, I am guilty of “seeing something that isn’t there” (?). With kindness and constructive attention: that’s exactly what your extended interpretation has done [is to see things not present]…
–and that’s fine of course. Interpreting “everyone is attractive” to mean something other than what those words mean was never under assault or in need of defense. I merely pointed out that since those words are literally untrue, it just might be better (though unpopular to say so) to convey the concept of having inherent value removed from ones appearance in more honest terms. & I haven’t received a counterpoint to why that wouldn’t be the case.

Kyle:
“We are not all attractive to others “is what you said. its redundant. the post wasnt about that. There’s no point in saying what you said, because it isnt relevant, because that’s a different conversation.There we go. took a minute to figure myself out there.
Deleted my other comment cuz it WAS too long winded.

Kyle:
and honestly im too busy now to care to comment more, sorry

— 5pts for the “I’m too busy for this” trope

R:
No need to apologize. Since the comments rephrase the same explanation about what the 3 words on the image are intended to mean philosophically and I didn’t disagree, there’s not really more to comment on that would add value to the topic.
Unless anyone had a disagreement with what I said, which is that the message of inherent value of a person regardless of physical appearance is best delivered without saying it in a way that sounds nice but is objectively untrue.

Kyle:
i still disagree with what you said because youre discussing a different thing to what the post is presenting.
No one else here has viewed that particular part of the post the way you are. Im not gonna keep going on about it tho. Feels like we’re circling. Cbf

R:
I understand your opinion that if a group interprets a message a certain way, then that makes it a good message. That’s precisely what “popular” means / hence the thing that makes my comment “unpopular” -which I flagged as such precisely so no one could mistake it for alleging to be a popular fact. Instead, the comment dissents the delivery from outside that bubble of agreement to say that messages of self worth are better served by broadening appeal with accuracy over euphemism.
Somehow that got misinterpreted as being a misunderstanding of the euphemism, which is itself a misunderstanding of my words.

Kyle:
once again, i take issue with what you said because its irrelevant, redundant, and is a totally different discussion to what this post and everyones talking about. Not some unpopular opinion. But rather taking a hard left into a completely different zone.
Thats all there is to this. Twist it however you like.

R:
Appreciate the invitation to twist to my liking, but if you haven’t noticed, I much prefer that everyone just says what they mean and mean what they say without any need to twist. It’s also poor form to characterize anything you don’t appreciate or agree with is a perversion from what allegedly should be (an especially dicey premise for gay related issues).The twisting adds another layer though.Here you essentially said “I take issue with you expressing an unpopular opinion [that you marked as an unpopular opinion]. Not some unpopular opinion”, which seems like entirely unnecessary gaslighting but I’m sure you have your reasons. It appears you’re not content to just express a disagreement and are making unforced errors in the pursuit of framing disagreement as unqualified things like “irrelevant”, “redundant”, and “different”. These are bully tactics we should all strive to avoid. With peace and love

-That was what I, at this point in the convo, am guessing to be the kill shot that will produce one or two more repetitions of the same points he made followed or preceded by a personal attack of some kind.
Update:

Kyle:
seems kind of like youre just trolling now.Point is you said something that wasnt relevant to the post. Got called out. End of, really.

R:
seems kind of like you’ve just been trolling all along. But especially after you found time in your busy schedule to comment further after saying you couldn’t. Point is you saw an unpopular opinion and redundantly re-explained something that was never in question. Got politely corrected. Wrote redundant essays saying the same thing and increasingly used bad faith arguments and smears to condemn a valid take you appear to be desperate to invalidate just because you disagree. Got called out. Repeated the cycle. Got called out again. End of, really.

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Side comment by M Pierce:

M Pierce:
Smh here we go a conventionally attractive person telling us that we’re not attractive unless we have ripped abs and a pretty face. Isn’t that what you are implying? You literally don’t understand what this post is about. So you think your opinion is the only one that matters? I’ve had it with guys like you telling us who is and isn’t attractive and worthy. Looks fade just remember that

R:
who is this directed to? I’m not sure if someone said those nasty things on here and blocked me so I can’t see or respond to them (coward, if so), but I also don’t know why you anger-emoji’ed my comment.If anyone on here told you that there is only one standard of what is or isn’t attractive then they are probably compensating for a major insecurity and deserve your pity just as much or more as your scorn. I’m glad you agree with me that people would do well to remember that looks fade. The way I put it in another comment was:
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especially since physical appearance is temporary. We will all wither, bend, and succumb to thermodynamics in various ways so no ones value should ever be placed in such temporary constraints.
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And whatever they say about abs and faces that you referenced is obviously just as wrong since 1- pretty faces are highly subjective & 2- abs have never been less popular than they are currently. this is the age of the “dad bod” and just an expanding standard of attractiveness in general so definitely ignore that guy (and you have my blessing if you want to copy and paste this to him since we can’t see each others comments evidently).

No one had anything to say after that.

Again: as is the case with almost all these threads I repost to the blog – I’m not flaunting how I crushed some people on Facebook with low self esteem – I’m just sharing the exchange to spotlight how so many people approach issues like these. Since I can’t help but to engage (many of you will think, in a douchey way, or that by engaging at all is inherently douchey), I might as well make it a matter of record. But again – just to be clear that I’m not bragging about “winning” and tried to make it clear to the people who didn’t like what I was saying that I wasn’t battling against them while still advocating for what seems to me to be pretty “duh” conclusions that I’m still open to being persuaded on.