I immediately signed up. But I also wanted to make sure I used a good photo. I settled on a selfie of me in the kitchen, holding a glass of wine. I had been cooking and feeling glamorous in a vintage black slip, and my hair happened to look effortlessly bouncy. I cropped my wedding ring out of the shot and sent myself to the judges. Jaya Saxena I cropped my wedding ring out of the shot and sent myself to the judges. I had votes as soon as my profile went live, which led me to believe the system was somehow rigged. According to Hodge, my profile was voted on by 22,000 men, or about eight men per minute. I attributed the drop in my ratings to my newly dyed pink hair. After 48 hours of excitedly checking my stats, I was in. So were my colleagues at the Daily Dot who also signed up for the site. Jaya Saxena Although all of us got into Beautiful People, no one actually enjoyed the experience of being on the site. We judge ourselves enough without inviting others to do it for us. He submitted himself in 2011 along with profiles for Ryan Reynolds and Harper Lee. The fake celebrity pages made it, but he did not. After all, most 20-somethings are not going to be attracted to members in their 60s. And for a while, that explanation seemed fair to me. This is Nosferatu, my favorite BeautifulPeople. Last week, Hodge says, Beautiful People actually sent 5,000 people to be rated again, but only 2,000 of these users stayed. Once I got access to the voting system, I was doing that exact thing. Some people just want to watch the world burn. The remaining 3,000 users who permanently left the website, however, are now apparently taking their revenge. Some people just want to watch the world burn. To avoid such attacks on the integrity of the voting system, and to ensure that the beautiful people are exactly who they say they are, the site is now implementing a mandatory authentication process, where you must upload a photo of yourself holding a piece of paper with the date and your username on it. Hodge says these precautions are intended to protect the Beautiful People user experience. Tinder and OkCupid sell us on the lie that our awkwardly cropped photos and list of favorite movies are enough to make people fall in love with us. Photo by Jaya Saxena Jaya Saxena is a lifestyle writer and editor whose work focuses primarily on women's issues and web culture. Her writing has appeared in GQ, ELLE, the Toast, the New Yorker, Tthe Hairpin, BuzzFeed, Racked, Eater, Catapult, and others. She is the co-author of 'Dad Magazine,' the author of 'The Book Of Lost Recipes,' and the co-author of 'Basic Witches.
