Solipsism 2.0

Warning: Now is the time of day when we rush to judgment about a new form of online social networking—likening a trend to the ever-increasing tears and fray of our culture’s moral fabric.

Appraise me, appraise me! Evaluate me! Look at me! Please, please, please, someone, anyone, just look at me!!!

That’s our take on the appeal of FaceStat, a somewhat updated version of, wait for it, HotOrNot. Remember HotOrNot? Were you hot? Congratulations. We were not. Here’s how FaceStat works: You send the site a photo of yourself. Then, the Mechanical Turk aggregates interpretations of the photo—people guess your age, your income, your ethnicity, your attractiveness, your trustworthiness, and a few other traits, based on the image your photo conveys. Here, for example, is what people thought of someone named Jake. It’s a fabulous convergence of democracy and voyeurism that screams Il n’y a pas d’hors-texte in the language of digital connectivity.

Thanks, Avery.