Just what we needed, an iPhone app to make bullying easier. While it’s intended to be a fun game or just an amusement, the Ugly Meter iPhone app is going to become a bully’s best friend. You just snap someone’s picture, digitize it and scan it into the system, then the app itself rates the picture’s attractiveness via some sort of sexy algorithm (I assume facial symmetry).
Of course, the concern is cyberbullying, as the program rates your image then dishes out an insult based on your level of attractiveness. However, while the idea of cyberbullying came up, Dapper Gentlemen head Eugene Overline, who designed the app, dismisses such concerns. “We did talk about that, and the kids who are doing things like that are going to be doing it one way or another,” said the 30-year-old Overline. “They’re going to find a way to bully or do whatever they do some way. But it did come up.” He added, “There’s nothing in our app that’s profane. All of our insults are PG-rated. We kept it pretty clean on purpose.”
The thing that bothers me most about the Ugly Meter isn’t the potential for it to be used as an aid to bullying. You can use anything to bully people, from food allergies and disabilities to sexual orientation, so pretty much anything can be an aid to irritation. What bothers me about the Ugly Meter is that they’ve got their ratings wrong. If you rank someone from 1-10, then 10 needs to be the most attractive and 1 the least attractive. The movie is called 10, not 1! Attractive people have always been 10s and to rate them otherwise is to completely screw up the hotness ranking scale that’s existed since Romans started ranking hotties with X!
Tags: iphone, apple, iphone app, ugly meter, ugly meter iphone app, cyberbullying, ugly meter application, unusual apps, smart phones, iphone ugly meter, cyber bullies, attractiveness rating application, unusual software, unusual games, Eugene Overline, Dapper Gentlemen
