Hello, old friends. I am back from dark months of data mining, here now to present my ores. To write this piece, we cataloged over 7,000 photographs on OkCupid.com, analyzing three primary things:
Facial Attitude.Is the person smiling? Staring straight ahead? Doing that flirty lip-pursing thing?
Photo Context.Is there alcohol? Is there a pet? Is the photo outdoors? Is it in a bedroom?
Skin. How much skin is the person showing? How much face? How much breasts? How much ripped abs?
In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong. For interested readers, I explain our measurement process, and how we collected our data, at the end of the post. All my bar charts are zeroed on the average picture. Now to the data.
Myth 1
It’s better to smile
One of the first things we noticed when diving into our pool of photos is that men and women have very different approaches to the camera.
Women smile about 50% more than men do and make that flirty-face four times as often.
Now, you’re always told to look happy and make eye contact in social situations, but at least for your online dating photo, that’s just not optimal advice. For women, a smile isn’t strictly better: she actually gets the most messages by flirting directly into the camera, like the center and right-hand subjects above.
Notice that, however, that flirting away from the camera is the single worst attitude a woman can take. Certain social etiquettes apply even online: if you’re going to be making eyes at someone, it should be with the person looking at your picture.
Men’s photos are most effective when they look away from the camera and don’t smile:
Maybe women want a little mystery. What is he looking at? Slashdot? Or Engadget?
It’s interesting that while making flirty eye contact is relatively okay for men, flirting away from the camera is the worst thing they, too, can do.
Learn more profile picture myths like whether or not photos of guys with their shirts off attract more dates.The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures on OkCupid.
