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Comment by randomname2 | Hacker News Reader

It's not necessarily the lack of physical attractiveness that's a problem -- more so the lack of social awareness in exhibiting such "high status" behaviors as a "low-status" person, as mentioned in the paper ("People who follow social rules of behavior are not perceived as creepy").

It's more socially acceptable for unattractive yet wealthy/high-status people to perform such behaviors, as this can be explained by considering them "eccentric" or "confident" rather than "weird" or "creepy".

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I could be misunderstanding the data due to my pre-work skimming of the article, but looking at a variety of the variables they expose, it seems like many of the highly weighted creepiness factors _do_ align with appearance in absence of action. Greasy hair? Overly thin/pale?

I can understand that some people may consider your parent's comment as looking for excuses/being overly snide/something or other, but it's certainly worth consideration, especially for me in that my anecdotal bayesian prior certainly echoes the sentiment of "appearance buys you breathing room". (As I got older and started caring about my appearance more, I observed my equally nerdy (behaviorally) friends get treated diametrically differently than I was when I KNEW we acted nearly identically after decades together)

Perhaps related to the "Uncanny Valley".

Something categorised as one thing, but with traits of another, in this case "high-status"/"low-status" vs "human"/"non-human".

Problem is, while Human-like is a bit more universal, status is very subjective and cultural. Maybe it's better to focus on the feeling of creepiness, as a possible reflection of your/ones own cognitive dissonance, than the objective "creepiness" of an object.

Is that not the same as what GP said? Your modifier is wealth or status. Without those, you move from eccentric to creepy on the sliding scale.

Perhaps. If for the sake of the argument there is such a sliding scale, maybe attractiveness should also be a factor. Attractiveness is more than just "physical attractiveness", and by definition pretty much excludes creepiness.

Not to imply that people who are considered attractive can't be creepy -- but they do get more leeway.

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