Things you should stop or start caring about. Immediately. Stop Caring About Sexiest, Unsexiest, And Most Beautiful Lists
Or, if you're not going to stop, please reveal your methodology.
Over the past week, news about who is on various Sexy and Unsexy lists has been pouring in from all sides. And real people that I know have fallen prey to its seductive, or unseductive, list-y ways. People talk about it. To me. As if I care. Since when does the fact that Gilbert Gottfried is unsexy qualify as a topic?
"Hey. Did you hear that Osama Bin Laden is one of the top ten unsexiest men in the world?"
What? No. How is that worth talking about? You might as well say, "Hey. Did you hear that giraffes are tall?" It's a non-topic. If anything, making such a big deal about calling those men unsexy just gives people the false impression that someone, somewhere, at some time thought they were sexy.
But what is most irritating about these Sexy/Beautiful/Ugly lists is that they never reveal how the lists are put together.
The
Boston Phoenix's list of the 100 Unsexiest Men In The World, doesn't say anything about the reasoning behind it except: "Who would Scarlett least like to be with?"
But where do you start? With looks? With sex appeal? With amount of power that person could sexily wield over Scarlett? Looking at the list, there is no method. The guy from Nickelback is unsexier than Michael Jackson. David Gest beats Larry David. Chris Kattan is sexier than Paul Shaffer, but less sexy than Rush Limbaugh. Why? It's like they took an issue of TV Guide, cut out all the names in it, scattered them on the floor, and then had a baby waddle through the scraps. Whichever names the baby put in its mouth were in the top fifteen.
The methodology on this list of the World's Sexiest Vegetarians is a lot clearer: They simply listed any vegetarian celebrity they could think of. Why else would Ed Begley Jr. be an option?
And now the List juggernaut, People's 50 Most Beautiful list is set to come out this week. Guess who's in it? Anyone who has a face and a movie/album/project/baby coming out soon. Yes, including Eva Longoria, who is really beautiful––just like every other heavily made up Miss Corpus Christi contestant. Ugh. Start Caring About Celebrity Vs. Thing
Fametracker.com's feature
Celebrity Vs. Thing ranks people like Queen Latifah and Chris Kattan alongside everyday items like gift wrap and emery boards. It's educational, it's absurd, and it's usually dead-on: Supermarket Belt Dividers are way better than Taye Diggs. Mark Ruffalo is, in fact, better than an ipod nano.
But the best part about Celebrity Vs. Thing is that there is nothing arbitrary about the final decisions. The cases for each celebrity and each thing are laid out in detail, so you know precisely why Fametracker thinks that Angelina Jolie is more enjoyable than bottled water. (They could live without bottled water.)