[OT][NON-JOB OFFER] Beauty and the Geek 3 (Channel 10)

[Shachar Shemesh]

On 17/01/11 11:28, Gabor Szabo wrote:

> So this is yet another show that is trying to reinforce the
> stereotype that girls need to be beautiful and stupid while
> guys need to be clever.
> Do they also pick the girls to be "blond"?
>
> Or do they run the show with half of the beauties being
> male for half of the geeks who are female?
>
> I have a (probably unfounded) hope that guys on the linux
> lists will look for other things in women than just their
> external (!) beauty.
>
> BTW Was the name of the show originally
> "The Beauty and the Beast"?
>
> Yeah, go geeks. Apply!
>
> Gabor
>
>    
Original name of the show was "Beauty and the Geek", so close enough.

No, the "Beuties" are all women, and the "geeks" are all men, but the 
criteria (de facto) is not how good the women look, nor how much 
tech-savy the men. The real criteria is how uneducated/stupid the women 
are, and how socially incapable the men.

I do not follow the show myself (there was some intention to watch it 
during the first season, but there was a scheduling conflict with, no 
less, "The Big Bang", which carries the exact same line, only is 
funnier, and you don't feel dirty for watching it). However, I actually 
think that this is really a case of all round everybody wins. The Joe 
public satisfies its curiosity for the bizarre, the production makes 
lots of money, but more strangely, the participants actually get to 
participate in a situation they would not, normally, get exposed to. 
Yes, the price is relatively high, but this is an actual opportunity to 
come out a better person, with better tools for dealing with life. There 
is no stated aim of making the couples in the show couples in real life, 
as far as I know.

It is my opinion (and people who watch the second season actually 
disagree, saying I'm being optimistic) that the girls are not so much 
stupid as they are comfortably narrow minded to the extreme (of course). 
As for the guys, again, it's people who have no self awareness, no grasp 
of how social interaction should take place and no tools to pick up the 
hints that such interaction entails. While it has been ages since this 
has been a description of the typical geek, if you cannot think of two 
or three more or less usual contributors to this list who fit that bill 
then you are either lying, have not been paying attention or one of them 
yourself.

So, yes, the show promotes prejudice through selection bias, and most 
people here would do well to not go to the trials, but then again, most 
people here would not pass said trials because "they are not interesting 
enough" anyways (read - not freaks enough to give a good peep show). 
Those who are, though, have something to gain.

A true story. While back a client of mine was looking for an employee. I 
passed the news along to the community, and one of the people who sent 
them his resume was one of those names. After some consideration, I 
decided not to warn the client, thinking that everyone deserve a decent 
chance. I told the client something along the lines of "he's technically 
very good".

It didn't take long for the client to figure it out. Less than 10 
minutes into the interview. After it was over, the interviewer came to 
me, all in shock that such people even exist. The point I'm trying to 
make is that these people advertise it by the way they look, the way 
they talk and, most of all, the way they interact wherever they go. 
Being a weirdo on TV for a chance to fix some of it may not be such a 
bad trade off.

Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com