Aggravated by the holdouts who keep wearing face masks despite mounting evidence that they’re essentially useless against Covid-19? Maybe you should be a little grateful.
According to findings published at Frontiers in Psychology, people who consider themselves less attractive are more likely to continue wearing face masks.
“Our findings suggest that mask-wearing can shift from being a self-protection measure during the COVID-19 pandemic to a self-presentation tactic in the post-pandemic era.”
The findings spring from a trio of studies using American subjects, conducted by researchers at Korea’s Seoul National University. The studies found that people with high self-perceived attractiveness are less willing to wear a mask, and vice versa.
They also found that each groups’ respective anti- and pro-mask inclinations are intensified in situations where their attractiveness is important — such as a job interview, versus simply walking a dog. That is, someone who considers themselves relatively unattractive is more likely to mask up at the interview.
Earlier studies found that unattractive people are indeed considered more attractive when wearing masks, while the good-looking crowd is perceived as less attractive, the researchers noted.
Koreans have coined a slang term for less-attractive people who wear a mask to benefit from letting others give them the benefit of the doubt about what’s under it: “ma-gi-kkun.” In the United States, the term “mask-fishing” was popularized on TikTok, and has some traction in the school-age cohort. As the New York Times noted last year, masks “obscured all kinds of transformations teenagers may feel inclined to hide: braces, pimples, acne scars, the first growths of facial hair.”
Meanwhile, the medical case for mask-wearing — which was rightfully doubted even in the early months — now lies in complete shambles. Most recently, a study-of-studies published in the peer-reviewed Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews concluded that, in the words of one author, “wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome.”
Apparently, the only outcomes masks affect are the ones related to how others perceive us. While the latest research focused on attractiveness, in 2023, masks are increasingly sending signals about the wearers’ psychological health and intelligence.
I’m not going to spread that ridiculous article, but I’d wager that it’s less “ugly people wear masks” & more “people that are used to leveraging their adherence to beauty standards for social capital are more likely to refuse to wear masks”
— COVID isn’t over just bc you’re over it (@STLMasking) February 2, 2023
Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/04/2023 – 17:30
