"Medium Ugly" Could ALMOST Be A Social Revolution

Scrolling on YouTube the other day, I came across a video discussing the phenomenon of “medium ugly” men. Little did I know that video (plus another one about how most of us are “borderline ugly”, but in a good way) would rewrite my entire brain chemistry - and honestly, I think it could do a bit more. The discourse about being attracted to “ugly hot” people might just be a social revolution.

What exactly is “medium ugly”? Well, some celebrities get the label a bit more than others online, like Timothee Chalamet, Barry Keoghan, and Adam Driver...so everyone from sex symbols to actors typecast as creeps (Saltburn still haunts me) to celebrities who have a very, uh, distinct face. Even actors like Jeremy Allen White were listed, and I’d say he's just very average. Maybe it’s better to consider who isn’t “medium ugly” if we really want to understand what the term means, then : Chris Hemsworth, Glen Powell, Chris Evans… you get the idea. Conventional beauty.

When it comes down to it, being “medium ugly” is just code for “not perfectly conventionally attractive”. So I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably “medium ugly” too. If you aren’t lean and athletic with a perfectly balanced face, the internet doesn't think you're hot. Except that, well, they kind of do, because “medium ugly” seems to be exclusively used to describe celebrities that people actually do find attractive. The mental gymnastics of saying that someone you find hot is “ugly” is extraordinary, though - why not just say someone is attractive and be done with it?

Well, there’s been scientific research on the subject of “mismatched couples” which offers some insight. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many attractive peop le say that their less attractive partners “make up for” their looks in other ways - intelligence, wealth, humour, status, whatever. While that might be just their perception, I'd bet it's reality. After all, if you can’t impress people with what’s on the outside, you’re going to have to work on the inside.

All celebrities have status, of course, but Chalamet is a good example of how personality can be a huge factor. His artsy, moody, softboy persona was carefully crafted by the roles he chose, the clothes he wears, etc. It's so precisely designed that his recent relationship with Kylie Jenner created absolute hysteria online. Chalamet and his team know he's never going to fit into standard masculine roles like Batman or Thor, so he found an alternative form of masculinity that he could fit and ran with it - a personality which transformed his rat face into a sexy rat face.

At the same time, there must be some people who genuinely find Chalamet and Driver attractive for just their looks. If they're calling their beloved celebrities ugly too, I can only assume it’s either a joke or a way to get ahead of anyone ready to point out the odd appearance. Regardless of why people call people they find attractive "medium ugly", though, doesn’t it feel just so refreshing? For once, people are praising unconventional beauty/appreciating people for more than just their appearance! The compliments are a bit backhanded but it seems that society is over the so-called "Instagram face" and finally starting to consider another way to judge people’s attractiveness.

… Except there is one issue. You might have noticed that throughout this entire article, I didn’t mention any female celebrities, and that isn’t a coincidence. At least from what I saw on Reddit, it seems like most people feel that women can’t really be medium ugly - they’re either viewed as unattractive and ugly or attractive and hot, with no inbetween. Sydney Sweeney, for example, was originally called “too ugly” for her role in Euphoria on Twitter, and even now people either say she’s stunningly beautiful or hideously ugly with no inbetween. She’s not the only one either. I’ve seen more and more female celebrities called “mid” online, like Margot Robbie, not to say that they’re attractive despite being “unattractive” or even average. To the people calling them mid, it just means that they’re ugly.

It’s interesting to note, then, that women seem to be the driving force behind the “medium ugly” discourse for both men and women. Maybe it’s because men tend to be the judger rather than the judged when it comes to looks, so they don’t care about adding much nuance to attractiveness and either call women hot or ugly. I’m not saying women are better, though - they’re still calling everyone (even some supermodels) “ugly”, which is obviously impolite… So for now, I can only say we’re close to a societal breakthrough rather than having actually achieved it.

But even though we haven't fully realised the "medium ugly" dream, I’ll take solace in the idea of “medium ugly” so I can forgive myself for not having a BBL body or perfect skin - because once I look past little physical things like that, I think I rather like myself. Who knows, maybe someday everyone will have gotten so much plastic surgery, filler, and botox that natural beauty becomes the new "it" thing even without the concept of "medium ugly". But I hope "medium ugly" survives for a little while longer to remind us of the beauty found not in perfection but in diversity.

They should probably change the name, though.

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What do you think? Could you take pride in being "medium ugly", or do you think that conventional beauty should still reign supreme? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject, especially who you think is "medium ugly".