June 10, 2005
Fun with Face Analyzer
According to Face Analyzer, the following "personality" can be determined from my face:
Intelligence: 6.5 (Average Inteligence)
Risk: 4.2 (Low Risk)
Ambition: 6.2 (Average Ambition)
Gay Factor: 1.5 (Very Low Gay Factor)
Honor: 4.8 (Average Honor)
Politeness: 6.2 (Average Politeness)
Income: 6.4 ($30,000-$50,000)
Sociability: 5.1 (Average Sociability)
Promiscuity: 3.5 (Low Promiscuity)
My archetype, apparently, is Beta Academic.
Even more shocking, the celebrity face that I match up most with is Richard Gere. I'm not entirely certain about that. He has more hair than I do. But apparently I'm more polite than he is.
Because I'm suffering again from insomnia, I tried seeing if I could hack this system by submitting multiple images of my face in various poses (using the same lighting, the same red tee, the same stubble and the same white wall). When I stuck out my tongue, my income level dropped and my intelligence level dropped nearly a full point. Even stranger, my honor level went up when I took a photo of my face in crazy mode.
Nothing, however, fluctuated beyond a point. Sadly, my promiscuity score remained stable in all poses. I had hoped my gay factor would shoot up, but there was little I could do to get it beyond 1.6.
Whatever one thinks of the accuracy of this test, it does serve as a nice counterpart to Malcolm Gladwell's "The Naked Face" -- an essay from several years ago. The Face Analyzer has a 87% success rate determining race and gender. Unfortunately, there's little on the Face Analzyer site that indicates how the personality attribute score is calculated. All we know is that the picture is sent to a facial recognition engine, which is purportedly the world's most accurate software. Too bad they couldn't name the software they're using or the engineers and scientists who developed it.
[UPDATE: Tito runs some tests of his own. Apparently, the pre-jailed James Brown is a "white collar" type.]
Posted by DrMabuse at June 10, 2005 05:08 AMWhat a cutie! Of course, if you're not gonna go gay and you're not promiscuous, I'm probably SOL. Sigh.
Posted by: Jimmy Beck at June 10, 2005 07:05 AMDid you try cocking one eyebrow and sucking in your cheeks to raise your gay factor?
I was gonna add "or you could just put a dick in your mouth and see if that works," but it seemed kinda rude.
Posted by: Matt at June 10, 2005 07:19 AMhomeland security. duh.
Posted by: tito at June 10, 2005 08:35 AMMuch of this reminds me of the Nazi phrenological approach. There is absolutely no basis other than facial attributes and respective measurements between the same to go by. What makes that any different from some quack measuring a person's skull and determining their attributes? The only difference here is that it's computerized.
And why should there even be a gay factor?
Posted by: ed at June 10, 2005 09:47 AMDammit, I'm a heterosexual man who LIKES ABBA and showtunes. My gay factor should be at least 4.2!
Posted by: ed at June 10, 2005 09:50 AMThat picture doesn't look like you at all. Would the gay factor increase or decrease if you put glasses on?
Posted by: Sarah at June 10, 2005 09:51 AMI'm shearing my head down over the weekend. Between that, a clean shave, and a suit, I'll take another photo and submit it. Will try to reproduce more or less the same lighting and report the results here.
perhaps you gayness factor has been normalized to account for your san francisco habitat?
the key to testing the software is to find the ultimate example of male gaynesss and then upload that photo to test the validity of the scoring. the question of course: who is the ultimate gay male?
Posted by: tito at June 10, 2005 12:04 PMPaul Lynde.
Posted by: Matt at June 10, 2005 12:49 PMIf it is any consolation, you appear to be slightly gayer than James Brown, and equally as gay as Marcel Proust.
http://titoperez.typepad.com/broadscript/2005/06/this_does_this_.html
Posted by: tito at June 10, 2005 01:02 PMI wonder if your inteligence would go up if you put on some glasses.
Posted by: John at June 10, 2005 01:26 PMI tried it a couple times, and kept getting a "Very Low Gay Factor" of 1.6. I am, in fact, gay, although admittedly I'm overweight, don't exfoliate enough, and probably could do with a shave. And then I noticed that all the examples along the side of the page had Very Low Gay Factors, too, and that includes the guy whose face was "Celebmatch"-ed with Ricky Martin. Ricky Martin himself has a 1.0 Gay Factor. I mean, come on! I think it just defaults to Very Low Gay Factor, just to reassure all the straight guys, and to "flatter" all the gay guys.
Other than the gayness, I was frighteningly average...
Posted by: Bill S. at June 10, 2005 11:18 PMWell, John, I don't know about ol' Ed, but my intelligence actually dropped when I uploaded a glasses photo.
Posted by: Colleen at June 13, 2005 07:05 PM