Waddup bois! (and girls and non-binary people).
I won’t let the common cold prevent me from posting nonsense online. I have been useless for the last 4 days but I know you won’t sleep well today unless you read another issue of Stuff Around the Internet.
So join me and my germs while we check some funny and curious things I found on the internet this week.
Let’s go!
God Save the Short King
Back in 2006, when websites like Myspace and Facebook were shaping online dating, some researchers at the University of Chicago got really bored and decided to spend their research funding on this magnificent piece of work:
They got their hands on a sample of demographic data from an online dating service and went totally nerd with it. They wanted to understand how people’s attributes and mate preferences determined their matches on these online dating pools.
The study is 60 pages long so of course I only skimmed through it. Nonetheless, thanks to Dom Moynihan (@donmoyn on Twitter) I came across this amazing piece of scientific work:
Assuming a median height of 5’11.5” (181cm), a man of my height (5’2” with my big shoes on) would need to earn an extra $269K per annum to be as desirable as an average-height man.
lol good luck with that bro.
Obviously, this is a sample from an online dating service back in 2006. It’s not representative of preferences worldwide nor preferences outside those dating pools. I don’t have the data nor the time to disprove it, but I have to admit it struck a chord with my Short King identity.
Dating is a game of impressions and getting noticed. Being tall, incredibly good looking or well-dressed are all ways of getting attention from your potential mating partners. They are not the only ways, but they work perfectly in environments where you only have a few seconds to get noticed (e.g. Tinder or a pub).
As a short king, I knew from an early age that my strength was not appearances and first impressions thus I had to go through the painful and never-ending chore of developing a “personality”.
Man, what a struggle. Imagine having to be eloquent, well-educated, athletic, funny and a good dancer only to compete with the 5’11” rugby boys who can string 4 sentences together because they have taken too many hits to the head.
Life can be unfair sometimes.
Fortunately, it seems like I became quite good at developing this “personality” thing to compensate for my height. Maybe is not worth $269K per year but, hey, who needs that when you got my sick dance moves?
Can You Pay to be Part of the Gang?
For the next 2 minutes, I will embrace my inner champagne socialist. I hope you can look beyond that to learn some intriguing facts about education and money in the UK.
Like most developed countries in the West, England offers a perception of social mobility and meritocracy that fuels the lives of the working class. Indeed, anyone can get anywhere, like the rat from Ratatouille. You can be born in a council state in West Ham and become a millionaire before you are 40. You will break a few bones and smash some people along the way, but the prize is there for the taking.
Unless the rich kid that went to Grammar school also wants that prize. Then we have a problem, mate.
This week, I stumbled upon this:
For context, only 6.4% of children in the UK go to “private schools” (i.e. fancy schools where tuition fees average a modest £15K per year). Bear in mind, the median wage in the UK is £33K.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with private education. Parents will naturally try to give their kids the best opportunities that money can buy. Why wouldn’t they? Especially when so many state schools are in such a dire situation.
According to the Private Education Policy Forum (PEPF), compared to state-school pupils, privately-educated pupils will have three times the amount of money spent on their education as a pupil in a state school. They will also have twice as many teachers available.
Of course, you would like your kid to become part of that lucky 6.4% of the pupil population. Providing you can afford it, it’s a no-brainer. The problem here is not private education, the real issue is the bias favouring this fortunate 6.4% versus the other 9 million kids.
Here are some stats for you, also from PEPF:
An average of 43% of offers from Oxford and 37% from Cambridge were made to privately educated students between 2010 and 2015.
65% of senior judges; 52% of junior ministers; 52% of diplomats; 49% of senior armed forces; 45% of public body chairs; 44% of national news columnists; 43% of male international cricketers; 20% of pop stars; and 16% of university vice-chancellors attended private school.
The Social Mobility Commission and the Sutton Trust published a report in 2019 titled “Elitist Britain” which reveals this power gap in the population. Among their findings, they emphasise:
(…) a country whose power structures are dominated by a narrow section of the population: the 7% who attend independent schools, and the roughly 1% who graduate from just two universities, Oxford and Cambridge. Looking at the five years since 2014, Elitist Britain 2019 shows isolated pockets of positive change, but a picture characterised by persistent inequality.
How do you start to solve this? Welp, that’s up to our incompetent political leaders to do, assuming they want to solve it.
Spoiler alert: they don’t want to solve it, because that would mean their kids would have to compete in fairer circumstances with us, the commoners.
Ugh.
Recommendations
The Promised Neverland (1st Season)
I watched this series in a single day (12 episodes, around 20 minutes each).
It’s a cat-and-mouse story involving some kids living in an “orphanage”. One day, two of them see something they should not have seen and shit goes down.
Some parts are a bit unrealistic considering most characters are kids, but other than that, I loved it. It ends on an almost too-literal cliffhanger, setting up everything for the second season.
However, I have been advised that the second season is shite. Proceed with caution.
Before leaving…
Mostly all the subscribers of my letters have joined thanks to those gentle humans who share my writing with friends and family. I am always grateful to those people and I will find a way to repay you, in due time.
I invite you, again, to keep sharing these posts with whoever you think might enjoy them. If you would like, add a personal touch to your message, something like:
Hey love,
I am sorry your breast implants are falling apart. I told you that Turkish surgeons were a bit dodgy.
Anyway, check this out. It would make you feel better.
xx
That’s all for now. Remember to:
Drink water and reduce the sodium intake in your diet.
Call and message your loved ones.
Mind the gap between the train and the platform.
Peace out, kiddo.
Cesar.