8/03/22: Aesthetic Budget

A group at Cambridge came up with a way to measure the subjective experience of looking at human faces. The media instantly called it the “Beauty-Meter.” 

The movie and advertising industries pounced on this. By averaging a hundred EEG responses to an actor’s looks, they could come up with an objective number to rate physical attractiveness. The summed number of all actors in a movie divided by screen time correlated strongly with box office earnings.

None of this was new. But by placing a number on it, the practice became standardized. An arms-race among studios ensued. Body dysmorphia skyrocketed, as did plastic surgery rates. Teenagers became obsessed with checking their Number daily.

The backlash was inevitable. As was the backlash to the backlash, and so on and so forth. After the dust settled, society decided it would be better off if beauty was regulated in media. The Media Aesthetics Act passed quickly, stating that all movies, TV, and ads had a certain “Aesthetic Budget” that they could spend. 

As one senator put it: “The Aesthetic Budget is meant to incentivize for an accurate representation of the average American population on screen. If you spend too much of your budget on one attractive actor, then, well you have to hire some fugly folks for the rest of your cast.”