Danish dating site Beautifulpeople.com has made headlines worldwide for deleting the accounts of 5,000 people — including 1,520 Americans — whom the site's other members judged too pudgy to pursue love. The 5,000 rejectees were reportedly axed after they posted new photos revealing holiday weight gain. They'd "let themselves go," says site founder Robert Hinze. “Our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld. Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model.” Is Beautifulpeople.com just insensitive or hungry for media attention? (Watch a Fox roundtable discussion about Beautifulpeople.com)
The banned 5000 don't need our sympathy: Don't feel too sorry for these 5000 “fatties,” says Liliana Segura at Alternet. Beautifulpeople.com is clearly a home for “narcissists and the aggressively shallow.” Those whose “holiday weight-gain” got them struck off the membership list of their “online pretty people club” made the mistake of joining it in the first place.
"Happy New Year, unless you're fat"
It's all a publicity stunt anyway: The site is clearly more interested in gaining publicity than in gaining weight, says IDNblog. “Provoking the user” is the site's main “marketing strategy” — just think of the “buckets full of backlinks” they'll be getting from all this coverage. It remains to be seen, though, just how successful a strategy it is to “purposefully reject" paying members of your site.
"Beautifulpeople.com purposefully deletes 'fat' members"
Save your outrage for sizism in the workplace: Of course, Hintze's comment was strategically mean-spirited, says Kate Harding at Salon. But don't accept the bait: Why focus on this type of "jackassery" when there are “real problems” with sizeism out there? For instance, how being fat "affects hiring and salary decisions."
"Where the fatties don't roam"
