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HOTorNOT: The forgotten website that shaped the internet:
Created on a lark in 2000, HOTorNOT became what we'd now call an overnight viral hit by letting people upload pictures of themselves to the internet so total strangers could rate their attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10. Twenty years later, it's a conceit that smacks of the juvenile "edginess" of the early web. It's now seen at best as superficial and crass, at worst as problematic and potentially offensive. However, the deeper you dive into HOTorNOT's history, the more surprised you'll be by the thoughtfulness bubbling below its shallow surface — and its fundamental impact on internet history.
In ways big and small, HOTorNOT's DNA is embedded into almost every major platform that defines how we interact online today.
It was the genesis for revolutionary concepts like the public profile at a time when uploading pictures of yourself was seen as an oddity or risk, when Facebook wasn't even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eye. Sure, we may have gotten rid of the 1 to 10 rating scale, but likes on Instagram selfies still essentially serve as an implied aggregated score of exactly how hot or not the internet thinks you are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jasassin on Monday September 28 2020, @06:19PM (5 children)
I'd always click 1 on the hot women and 10 on the rest.
A blow to their vanity with a single click.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Informative) by Booga1 on Monday September 28 2020, @06:25PM
Yeah, I never really saw the point of that. I heard about the page, but never went to it. If I feel like grading competing images I would rather go to http://www.kittenwar.com [kittenwar.com] instead.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @06:25PM
Careful, you will just turn the ugly chicks into conceited monsters.
(Score: 3, Funny) by EJ on Monday September 28 2020, @06:49PM (1 child)
ROFLMAO! I didn't have my glasses on, and I read that as: "A blow to their vanity with a single dick."
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday September 28 2020, @08:04PM
FTFY
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Interesting) by toddestan on Wednesday September 30 2020, @02:32AM
Their rating system wasn't just a straight average of the votes. I don't think they ever revealed the algorithm, but supposedly it would take into account people's individual voting patterns. So it's hard to say what effect you had.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @06:22PM (6 children)
The very first thought in any encounter is, "Is it fuckable"? The dog knows it. Let's just roll with it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday September 28 2020, @08:52PM (5 children)
No it isn't. The first thought is "Is whatever I'm encountering trying to kill me, and if it tries is it likely to succeed?"
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @09:09PM (2 children)
Alright, then "fuckable" is the second question. Is it edible is the third, then smokable (will it get me high?)... Can it at least go and get me a some cigarettes and six pack, and make me a fucking sandwich without having to blacken the other eye?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @12:45AM
Are you hitting your boyfriend again?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday September 29 2020, @09:39AM
Depends whether you have sudo privileges.
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday September 29 2020, @12:30AM (1 child)
Neighbour's yappy poodle.
Probably not.
OK, what's the next step?
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Tuesday September 29 2020, @06:17PM
If it's still yapping, you haven't taken it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @06:23PM (2 children)
From article:
"It's now seen at best as superficial and crass, at worst as problematic and potentially offensive."
No it's not. Here is a more precise way of stating the point:
"Today, the site would likely be promptly shutdown after a single screeching complaint Tweet by a woman so ugly she would rate a -1."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @12:49AM
Nice post. Too bad about your penis. Hahahahah!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @03:46AM
And here she is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2NjsKrI0ac [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @06:23PM
A cesspool of LEAs trolling for presumptive 'social offender' suspects. No thanks.
(Score: 5, Funny) by EJ on Monday September 28 2020, @06:51PM (2 children)
HOTorNOT lost relevance due to global warming. Now, all women are hot.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @09:09PM (1 child)
And wearing less clothing, which in some cases is great, and in others, well, they just need to move farther from the equator.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @03:59AM
Or wear more clothing around their equator.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Monday September 28 2020, @09:15PM
I remember that site.
But now, I suddenly realize I may have misinterpreted it.
I thought it was to rate whether I thought the person had an abnormally high or low body temperature, possibly indicating an infection or hypothermia or other problem they should seek medical help for. Using the power of the internet to get instant advice on this in case they were mentally incapacitated.
Is there a chemotherapy treatment for excessively low blood alcohol level?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @11:58PM (2 children)
Who the heck was online of that era and forgot this? This - along with elbow-or-vagina and hamsterdance - were archetypical web units.
Look what those archetypes inspired:
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday September 29 2020, @12:32AM
Don't forget ratemyrack, and for 4chan types, ratemyshit.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday September 29 2020, @09:58AM
Hamster Dance I still remembered, but I'd completely forgotten about HOTorNOT.
I only encountered the latter from seeing other kids at school visiting it (it probably got blocked by admins at some point). Hamster Dance was a site I was introduced to by my uncle, and actually visited myself more than once. Heck, I bought the single!
It may be slightly less-minimal-length than Hamsterdance, but I found the early flash animation scene to be more archetypical. I'm thinking of the likes of "The end of the world", Chip N' Dale's MMORPG, Foamy the Squirrel, and of course, Homestar Runner, Strongbad and friends. Some have been filmed and transferred to sites like Youtube, but it doesn't always do them justice: any interactivity is gone, and a key feature of Magical Trevor etc. was their nature as an endlessly looping video.
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Tuesday September 29 2020, @05:06AM
I miss Rotten. It was horrific, but it was part of that wild, wild west early internet that I found amazing/ disturbing.