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TL;DR: OKCupid’s study on male dating photos fails reproducibility

Searching for matches and sending/receiving messages doesn’t require a subscription, making OkCupid one of the best free dating sites out there. Has two levels of paid membership that are packed with useful premium features. With 20+ sexual orientations and 12 gender identities to choose from, OkCupid is literally the dating site for everyone. DATING DESERVES BETTER On OkCupid, you’re more than just a photo. You have stories to tell, and passions to share, and things to talk about that are more interesting than the weather. Get noticed for who you are, not what you look like.

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1. OkCupid is the dating site version of the left-wing hipster who wears 'Make America Gay Again' hats. With over 50 million registered users and an average of 50,000 'Wanna get drinks?'
2. In order to make OkCupid, or any dating site, work for your needs, you should be able and willing to read more and click “Like” less. (Or, at least do them both equally.) Because at some point, you will have to meet this person in the flesh or talk to this person via computer, and you two must be able to hold a conversation.
3. The Downsides of The Dating Site. Like any other dating site, there are a few downsides to OkCupid. For example, if you are a free member, you cannot see who has liked you. There are also fake profiles on the platform. The free version also invites ads. The free membership grants you access to core features.

If you’re a guy who uses online dating sites/apps, you’ve probably heard this one: don’t smile in your picture. Better yet, don’t smile and look away from the camera.

This tip originated on the OkCupid’s OkTrends blog in January 2010. The post was called The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures.

Growing skepticism

Since OkCupid published their data in support of not smiling in pics, the tip has been quoted as gospel truth on dating advice blogs, PUA podcasts, dozens of dating subreddits, forums, everywhere.

But, at the same time, widespread skepticism rose too. One Reddit commenter put it this way:

“Despite what OkCupid may say, I believe that in Tinder’s last roundup of the top 100 male profiles, basically all of them were smiling in their lead picture.”

Further — everywhere men floated the “don’t smile in pictures” advice, many women decried how much they hated these nonsmiling pictures. But, the men countered, women don’t necessarily know what they want. After all, OkCupid’s findings were based on behavior, not just talk, right?

Photofeeler steps in

This is where we at Photofeeler come in. Like everyone else, we believed in OkCupid’s conclusions. But the more data we collected about men’s dating photo attractiveness, the more it became undeniable: OkCupid’s advice wasn’t raising men’s photo scores.

At first, this realization was frustrating. We even worried our tool could be flawed. But every time we looked into this, we found the same thing: daters who used Photofeeler for photo testing were getting right-swipes like never before. In fact, users reported 3-5x (200-400%) more matches! So the opinions on our site were translating directly into behavior.

We decided it was time for someone to challenge the OkCupid study.

Using the massive stores of data on our platform, we set out to reproduce OkCupid’s process (as laid out by the Myths of Profile Pictures post). We narrowed the demographics of our data set accordingly, matching their 7,140-photo sample. Then we ran each picture through a variety of analysis scripts (in our case, neural nets that detected smiles and eye contact) as well as tagged each one by hand until total agreement was reached. Finally, we used Photofeeler attractiveness ratings to gauge the success of the various photo types (smiling, not smiling, eye contact, no eye contact).

What We Found (Results/Findings)

Here is OkCupid’s study results vs. our own:

OkCupid’s data said that not smiling and not making eye contact was better.

Ours says that whether you smile or not makes no statistically-significant difference (except in the case of eye contact and no smile, which is harmful).

Here are some possible reasons behind the differing results.

I. Evidence suggests OkCupid manipulated their data set to get a click-worthy result

Let’s be real here: research can be a racket. Back in 2010, no one would publish “smiling works great in dating photos!!1” because most people assumed that already. Affirming what people already know is boring. A counter-intuitive result (e.g. “smiles are actually unattractive!”) was far more sensational.

Most people think data ought to speak for itself. But data can be manipulated. To put it frankly, data can be manipulated to show practically any result that the scientist would like it to. And in OkCupid’s case, it’s reasonable to assume that they got the interesting result they wanted, in part, by cutting out particular populations from their data set.

OkCupid used a sample of 7,140 photographs from users aged 18-32, in big cities, possessing average attractiveness (that is, they lopped off the top and bottom 20%), and who had profiles containing only one photo and no text. Then “after a bit more sifting” (!), they landed on their study’s data set.

Why did OkCupid eliminate users outside of the ages of 18 and 32? Why did they eliminate users who were most and least attractive? The explanation given (that they “[feared it] would skew [their] results”) is no explanation at all. They didn’t have to “fear” anything because, in all likelihood, they first ran their numbers with these populations included. They just didn’t get as interesting of a result that way.

The over-sifting of the data set likely obscured other trends that were more responsible for profile success than the photo characteristics the study claimed to be measuring. For instance, it’s possible that the men in the top 20% of attractiveness were attractive and smiling, and the men in the bottom 20% of attractiveness were unattractive and not smiling. This leaves only smiling ugly guys at the bottom of the spectrum and grumpy hot guys at the top, making it look like being grumpy makes you hot.

II. OkCupid had far too little data to draw conclusions

Building on the previous point, there’s the question of how many pictures of men not smiling and not making eye contact were in the data set to begin with.

Giving OkCupid the benefit of the doubt, let’s say their sample was 50/50 male and female (even though it would likelier have skewed female). 7,140 photos is only about 3,570 per gender.

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This is a good sample if you’re measuring a condition that will be present in all of the photos. But the number of men who were not smiling and looking away (especially in early 2010, before OkCupid advised it) would be in the hundreds at most. Even today, less than 15% of photos have no eye contact. Before OkCupid declared it superior, it was likely 5-10% (200-300 photos split into 3 groups: smiling/not/flirty).

We know for certain that OkCupid knowingly made claims based on too little data because they had approximately 7 photos of male “flirty face” with no eye contact and they still drew conclusions about its effectiveness.

Not to mention, the metric they were using to gauge a male dater’s profile effectiveness (“women met per attempt”) is a wildly varying and unbounded metric; one guy with a particularly interesting photo that gets one unsolicited message per day could have easily made their whole result.

III. OkCupid had a biased population sample

Trends change. In data science, we know it can be difficult to find consistent trends even between visitors of the same website from one week to the next.

Is it likely that trends found among a very specific niche of male daters long ago — those who chose to upload only one photo and no profile text to OkCupid in 2009 — could translate to a viable Tinder strategy for all men in 2017?

The truth is that societal and dating norms have changed a lot in this amount of time. For instance, dating online used to be taboo. So perhaps giving an air of “I’m too good for this” with a non-smiling, looking away photo and no profile text appealed slightly more to women at the time.

Further, what kind of man uploads one photo and no profile text? Perhaps it’s this personality type (not the photo’s characteristics out of context) that speak to which photo strategies worked best for him.

IV. The OkCupid study itself spawned a new class of bad photos

Finally, let’s chat for a moment about what happens when a highly popular dating site disseminates misinformation about what works best in guy’s dating pics: a new class of male dating photos is born.

We hypothesize that the publicity of OkCupid’s results gave rise to a new type of dating photo within which the subject is purposefully avoiding smiling and eye contact, in which the subject seems to be awkwardly looking in another direction for no apparent reason. Internally, we labeled these photos as “avoidant” because they tend to come across to strangers as if the subject is too timid to make eye contact.

Fact is, these avoidant photos just didn’t exist before the 2010 OkCupid study. Before this advice was made popular by OkCupid, the only instances of not smiling and not making eye contact were at least somewhat contextually relevant. After: not so much.

Conclusions

OKCupid’s study on male dating photos did not pass the reproducibility test in 2017.

Our data suggests that there is no one-size-fits-all photo strategy for all men. Rather, it’s important to determine what’s appropriate and natural in context, and to consider what characteristics you individually have to offer a mate.

Truthfully, even if a particular photo strategy showed a slight difference in average effectiveness, the individual photos score all over the map.

That’s because certain strategies may work better for certain people or in certain contexts. If you want to know what works: try it, test it.

Photofeeler is a tool for testing profile pics, as seen in Time, Forbes, The Today Show, and more. Know for certain how you’re coming across in your dating pictures. It’s free to use here.

OkCupid is a dating site that attracts a large variety of singles. And while there are dating sites that are more stringent in their requirements, OkCupid is for all types. The site presents a warm dating environment of sorts, feeling like a casual hangout in a college town.

The group of singles here are as diverse as they come. There are those who are serious and sophisticated, where others are artsy and edgy. The demographic that you will find on the site is mainly comprised of young and ambitious individuals who are looking for love connections.

But is this the right dating site for you? Read this OkCupid review to find out if you should sign up.

• Dating site that favors everyone regardless of gender and sexual orientation (over 20 sexual orientations and 12 gender identities are available)
• Members can send and receive messages on their free account
• Members can search for potential matches without a subscription
• Premium memberships are packed with a variety of useful features
• Free accounts for members who are not able to subscribe to the dating service
• Core features can be used free of charge

• The site matches its members based on attractiveness. While members with free accounts can make matches, only members with A-list premium memberships can see matches who are more attractive than them.
• The site has a more casual dating vibe that may not necessarily favor those who are seeking a serious dating atmosphere

OkCupid has over 50 million users worldwide. However, a majority of the site’s members come from the United States. As I was signing up, I found out that OkCupid hugely diversity. All of its members come from different walks of life.

Here is some of the information I had to give while I was signing up to the site:

A majority of members are male (65% male and 35% female). The members fall in the 23-34-year age range. This is why OkCupid may not necessarily work for those in an older demographic as they may not share similar interests with the younger members.

Sign Up Process

The sign-up process for OkCupid is the same for all members regardless of whether they have a free or premium account. Be prepared to fill out a questionnaire that calls for personal information and also encourages you to elaborate on the qualities that you wish for your partner to have.

The questionnaire is eye-opening because it is comprised of questions that I would never think to ask on any first date. The questions prompted me to consider my values and what I wanted in a potential partner.

The OkCupid test allows the dating app to measure the percentage of your compatibility with the suggested match. This percentage is shown with the match suggestion on OkCupid’s roulette-type dating feature.

In comparison to signing up on other dating websites, creating a profile on OkCupid is rather easy. Apart from general information like your name, age, date of birth and location, you will get into the nitty-gritty by providing information on whether your ideal partner would smoke, drink, and what their political views would be among many other questions.

In general, the questionnaire talks about your likes, dislikes, religion, hobbies, and other interests. This will help in curating the perfect matches for you.

Just make sure not to skip the upload section because your potential matches are looking forward to seeing you. Also, they say that a picture speaks thousand words…need I say more?

Contacting People

Where other dating sites do not allow for members with free accounts to send messages, OkCupid does. This makes contacting other members on the site interesting. It goes without saying that members on this platform can have endless conversations all day every day.

Wondering how to message someone on OkCupid? Because of the ability to freely send OkCupid messages, unwanted messages can fill your inbox. But don’t be afraid, if you do not respond to unwanted messages then most senders can between the lines and know that you are not interested.

Here are some of the members of the site that I came across:

Remember, you are only matched based on the answers that you give in the questionnaire. As such, you can only contact your potential matches and not those who fall outside of your set criteria.

Profile

As millions of worldwide users sign up to OkCupid on a daily basis, the site puts the right measures in place to ensure that all profiles are verified, and scammers are weeded out.

One of the measures the site uses to ensure that all of the profiles are legitimate is by sending a log-in code using the registered phone number that you provide. Additionally, all users need to sign-up with a valid email address.

This is my OkCupid profile:

Mobile App

One thing that should be noted about the OkCupid app is its excellent user interface. It is easy to use because it comes with the site’s basic functions.

This app will especially come in handy when you are on the go. It allows you to not only see which users sent you messages, but it also enables you to respond to messages easily. The app carries the majority of features that are also found on the OkCupid website.

Using the app is rather easy; you just have to swipe right if you are interested and swipe left if you are not. Apart from finding matches easily, you will also be quickly updated about your matches through the app.

Membership Options

So, is OKCupid free? When it comes to pricing, the OkCupid cost is on the average side. While many are contented with the free version, the truth is that you can make much more of your experience on the site with a premium membership.

The only important perk that comes with an OkCupid free trial user account is that you can send and receive messages. Other than that, you cannot use advanced search filters, see who likes you, or see public questions and answers.

Here is the breakdown of the pricing comparison:

So, is OkCupid worth the premium membership? The answer is yes. The plethora of benefits that come with a paid account is worth the subscription. The A-list basic subscription is not only affordable, but it will also allow you to enjoy the best dating services without breaking bank.

On the other hand, the A-list premium subscription offers benefits like an auto boost on daily matches and all other advantages that come with OkCupid as a dating service.

It is up to you to decide which OkCupid subscription fits you best because all of them guarantee an unforgettable dating experience.

OkCupid is a dating site that is known for its seamless user experience. It has a large member base, with a majority of the members being active. This means that you have the potential for tons of meaningful conversations with your matches.

However, it is a casual dating sphere that offers a relaxed dating vibe. It is safe to say that this site is most suited for those who want to “take dating easy”. Still, it has a reputation for successful relationships that occur with both short-term and long-term dating.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I see who messaged me on the OkCupid app?

The OKCupid mobile app comes with incredible chat and messaging features. If you want to see who messaged you through the app, you will get a message notification immediately when a message hits your inbox. OKCupid will notify you by saying, “they messaged you”. This will let you know the person that messaged you and exactly when the message was sent.

Can you sign up for an account using the OkCupid mobile site?

Yes, you can download the OKCupid mobile app and sign up for an account.

How can I use the OkCupid promo code?

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The promo code is an alphanumeric string that OkCupid offers to encourage those who want to sign up to the platform. The code is particularly useful as it comes with a variety of free match options that you can choose from.

What is the OkCupid customer service email address?

For any questions or concerns, email the OkCupid customer service department at [email protected]

How does OkCupid work?

Like most other dating sites, OkCupid operates on a mutual-liking system. Thus, before two singles talk, they have to like each other. Once the singles have liked each other, they can then begin exchanging messages or developing a relationship.

How do I delete my OkCupid account?

On your OkCupid account, go to your profile and click on the settings option. Enable the “disable your account” option and then follow the prompts from there.

OkCupid vs Tinder: How do they compare?

Tinder and OkCupid are similar in that they both attract a younger demographic and offer a casual dating atmosphere. However, the difference is that most people on Tinder are looking for quick hookups while OkCupid is more purposeful and inclusive. It testifies to helping form many long-term relationships and is also tailored to the LGBTQ community. Tinder is known as a dating site that is rather “superficial” because it is more focused on image. It is known for casual dating experiences and is geared more towards physical qualities than anything else. However, OkCupid is more inclusive and embraces all types of relationships.

What is the OkCupid yellow circle?

The OkCupid match system is symbolized by a number of elements. While the blue rings appear on profiles that you have messaged, the yellow circle indicates the fact that there is a mutual match. Therefore, it is important to keep an eye out for this circle as it will let you know whether the person you like has mutual feelings for you.

OkCupid vs Bumble: How do these two compare?

Bumble and OkCupid are both amazing dating sites but they couldn’t be more different. Bumble is all about swiping right and left for members that catch your attention and those that do not respectively. In comparison to this, OkCupid presents a warm but casual dating environment. While both dating sites may be casual, OkCupid is more in-depth and long term when it comes to dating experiences. Additionally, OkCupid welcomes all sorts of sexual orientations and all types of relationships where Bumble only focuses on long-term relationships and is geared more towards women.

How to get unbanned from OkCupid?

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OkCupid bans member accounts that post hateful, harassing, or hurtful content. If you are involved in any of these three things, then your account may be permanently banned or suspended. Sending unsolicited sexual content is considered sexual harassment. To unban your account, ensure that you appeal the ban by sending customer service an email. The site moderators will then take over to determine if the ban will be reversed or if it is permanent.

OkCupid for gays: Can I find my perfect match here?

Yes, you can. As OkCupid allows for members of all types of sexual orientations to sign up to the site. Therefore, gay members of the site can also find their ideal match on OKCupid.

POF vs OkCupid: Which one is the better site?

While you can find quality matches on both these sites, OkCupid is more popular than Plenty of Fish. Plenty OF Fish is also not as comprehensive with its sign-up process. In fact, profiles on this site do not carry an abundance of information. Therefore, it will really take time to get to know your match through personal communication. However, OkCupid gives you a head start where information is concerned.

OkCupid vs Match: Which one is better than the other?

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Both OkCupid and Match attract the same type of users. So, choosing one site over the other is not that easy. The fact that OkCupid is free is the only legitimate difference between these two platforms. Match requires its members to make monthly subscriptions.