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You CAN Judge a Book by its Cover!

2011-11-05 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Science & nature · explainer learning

Lower-confidence wave

2011 videos did not pass the QA gate (17 %); their analysis is shown but less reliable.

Hank argues that judging character from faces (physiognomy) is wrong, yet some looks do correlate with traits and people make snap judgements within a tenth of a second. Asking whether his goatee changes who he is, he lets viewers decide its fate by donating to the Foundation to Decrease World Suck.

What is said

00:00:00 — Hank's goatee: people say he looks like Westley; it pokes him; kept because commenters like it

  • ★★ Hank still has his facial hair; people say he looks like Westley from The Princess Bride, which he is starting to think is not so bad, though he feels like a cat and it pokes him. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Because of many comments saying people like his goatee and do not want him to shave it, Hank has kept it for now. — 00:00:17

00:00:32 — Physiognomy: wrong to judge by looks, yet some features correlate with traits; people judge faces within a tenth of a second and add cultural signals

  • ★ Hank learned about physiognomy while searching the website of Kim McGuire, who played Hatchet-Face in Cry-Baby and with whom he is 'kind of obsessed'. (hedged) — 00:00:36
  • ★ Hank says that, according to her Wikipedia page, John Waters cast Hatchet-Face with a one-line ad asking for a girl with a good body and an alarming face who is proud of it. — 00:00:43 · Wikipedia
  • ★★ Hank defines physiognomy as the assessment of a person's character by looking at their face or body. — 00:00:52
  • ★★★ Hank says physiognomy is wrong and people should not judge others by their looks, but that in some cases you kind of can. (hedged) — 00:01:04
  • ★★ Hank says aggressive men tend to have wider faces because they had more testosterone while growing. — 00:01:11
  • ★★ Hank says gay men are three times more likely to have counterclockwise hair whorls; he had Katherine check his, which is clockwise. — 00:01:18 · Katherine Green
  • ★★ Hank says 73% of people identified a composite of thousands of religious women as a composite of a religious person. — 00:01:28
  • ★★★ Hank says that whether or not we should judge a book by its cover, we do. — 00:01:38
  • ★★ Hank says baby-faced men are less likely to be convicted in court than more masculine-looking men, yet more likely to be convicted of negligence. — 00:01:41
  • ★★★ Hank says psychologists have found that within a tenth of a second of seeing someone we judge how attractive, trustworthy, assertive and funny they are. — 00:01:53
  • ★★★ Hank says humans are built to make snap judgements because it was once needed for survival, and now add cultural signals through hair, shoes, clothes, tattoos and piercings. — 00:02:05

00:02:22 — Does the goatee change who Hank is or how people see him?

  • ★★ Hank asks whether his goatee changes who he is or how others see him. He thinks not so far, does not know if he seems different, and wonders whether contacts in high school would have made him a different person. (hedged) — 00:02:26

00:02:44 — Keep it or shave it: vote with dollars at fightworldsuck.org for the Foundation to Decrease World Suck ahead of P4A; PayPal fees; result next video

  • ★★★ Calling the choice too big to make alone and a chance to fill the Foundation to Decrease World Suck before P4A, Hank asks viewers to vote with dollars at fightworldsuck.org on keeping or shaving his facial hair. — 00:02:44 · Foundation to Decrease World Suck, Project for Awesome
  • ★★ Hank says PayPal takes about 33 cents from every donation, so a dollar donation loses a third, and anything under 33 cents goes entirely to PayPal; he advises against giving just a dollar. (hedged) — 00:03:08
  • ★★ Hank says that, based on whether the 'shave it' or 'keep it' pile wins, he will say in his next video whether he will do 'Neanderthal November'. — 00:03:27

00:03:36 — Congratulations to John on signing 150,000 copies of The Fault in Our Stars; sign-off

Humor (significant)

  • Hank explains the neat shape of his goatee. — 00:00:29 > «it's because hair does not grow here. It's just me being a little boy.»
  • Hank starts to say physiognomy is, 'on its face', wrong, and a puppet interrupts. — 00:00:57 > «That was intentional, wasn't it?»
  • After the hair-whorl statistic about gay men, Hank had Katherine check his own. — 00:01:23 > «I'm clockwise. So now we know for sure.»
  • Hank explains that PayPal takes 33 cents from every donation. — 00:03:22 > «And if you do less than 33 cents, they take all of it! So that's great.»

Threads in this video

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