What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.
In a relatively recent entry, we got all the hell on our high horse and decried any industry and/or culture (and the mentalities which support them) that would objectify, rank, and celebrate women solely based upon an entirely subjective assessment of “sexiness.” We still stand by our assessment of those sorts of things being mostly worthless – even in the generally less than profound context of those sorts of things (i.e. lists of anything appearing anywhere, most especially in “Lad Mags,” and entirely apart from here, of course) – and we still view them as being both part, and a symptom, of “the problem.” But perhaps in our blanket dismissals, we wound up taking down the entirely innocent – those underfed, statuesque, high cheek-boned, pouty-lipped globetrotters who are able to make more appealing simply by association, and make that little bit easier to sell, all manner of good and service; due to what’s usually a gift of genetics, more than any particular skill or talent on their part (at least none that far uglier people couldn’t perfect with a week’s practice, to the inevitable disinterest of all).
We took a shot at the models, when the models did no wrong, and did nothing that we wouldn’t have done given the opportunity. If we were pretty enough to model, there’d sure as heck be no PeekScore blog. If our (it must be stressed, for the sake of our livelihoods, handsome) CEO and founder were pretty enough to model, let’s face it, there’d probably be no PeekYou. You can toil in a grey office, under bleakly flickering florescent lights, or you can cripple yourself by middle-age from digging graves for horses, or you can prance around on a beach in Tahiti and get paid $10,000 an hour. Which would you choose? We begrudge them nothing, and for all the snark we actually do mean that sincerely.
In truth, we have no trouble with beauty. It is, by definition, appealing. While what qualifies as beautiful in the minds of most is vastly more diverse than what the fashion and advertising industries have decided to tell us is the case, their narrow view is by no means unappealing aesthetically. Those women (and men) are gorgeous, in their particular ways. More importantly, regardless of what we might think of their appearances, we surely see nothing wrong with earning an honest living, however you can. And it would seem that some of these models can earn a living, and then some, to a dramatic extent. For the burden of this very specific type of comeliness, and the acknowledged labor of upkeep, if you know where to look, and how to ask, apparently there’s much in the way of compensation offered.
This month, the list of the year’s best paid models was released (click here for more info). These are the women who’ve best been able to parlay their birth-provided bounty of face and leg into actual mini-industries. With this in mind, we thought it would be entertaining, and perhaps for some even illuminating, to see to what degree these women employ the Internet – or, in turn, the Internet employs them – to promote their wares (which, oddly, in their cases, is them). The number one spot is no shock, really, as she’s not only (by a large margin) the best paid model in the world, she’s also right now the best known of those still steadily working. Number 2 is much more surprising, but a lively Twitter account, a recent abundance of news coverage for a perceived dramatic weight loss, and indeed her inclusion on this very list, might be responsible. Regardless of the reasons why, and surely so far as her weight’s concerned we hope’s she’s strong as a slender ox, we can only say “good show, Candice… Way to have a digital footprint!”
Tell us your thoughts on these models. Do they need a sandwich? Do they need to be better paid? Do you love them? Do you not love them so much? Do you want to hasten the collapse of the patriarchy under its own weight? We encourage you, as always, to comment.
