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The Chive (H.T.: Ace) shows a photo album of Ukrainian mail-order brides:
Um . . .
Trumwill and I had a discussion a while back about whether or not the women that appear in these kind of photographs are paid models, marquee clients, or a representative sample of the women that are really looking to marry and settle down with a representative sample of the men who patronize Ukrainian MOB websites.
But that’s a discussion for another day. The point I want to make now is that, when I look at these pictures, the word “accessible” is not the one that comes to mind. What does come to mind is “swimsuit model” followed by “has swimsuit model mating opportunities.” Neither thought is likely to induce me to part with my hard-earned money for an illusory shot at wooing her.
So I’m thinking that the MOB outfits are overplaying the lingerie model / porn star angle at the expense of the girl-next-door angle. If male patrons are anything like me, they would be put off by photographs that portray the women as either out-of-reach or of low character.* In fact, my first choice would be this girl:
Note the differences: first, she’s modestly clothed. Second, her pose is subtle; only the gentle hair tug looks coached. Finally, while she is certainly beautiful, she isn’t glamorous in the way that so many of the other girls are portrayed.
On the other hand . . . maybe I’m not the target audience for these websites. Maybe the point of the tarted-up pics is to attract guys with low skepticism. In other words, maybe this site is putting the mob in MOB.
* The first picture is actually much more tame than most of the ones on offer, which were either blatantly NSFW or so badly contrived that I would be embarrassed to display them here.
15 comments:
What comes to mind for me is "Photoshop."
Going to the Chive, the vast majority of those pictures don't pass the sniff test. Either in the sense of "Are these pictures genuine/representative?" or the "Would I order this particular bride?" for the reasons that you cite. You may have picked the only one that might pass both tests. Which is not to say that it's genuine (and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the ones that look fake, aren't), but it is at least made by someone that knows what they're doing.
If we're the target audience, which we may well not be.
Brandon: first, I've been meaning to ask what happened to DR? It hasn't been updated in a while.
Second, you're saying that these photos are airbrushed? That's just wrong!
Trumwill: after writing the post, I went to the actual Ukrainian site, specified "Christian", "fluent English", and "under 30", and got 60-odd hits. Judging by the thumbnails, which is all I could see without registering, they look marginally more plausible than the Chive's fantasy picks . . . but then maybe that's how they target people like me. Weirdly, while I asked for results up to 30, none of the hits were over 25 as far as I could tell.
I think you are forgetting the purpose of "wife". There is ONE girl kneeling in front of a washing machine. I take her.
Oh yeah, and that washing machine is IN THE KITCHEN. Talk about WIN WIN.
Justin: well, yeah, if I really thought that was what I would be getting.
Interesting how the hot chick embodies the "hot chick" paradox: the hotter she is, the less likely she is to get asked out by good guys. Result: she is only asked out by jerks or thugs, both with egos the size of Cincinnati.
And yes, the second pic does look forced.
"but it is at least made by someone that knows what they're doing"
Clearly. And that I think sports fans is the take-away lesson from all this.
EW: I'm reminded of that part of the movie She's Out of My League, where Jay Baruchel's character keeps trying to find a "tragic flaw" in Alice Eve that would make her attainable. I think that movie captured an important truth about men within the normal range of self-regard: if she seems too perfect, she probably is.
Honestly, the first picture looks less photoshopped to me and more like it was scanned from a magazine.
I wonder if the 25 year old cap might be related to when they started seriously teaching English in the Ukraine? Probably not, but my sister-in-law married a Ukrainian/Russian (born in the Ukraine, migrated to Russia for schooling) and he says that only rich people got to learn English when he was growing up (he's in his late thirties) and he had to go to Russia to become well-schooled in it. Alternately, it could be that the 25-35 set is the dip in a reverse curve, too old not to have been married but younger than the average divorcee. Still, it's suspicious.
{There was more, but the comment went on too long for Blogger. Maybe I'll write a post on it}
These are probably more realistic pics of what you'd get:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370442/Four-women-held-raid-massage-parlour-illegal-immigrants-worked-sex-slaves.html
Dexter: the two women pictured in your article are, once you account for mug shot quality lighting, much prettier than the typical American prostitute (at least if HBO Documentaries are any guide).
The issue I'm getting at in this post is, what story is the photographer trying to tell, not what do MOBs really lok like.
For what it's worth, the main reason I haven't commented on the post's thesis is that I agree with it entirely.
Did you read all the comments at the end of the post? Turns out a lot of guys agree with you, Phi, your girl had tons of votes. So did the girl who was laughing and playing music. I don't think guys are as shallow and stupid as they are usually given credit for.
Justin: I didn't, but I'm not surprised, assuming readers with normal, well-adjusted tastes. But that only magnifies my confusion as to why the website misjudged its potential patrons so badly.
I've read that escort services are infamous for doing much the same thing, using pictures in their ads of women that are vastly hotter than what they actually offer.
Peter
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