What makes a man physically attractive?
Depending on where you live in the world, your answer to that question might vary greatly.
In the U.S., the current standard seems to be moving towards the “lumbersexual” — masculine, muscular, bearded and white.
In Brazil, “Germanic features” with tan skin are considered an ideal beauty combination, and cosmetic surgery for men is becoming a normal thing to hear about.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
In Turkey, there’s a trend of body hair removal for men — we remember when smooth was the standard in the U.S.
Below, Buzzfeed wrangles up a bunch of male models to explore the differences in current international beauty standards, including their assessment of what the future holds:
Bob LaBlah
This is one of those rare moments where asians, blacks and whites all look like they came from the same cookie cutter. Am I crazy or does someone else see the same thing?
Xzamilio
The Nigerian and South African dude could get it. And Kumar.
Gay Veteran
This is a huge fail because all of the model used adhere to a western standard of beauty. It’s hypocritical, they’re talking about different standards of beauty but they cast the most passable diverse models possible.
QJ201
It’s Male Standards of Beauty or Standards of Beauty for Men
NOT
Men’s Standards of Beauty, which grammatically means the standards of beauty held by men, not about men.
Hurray for more blog bad grammar!
Xzamilio
@Gay Veteran: Yeah, that is very true
myloginname
It was hard to get past all of the makeup they were wearing but that South Korean model was sublime.
mikesan
The South African, Indian and American stats and factoids were jarring, but sure you guys go ahead and keep thinking beauty is exclusively in the eye of the beholder and has nothing to do with slavery, colonialism and the apartheid; it’s just “preferences”.
Hahahahahahha, it’s hilarious.
And the so called “Future” is already here. The last look is very averagely Brazilian in the phenotype, but the majority of Brazilian medias are still heavily portraying white Brazilians others…
spiffy
When they did the female version of this video a couple of months ago, I thought it was weird that they used white texts against light backgrounds, made these “facts” almost impossible to read. They improved the contrast slightly for this video; but I still had to keep pausing in order to read the words. It made me wonder if Buzzfeed did this on purpose, because it wasn’t about the subject but rather just an excuse to pay some pretty people to pose?
And the stats about Mexican men being the second most vain in the world? It was from a 2000 study — 15 years ago — how accurate could that still be?
I guess if anything it speaks volumes about the power of the internet and media. The conclusion I got from watching this was “be young, muscular and light-complected, preferably white.”
Fvk847
I thought they were all hot except the Australian.
JennyFromdabloc
@Fvk847: I thought the Australian and South African were the only hot ones. To each their own, right?
Bob LaBlah
@Gay Veteran: Just between us did you too notice (or at least get the feeling) that two of them have had cosmetic surgery? Something does NOT look natural about those eyes. There is also a statement with the model at the 4:43 mark that I honestly said “no shit”.
mikesan
@JennyFromdabloc: I laughed so hard when I saw the South African. Maybe they were trying to make a point about the underrepresentation of blacks in South African media, but it was so sad and such a missed opportunity to cast a black model. The Australian guy was gross; very unlikely too be related to the Hemsworth and other Aussie hotties.
dave lopes
@Xzamilio: Where does it say the man is Nigerian???
These are all models overwhelmingly from the west.
dave lopes
A very ridiculous video based on nothing.
The south african magazines were made for white south africans by white south africans. Just like Ebony and Jet cater to a black audience.
Negro africa was ignored totally.
And NO the future is not of a mixed world. The population growth is in black africa and asia. Not much mixing there.
This is just western pop science, entertaining but worthles.
Paco
The last one, “The Future”, was the hottest. Beautiful!
Billy Budd
The South African one was a shame.
Billy Budd
Here in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where I live, more than 80% of the population is of mixed race, especially white european mixed with african.
VampDC
can you stop reposting buzzfeed articles. I would just go to buzzfeed for that shit.
o.codone
i’ll take any, or… all of them.
Merv
The South African one made perfect sense to me. The video is about standards of beauty, which implicitly is represented in the media. In the South African media, 77% of cover models are of white guys, even though white people are only 9% of the population, hence the standard of beauty. Personally, I don’t agree with that standard of beauty, but it is what it is. If I were picking a hot South African, I would go for someone like Keo from Dancing With The Stars.
jwtraveler
@mikesan: Yes, they were. @dave lopes: Did you guys read the text?
It’s clear that his video is not about traditional standards of male attractiveness in various cultures as I, and perhaps many of you, was expecting. It’s clear that this video shows how Western (i.e. white) contemporary trends in male beauty have now taken over the world. There are slight variations in the different countries, but it’s interesting that even the Indian and Filipino men look white. And the Korean obsession with cosmetic surgery to “Westernize” their facial features is now moving from women to men too.
All of this notwithstanding, they could have used more than 4 models out of 13 to represent the non-white majority of the world. Not one from China?
Alan down in Florida
The most attractive thing about a man is his mouth and what comes out of it. Everything else may be beautiful but inner ugliness is the biggest turn off.
Also, where was the Scandinavian contingent?
Saint Law
@jwtraveler: You took the words out of my mouth.
I’d just add that Africa encompasses a huge variety of male beauty/s; as you’d expect, given it has the greatest genetic variation in the world.
But all we got was Nigeria – a large population but still.
dave lopes
@jwtraveler: Yes I read the article and it is “pedestrian” observations trying to pass as research.
The south african part dealt only with white south africa. It never touched on black south africans.
Colorism has always existed in various cultures. In the indian sub-continent, a lighter shade was always prized even before colonialism. As the northern aryan Indians have dominated the darker southern dravidian indians.
The effects of western colonialism are better seen in Korea where plastic surgery to round the eyes and ulift the nose has reached epidemic proportions.
Philipinos are basically the “latinos” of asia and act as such.
The real effect of caucasian standard of beauty has been most felt on women. On that one, no race has been spared. Black negro women aiming for the mulatto look with hair extensions and such.
For men, it is different. There is a standard of “handsome” for black men that does not mimic and even rejects the white male standard.
dave lopes
@Saint Law: the guy in the picture is a black american model.
As for Nigeria, there is no typical nigerian as there is no ethnic nigerian group.
Nigeria is an artificial creation of Britain containing more than 50 different ethnic groups. From the coastal igbo of the bight of biafra to the sahelian Hausa in the north to the admixtured (negro and berber) fulani of the southern sahara. The difference between southern italians and scandinavians.
Sebizzar
I’m sad that I might not be around to live in a world where everyone’s mixed and prejudice against skin color is rare. Like people always say, “we are all the same race – human”, but everyone knows our damn skin color has and still divides us immensely.
offbeatoh86
@Fvk847: He’s not from Australia. He’s a model/go-go boy from Los Angeles named Steven Dehler.
charlietex
As a middle aged business executive who was just dumped by my bf of 7 years for a fat hairy falsely masculine lumbersexual bear I can definitely attest to a changing standard of attractiveness.
Blackceo
Y’all arguing over what certainly is not brand new information to me and I just want to know the name of the song…..and who that chulo is at the very end.
da90027
We all like different things to each his own…what I find sad is the overuse of botox by younger men who dont need it and older men that have that scared look and the overuse of photoshop on print ads. Gay men develop body issues when bombarded with airbrushed abs etc…id like to get back to realism.
jwtraveler
@Saint Law: What? No nasty, bitchy, hostile response? Did you have a stroke?
Blkbttm21
@Blackceo: The song is “Jaguar” by What So Not.
Captain Obvious
Little late claiming this “lumbersexual” is the standard of beauty when the currently most watched, talked about, and drooled over man in America is currently Jamal from Empire.
Bye, Felicia.
Realitycheck
@dave lopes:
>>A very ridiculous video based on nothing.
Agreed, just another filler in article……
>>And NO the future is not of a mixed world. The population growth is in
>> black africa and asia. Not much mixing there.
Europe is under an illegal immigration invasion of hundred of thousands immigrants every month, and the entire european block is double the
African population and near India or China level.
So yes the future is mixed, most of the americas, is mixed and will keep on mixing.
Even super conservative countries like Japan are actually a mix of nationality,
If you look at the early story of Japan, they were actually Chinese escaping an
enemy and they settle in the islands of Japan already occupied by white aborigines and other racial groups, over time, Japan has received huge immigrants waves of Chinese, Filippino, Thais and Korean, in fact the empire family of Japan has Korean roots.
And if anyone knows the story of Italy and the roman empire, then you
will know the crazy mix of races that made Italians what they are today.
Sansacro
@Captain Obvious: Funny, I’m not drooling, but who am I to argue with the empirical evidence supported by quantitative data of noted statisticians.
Captain Obvious
@Sansacro: Right, everyone is worshipping white guys with beards. Empire isn’t the most watched show on television and no one is going out trying to dress like Cookie and Luscious.
Crawl back under your rock, Boo. White worship is over, you’ve only had hundreds of years of it. Time for a little color, it won’t kill you.
dave lopes
@Realitycheck: Actually that is not what the future holds.
Africa and Asia’s population is expected to dwarf Europe in the future.
Japan is not made up of a mix of nationalities. It is one of the most homogenous country’s on earth.
Chinese and Japanese and Koreans are of the same race. We are talking racial mixtures not of ethnicities or cultures.
Europe’s immigration will simply turn Europe into another USA with a WHITE majority and a minority of non-whites and mixed people. The bulk of the population will remain white.
In the america’s USA, Canad, Argentina will remain majority white. Jamaica, Haiti and the english caribbeans will remain overwhelmingly black. The hispanic islands will remain mixed.
Basically the world will stay as it is except for a massive increase of pure blacks in Africa and pure “yellows” and “browns” in Asia.
The subcultures and underclasses of USA,and Europe will see increases in mixtures but they will still remain a minority.
Saint Law
@jwtraveler: You said something interesting. For once.
Realitycheck
@dave lopes:
Actually even China population is expected to start shrinking
in the next few years and Africa still has a huge mortality rate
due to diseases and food shortages.
So fluctuations a side I don’t see that happening.
And European, especially Germans and
Italian no longer make make babies, and looking at the boom
of immigration to western Europe, it is only a matter of time before
immigrants become the new European.
For example, in the past 5 years alone, Italy has seen a huge
immigration explosion, to the point where now 1 resident in
6 is not Italian and was not born in Italy.
And it is not stopping, thanks to the EU supreme court ,
any european country must take care of any immigrant that
reach its shores, so countries like Italy, must take care of
anyone that makes it by boat, and of course from Italy they travel to
other European countries, Germany, France, Denmark etc…..
So for example, it is expected that 50 years from now, the Italians of
yesterday we be a small minority of the population.
Realitycheck
@jwtraveler:
True and as long as Hollywood movies and European fashion control trends
white will remain the standard of beauty.
How ever trends do change, for example there was a time when blondes
were hot, then Italian brunette, and now sexy latino are making a big dent
around the world, and we already see the beginning of asian influence.
jockjack5
No, No, No, No, No…
The current standard in the U.S. is not “lumbersexual”!
If I want to gaze upon a hairy bearded gym-bunny, I’ll join a gay gym.
Give me a smooth pretty slim twink any day of the week, preferably blonde.
Paco
@Captain Obvious: “Right, everyone is worshipping white guys with beards.”
Naw… Only other white guys with beards are.
dave lopes
@Realitycheck: I am not guessing. I am giving actual population ptojections from the UN the World Bank and other NGOs.
Europe’s native population is shrinking but they are not stupid enough to allow themselves to become minorities in their own countries.
Like the US, they will have sizeable minorities and that’s where you will find the mixed minorities.
Asia is still growing and Africa’s population explosion is just starting.
The point is, it is the non-mixed places that are exploding in population.
Mixed will never be the future.
dave lopes
@Realitycheck:
Current population figures and future estimates for 2050
1. Asia: 4.347B(2015) – 5.205B (2050)
2. Africa: 1.154B(2015) – 2.270B (2050)
3. Americas: 0.980B(2015) – 1.237B (2050)
4. Europe: 0.733B(2015) – 0.677B (2050)
5, Oceania: 0.037B(2015) – 0.048B (2050)
Zenguy
I’m alarmed to hear about the trend in Turkey — that men are removing their body hair!
Bruce Dillon
“LUMBARsexual”
(*;*()
captainburrito
I’m asian and usually i prefer asian but in this video it was the mexican and philipino that caught my eye. While i like cuter guys, Korean male celebrities have such soft features that they are often prettier than female co-stars.
Beyond 2050, China’s population is set to decline and at a certain point so will India. Africa is set to keep exploding unabated. So blacks are going to be the most common.
wpewen
For many of us, you are really in trouble if you hang in the gay community and try to live to the standard of looks. For one thing, it’s way too perfectionist. Hint: A lot of guys say they want a “straight looking guy.” Most straight guys don’t sit around endlessly primping themselves. Think about it…..