Tuesday, October 23, 2007

This Hits Below the Belt

A survey has found that the city of Philadelphia is home to the least attractive people in the United States. The city of more than 1.5 million people is also said to be among the least stylish, least active, least friendly and least worldly.

Hey! We're not just fat - we're ugly, too

By DAN GERINGER & MEGAN SUERMANN


Philadelphia has the ugliest people in the country, according to Travel & Leisure Magazine.

Of the 25 major American cities ranked by citizen attractiveness, Philadelphia finished dead-last.

According to 60,000 respondents to the magazine's online survey, Philadelphians are slightly more repulsive than Washingtonians (24), Dallasites (23) and San Antonions (22) but way uglier than Miamians (1), San Diegoans (2) and Charlestonians (3).

"This is the city of Fabian and Frankie Avalon and Grace Kelly," said City Councilman Frank DiCicco. "Are they saying we've morphed into ugly people over the last few decades?Somebody's drinking something out there."

DiCicco took issue with Travel and Leisure ranking Miami's beautiful people No. 1.

"My oldest son, the dentist, had a condo in Miami so I've been to South Beach a few times," he said. "Most people are walking around in thongs so everybody looks good there. But who can tell who lives there and who's just visiting? We have cold weather here so we're walking around for months with our noses running and our cheeks red and fur caps on our heads. How can you see what we look like under all that clothing?"

"They've got to be kidding!" said Councilman Darrell Clarke. "South Beach? How do we compete with that? I mean, give me a break!"

Rick Vopper, senior stylist at the Adolf Biecker Spa/Salon on Rittenhouse Square, where he has been "enhancing the natural beauty" of Philadelphians for 31 years, said: "I'm going to disagree with the idea of ugly Philadelphians. I think we're much more diverse, more multicultural with our appearance than the synthetically pretty people in South Beach."

Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University, said: "People may perceive Miami to be a younger, hard-body city and Philadelphia to be an older, stodgy, historic place with a lot of losing sports teams. Did I say that? I didn't say that. The missing ingredient is reality. When I walk around Center City or the campus of Temple University, there are attractive people all over the place. It's a melting pot. It's vibrant. It's beautiful. The beauty they should be looking for is the beauty of diversity."

"Miami's gross," said Leslie Rooney, 22, of Northeast Philadelphia. "I think Miami's the dirtiest city I've ever been to. Even the people in Miami, they were pretty hit-or-miss."

Victoria Morillo, 31, of North Philadelphia said: "It's disappointing to see that Philadelphia was ranked [last]. I mean, besides the stereotypes that we're, like, the fattest city, we eat all the cheesesteaks and stuff, there's still some good-looking people up in here."

Fred Glick, 51, of Center City said, "If Minneapolis [No. 8] beat us, it's because the [magazine] guy went around with cute girls there, because they're all born blond with blue eyes there. Maybe it's something against brunettes and redheads. I hope we're closer to the top of the list for brains. It's more important."

Philadelphians ranked 14th for intelligence, handily beating Miami (23rd) - but, alas, those blond, blue-eyed Minneapolitans ranked second.

Full results of the survey can be seen here.
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When I read that story, I just had to laugh. I'm the cryin-on-the-inside kinda clown. But riddle me this, Travel & Leisure: How can the city with the ugliest people produce someone this cute:

Buck up, Little Bone Junior from 25 years ago. When you grow up and decide to live in a culture of blond haired - blue eyed idiot stick figures with no souls, remember that you have "the beauty of diversity." Let this be the light that guides you through the dark days when you lose the biggest bet of your life and you are stripped of your pride in the form of an Eagles decal.

And then have another cheesesteak.

5 comments:

andi said...

Did the people who actually did the survey offer to surrender their photos to accompany and add validity to the survey? I think not. You know they are ugly. With bad teeth.

barb said...

oh my gosh- baby owen looks just like you!

em said...

well someone had to be ugliest...it might as well be the city that throws snowballs at santa.

buck up little bone junior...at least li'l mil inherited that precious sad face :)

g said...

oh my goodness you are cute!

$teve said...

Wow, even as a young'un you were a hottie!!! :) Yeah, I read that too. I think it was just made by people in Detroit after the Eagles whooped the Lions ass a few weeks back. By the way, has the fallout from your wager happened yet?