Lulu is an application for cellular devices that connects to a female’s Facebook profile to allow her to rate her male friends and add hashtags with words to describe him. To log on to the site, you must allow Lulu to get your Facebook information so Lulu can verify you are least 17 years old and a female. Through certain questions, the site creates a numerical rating of a certain male on a scale of one to ten. The questions found on Lulu include ones like “The first kiss gave me… A) nightmares B) second thoughts C) a lady boner D) a mouth-gasm.” The men are also rated on humor, manners, ambition, sex, commitment and appearance. The user can then add hashtags describing the man with terminology like “#smellsamazeballs,” “#sexualpanther,” “#can’ttakeahint,” “#epicsmile” and “#manchild.” Lulu creates an easy access portal for females to make harsh and embarrassing evaluations, making this site judgmental and sexist.
This application ensures that the users are female by accessing personal information through one’s private Facebook profile, which is not only an invasion of privacy but also exclusive to heterosexual females, completely disregarding the gay and bisexual community. This reinforces the ignorant and bigoted idea that the only “normal” relationship is that of one between a man and a woman, which is extremely discriminative.
Along with being unfairly exclusive regarding sexuality, Lulu can be destructive to the male participant’s self-esteem. With one bad rating, a man’s confidence can plummet. These numbers are given solely on shallow, external aspects of a person and are viewable to anyone, making his private life now public. The embarrassment accompanying this website can be easily become a crippling and everlasting insecurity.
If Lulu rated women, its misogynistic undertones would spark riots, and it would be shut down immediately. Lulu would be deemed as extremely sexist, demeaning and invasive. However, the application should not be less offending due to its ratings on men and not women.
“If roles were switched, and guys were rating girls, more people would have a problem with it, when in reality [it is] all the same, sexist nonsense,” said senior Lucas Dugan.
Much of the world is working toward a future in which both sexes are treated respectfully and equally, and neither one gender should be trying to bring down the other. The entire feminist movement is based on the idea of equality, not superiority, which is what Lulu promotes. This site gives women the very tempting and easily accessible opportunity to judge men and to view the harsh judgment of others.
The quality of a romantic relationship or someone’s level of attractiveness cannot be measured in numbers or whether your first kiss gave you a “mouth-gasm.” No amount of questions, quizzes or offensive hashtags could or should be relayed to the general public. Choosing someone with which to be in a relationship should not be based upon an upset ex or immature person’s review on a website. Despite the excuses to justify this site, the negative clearly outweighs the positive. The general public should not create sites to judge others or give too much access into our personal lives, or else the real world becomes an unwelcoming place. Lulu gives people the power to make judgments behind the safety of a screen, while inflicting real-life sadness onto its victims. In short, Lulu makes the world boo-hoo.
