Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic Jo Overline, co-creator of the Ugly Meter app for iPhones, shows a scan. The app snaps a picture of a subject's face, analyzes the image for symmetry, ranks one's ugliness and flings an insult or compliment.
It scans and analyzes, then it insults.
"You're so ugly, if you sat in the sand, cats would try to bury you."
An irreverent new iPhone application developed in Gilbert has attracted national attention and criticism for its caustically humorous approach to beauty-or the lack thereof.
The Ugly Meter, which costs $0.99 through Apple, enables an iPhone to snap a picture of a subject's face, analyze the image for symmetry and fling a corresponding insult or compliment based on the outcome that describes the person's appearance.
Love it or hate it, the app has sparked a fiery debate between those who defend its irreverence and others who worry it could become a psychological weapon for cyberbullies.
Co-creators Jo Overline and Ryan Allen insist the app is "supposed to be fun" and say the insults are all family-friendly.
The program uses a simple facial-recognition program to mathematically calculate symmetry and grades a person's "ugliness" on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being the ugliest.
"You can't take it too seriously," Allen said.
But not everyone is laughing.
Critics have used national media to blast the app, calling it a potential tool for cyberbullies and suggesting it be removed from Apple's online store.
Parry Aftab, founder of wired safety.org, a non-profit that works to prevent online bullying, said numerous apps and websites allow users to anonymously harass, annoy, or embarrass someone else.
"Some claim to have legitimate purposes but grow in popularity because kids figure out there is a way to abuse them to enable them to abuse each other," Aftab said. "It's so easy to use these technologies to do what we used to just think about.
"The Internet allows us to say a lot of things out loud that we normally wouldn't. It allows us to hide behind a fake persona."
But only a bad score would potentially harm the subject's self-esteem. On the other hand, some users say a good score on the app has boosted their confidence.
Ernie Myers, senior pastor at Deep Creek Baptist Church in Chesapeake, Va., last Sunday told his congregation that his Ugly Meter score gave him an ego boost.
He said he scored a 3.9 rating, which brought this praise from the program: You're hot enough to melt ice.
"I've always believed I was only passably good looking," he said during his sermon, which can be viewed on the church's website. "When I saw that I was hot enough to melt ice, I got a little more pep in my step. I got a little bit more joy in my heart because somebody, somewhere thinks I'm good looking."
About two months after its release, Ugly Meter has generated over 100,000 downloads, peaking at No. 3 on the most popular chart, Overline said.
The success has stunned the developer duo, who have been creating apps as a hobby for over a year.
"We didn't really have any expectations," Overline said. "When we saw we broke through the top 200 we were literally in shock. We couldn't work that day. We were just staring at the screen, watching it as it went up and up and up."
Now they're preparing to develop an Ugly Meter app for the Android market and are developing a new version that would rate the ugliness of babies.
"We might as well make everybody mad," Allen said.
When the concerns over bullying swept through the national media, the developers said they received hateful e-mails and even death threats.
But even the negative attention has been "the best thing that ever happened to us," Allen said. After dozens of radio interviews and a national TV spot, sales of the app spiked even higher.
"We didn't design it to bully," Overline said. "Parents need to take responsibility for putting their iPhone in the hands of 8-year-olds. They have the whole Internet at their fingertips. Really, the Ugly Meter is one of the least harmful things they could be messing around with."
Overline and Allen said they generally rate around an 8.2. Despite their unflattering score, they're both married.
by Parker Leavitt The Arizona Republic Oct. 31, 2010 12:00 AM
iPhone app rates its users' ugliness
