"White Guys Suck" & Other Insights from OKCupid Study on Race & Online Dating
According to a recent study conducted by dating website OKCupid, "Black women are sweethearts... white men are sh*tty," and white people in general are a horrible bunch of xenophobes.
The company recently ran some numbers on response rates for messages sent between almost a million otherwise compatible men and women of varying races, and the results are eye-opening. "Whenever we compare the match/reply charts for a given breakdown of the population, they should look about the same," the related blog post reads. "However, this, like so many other fine assumptions, totally breaks down when race gets involved."
In general, the greater a pair's compatibility according to OKCupid's mysterious matching system, the greater the likelihood that a sent message will receive a reply.
As a control group, the folks at OKCupid examined reply rates based on zodiac signs. They predicted a 60% match rate among all zodiac signs, and there was relatively little variation between the response rates, which ran in the 30% range and pretty much match up with the line graph above:
However, when looking at profiles with a similar degree of compatibility - right around 60% - the reply rates varied wildly based on gender and, interestingly, race:
It probably comes as no surprise to the seasoned Internet user that, in general, the ladies have a better chance of getting a reply to a sent message (sorry, fellas!), but looking at the exact breakdown of replies is a disheartening commentary on interracial dating.
Here's a table showing response rates for male senders of varying ethnicities:
The data show that black women reply "about a quarter more often" than women of other races, that white men get more responses, and, to quote from the post, "White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else--and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups' reply rates to non-whites is terrible."
Next, let's take a look at what happens when the sender is a woman:
And now we see why white men are today's punching bag - at least on the OKCupid blog. They respond less than any other group, and they respond least of all to black women. And speaking of black women, who we saw in the last table responded more than other groups: These ladies are receiving fewer responses than their peers of other races.
Finally, take a look at this chart looking at users' responses to the question, "Would you prefer to date someone of your own skin color/racial background?"
Ouch! White men and women do not come off particularly well, especially considering the relative open-mindedness of their peers. And sadder still, according to OKCupid's internal metrics, their users are younger, better educated, and more progressive than users on other sites. Truly, the mind reels.
Without making any assumptions, we would also love to see how the data look for same-sex pairs of varying races. Is there something about GLBT culture that might make queer folks less racist than our straight counterparts?
Moreover, we wonder if the study was conducted based on data from U.S. users only, or whether international users' messages and replies were examined, as well.
What do you think this research signifies, RWW reader? Are there other, unseen factors at play, or do you think the data stand as a sad commentary on unjustifiable race-based phobias inherent in a hegemonic culture? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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Disappointed this stuff has made it into RWW...
Even though the article may be 'controversial', its not - as it knows how to kowtow to political correctness. The only safe comment it can make is against white men, then white females, then straight WM and WF -> exactly the order that PC decrees.
Imagine if the author found any other conceivable pattern, this article would be vilified with probable legal action. That taken into account, and the co-incidence factor, makes a strong case for this being manufactured to get more ppl onto the online dating sites. True magazine schlock.
Really guys, disappointed
Thanks for the comment.
Admittedly, as a white person, it's more comfortable for me to examine the faults of other white people when we take racially motivated actions. But I assure you, this post wasn't motivated by guilt.
It's an interesting study, and the patterns that did emerge are food for thought.
Also, I don't really see how racism would be a reason for people to use dating sites *more*. However, as a Twitter commenter suggested, the implications are interesting for online marketers.
Well, this article made clear what I always suspected. No need to bother with dating sites because hardly anyone wants to date me and my kind.
Controversial? Perhaps. Poor science? In the manner presented here; definitely.
The study as reported doesn't provide meaningful results as it fails to establish controls for the sex of the sender or racial affiliation. Similarly, it is useless to establish response rates based on zodiac sign affiliation as a baseline without also including the sex of the respondant as an axis of comparison. Remember that reporting of both racial-group and zodiac-sign affiliation are optional, so we may be looking at data from two wildly different populations within okcupid's user base.
It's cool to see this data being used for academic study, but let's at least try to be accurate about it rather than purely sensationalist.
The most racist part of this "study" is that it was published the way it is presented here. It seems goal oriented to degrade a specific race of people, in this particular case "white" people. Studies held by more reputable sources, have shown that culturally the race displayed in the media as attractive have been considered more attractive by all races exposed to that media. (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/17724/study_of_perceptions_of_attractiveness_pg3.html?cat=9) One interpretation of this data is that OKCupid patrons are shallow and brain washed by the media? Another conclusion is that "OKCupid's mysterious matching system" is horribly flawed.
If you go to the link, you will see that a real psychological study will present not only the data, but the math to illustrate the reasons for the conclusions. It also presents similar studies, and backs itself up with genuine evidence.
Claiming that "this is something to think about" is dodging the point that commentor made, this article was written for the controversy, not the science. If this article is representative of RWW's writing style, I will be sure to avoid this site in the future.
Great post Jolie. Good to see anonymous aggregate data put to use. I'd love to hear from a social scientist I trusted about the methodology but I don't buy the critiques in comments above.
While these data could be useful, they doesn't have any scientific validity.
1) We don't now what countries are involved
2) we don't know whether the data are normalized by income (in some countries white people earn more than other racial groups)
3) we don't know whether there is a difference between the quality of the message sent by different group (you are more educated -> you write better)
4)we don't know if the average number of message received is different (actually the data shows that other racial groups prefer white people so they must be more selective because they receive more message).
Instead
1) we know that countries where white people are the majority have more chances to have members of other racial groups. That's because western countries are richer and even where white people aren't killed (ex. muslim countries) other societes are less open than western democracies.
2) we know that many memebers of minorities perpetrate more crimes than white people.
3) we know that since white people are rarely a minority there are hidden advantages for them. For instance, since there are more of them there is probably more than one that is closer to you than a member of a minority group, so statistically white people have more chances.
I am not saying that white people aren't racist, but there are logical reasons that can explain these data and without more specific informations there is no way to find the truth.
P.S. even if you don't agree with my comment the data seems to say that white people sucks and women worse than men, so the title is wrong in any case.
How the hell is this PC? The first chart shows that indian women are picky, anti-indian bitches when it comes to dating, which is most definitely my experience. fuck, i cant date another indian chick unless i offer to marry her right after seeing her.
sorry, this was not intended to imply i am female. i am male. "date another" should have been "date an".
fuck my life.
(posting anonymously because I don't want to post in my own name about my sexual orientations)
Why not look at the bright side of it ? I'm a European guy whose taste leans heavily toward living with an African, and I thank those other white guys who bias this market segment in my favor !
Same with the employment market : companies who have are not hiring this talent because they don't like the way those people look are merely serving their open minded competitors talent on a platter at lower cost.
As usual, the open minded actor wins !
Black women have the least choice of all female groups - fewer males of ANY ethnicity reply to them. Meanwhile, while Asian women have the best chance of generating a reply ACROSS EVERY MALE ETHNIC GROUP.
Yeah, that's *just* the white guys being racist...
Although, actually, white guys give their highest response rate to...Middle eastern women! Evil bastards. I think we've stumbled upon a Klan meet.
I didn't see this as anti-white. It has always been assumed that people prefer to date those who look like themselves, and for whites this is true, for the other races on dating sites, this is not the case. It's funny how people are up in arms about white people looking bad, but not upset when someone blatantly says "minorities perpetuate crimes more than white people", which has been proven blatantly false over and over again. All us minorities do not have the goal in life of mugging a white person and taking from them, I promise you. Also this article isn't a love fest of minorities either, per this article my marriage shouldn't exist because no white man should want a black woman, but I'm black, and my husband is white. So some men do like black women, but per this article, NO ONE wants black women. It makes asian and hispanic women appear to have self hate as they refuse to date anyone of their own race.
So please white people, stop with the pity party, it seems the article didn't just focus on white people.
I think the study in itself seems to show that minorities are more eager and open to dating inter-racially, compared to white people, which isn't surprising to me at all. It shows that whites, regardless of the "demographic winter" scare tactics, tend to prefer other whites, and that the white population doesn't have to worry about interbreeding itself out of existence. Other races on the contrary, seem to be a bit more "colorblind" almost to the detriment of the opposite sex in their own race.
I have said that "minorities perpetuate more crimes than white people" (=the general population) and that's absolutely true, at least in Europe. In my country (italy) they make almost half of the prison population, despite being less than 5% of the general population. That means that a random foreigners have more chances to be a criminal than a random italian. Of course that doesn't mean that the majority of criminals are foreigners.
I want to stress that the reason have nothing to do with race, but with economic disparity, but nonetheless it's true.
White Guys suck? Great one for turning sexual preference into racism. So what most white guys like dating white women, why the fuck not?
You said:
Admittedly, as a white person, it's more comfortable for me to examine the faults of other white people when we take racially motivated actions. But I assure you, this post wasn't motivated by guilt....
Whats that statement about? Examine the faults of white people? For wanting to date their own race, oh right ill date an Indian just to keep up appearances shall I? You really have made yourself look like a fool.
I glanced through the comments but didn't didn't notice anyone mention something that is, to me, kind of obvious. The way I'm going to say it sounds very non-PC but "white-folks" have a better selection, generally. Unless data comes from a website with a large Asian subgroup using it, the population likely consists of mostly Americans Europeans (aside from Asia, very few other places have as much Internet penetration), which is overwhelmingly white. "White folks" have little to lose by limiting their options to other "white folks," while other minorities (called such because they are in the minority) clearly don't have a lot of fish to choose from if they wish to date within their race. This would encourage minorities to extend their search to other minority groups and whites.
I don't see this (un)study as anti-white I see it just as anti-science.
This report lacks rigor, yet offers some interesting details.
If the data (raw counts with # of null responses, total counts, ) were made available, it would be more interesting.
Perhaps you could describe the software used to generate the pictures as well? The heat map is interesting, coloring would tell the story better if it was green for high % reply, and gray for low % reply; the red tends to dominate, and tell a different story than you are trying to tell.
So do people consider it racism if you prefer to date within your own race? I'm not trying to be inflammatory here - I really want to know. I think a lot of it has to do with how you are raised, what standards of beauty are ingrained in you, etc.
It's really racist if you find people of your own race the most attractive? Huh. I don't get it.
Something else to consider is that we are examining (I'm assuming photo-assisted) mate selection. We are not talking about human value, we are talking about choices people make while searching for someone they find attractive. Culture, and what it teachers its people about beauty, can have a huge impact on this. Just because someone doesn't find many races outside their own to be as attractive doesn't mean they harbor any negative feelings for them or value them less as people. Racism is about perceived racial differences believed to indicate the superiority of one race over another. The shallow process of a white guy seeing a picture of a black woman and not feeling compelled to send them a message or reply isn't an indicator of such a belief.
Not that I expect a lot of hate, but I yes I am white and yes I have been before and currently am in a relationship that just so happens to be "multiracial." Just because I see beauty where some other don't doesn't make me "less racist" it just makes me me.
Granted, the results aren't standardized nor dictate a country of origin but I just find it funny to look over the data anyway. I really find it hilarious that some pieces of data help to strengthen age old stereotypes of racial dating like how you almost always see Asian women dating either of their own race or a white man.
In the end, I look at this just as it is, a hilarious dive into human nature. Regardless of where the data is pulled from or how they gathered it, it's still good for a laugh.
Interesting post, Jolie. I have a few thoughts. First of all, OKCupid probably isn't large enough such that their data on the really small minority groups like Native Americans, Middle Easterners, or Pacific Islanders can have much statistical validity.
Second, it's really not too surprising that with "white culture" (not in the Glen Beck sense) being the mainstream culture in America, this would be the result. Women prefer dating and marrying into the mainstream culture regardless of race. Men do as well, though to a lesser degree. White women, who are already in the mainstream culture, are understandably very reluctant to give it up. White men have more options for the same reason and can therefore afford to be pickier. This doesn't mean that they are more racist. If you look at the responses to the question about preferring to date the same race/cultural background, it's actually pretty impressive that 46% of white women actually would be willing to give up some measure of their status in the mainstream culture to find love.
Finally, let's put these number into perspective. If you're in one of the three "worst" performing groups, i.e. Indian, Asian (like me) and black males, you still have a response rate of over 20%, even with white girls. That means two out of every ten girls you message will reply to you. Compare that to white males who will have 3 replies out of 10. Surely that's no reason to be depressed. We minority guys have to work slightly harder, but the girls we do get will probably tend to be more open minded, better educated, and more secure in their sense of self. Black women do even better. They get a response 1 out of 3 times, and they know the guy who does respond probably isn't a racist.
Overall, I think these numbers show that people are pretty darn good given all the evolutionary baggage we carry in our brains.
Maybe part of the issue is that whites are feeling a little beaten down nowadays? You have Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and .......
I just get the feeling so many white people nowadays are feeling attacked for being white.
This would play even more into the higher education crowd. Try going to colloege, or working at one without hearing about diversity this, diversity that.
Here's a solution, hire the best person, let the best students in, etc. based on their qualifications, and that's it.
Affirmitave Action had a place at one point, but now, it's creating a negative feeling towards at least blacks, which is to bad.
Very interesting, both the post and the responses. The data itself is not too surprising, and the methodology isn't as problematic as claimed by those who are desperately trying to hide behind methodological criticism to avoid having to deal with the implications. I suspect the roughly-right/directionally correct results would be validated by more rigorous studies. Just because data do in fact line up with stereotypical expectations and anecdotal experience doesn't mean they are wrong. For those who find the potential conclusions distasteful or offensive: data does not have a duty to be non-offensive.
I also agree with the comments that the post is a little too PC. It is possible to provide intelligent commentary on the data without anxiously covering every possible direction from which you might be accused of racism. By protesting too much, you might actually reinforce the attitudes you find objectionable.
This reminds me of the infamous Hernstein/Murray Bell Curve debate of 1994.
I'll cleverly withhold my own opinion though :)
Venkat
@JJ
The reason that there's Black/Hispanic History Month, etc. is that every other month is essentially White History Month.
And as for affirmative action, it's not like highly qualified white students are being squeezed out altogether. For any given school, it's probably the most marginal candidates that get the shaft. When I was graduating from high school, the white kids at the top of the class all got into places like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford. And those that didn't get into the really elite schools nevertheless went to fine universities. If a white kid or an Asian kid from a middle class family has 20 more SAT points and a couple more A's than a black or Hispanic kid from a disadvantaged background, I don't see what's so unfair about taking the black or Hispanic kid. Because he's probably had to overcome a lot more obstacles to get to the same place. But if they're from similar social/economic backgrounds, then I'd not be in favor of any affirmative action in that case.
This topic has been covered on the freakonomics blog.
The finding was males are generally willing to date outside their race, women aren't as willing- except for asian women who are slightly more open to date white men, which is why this is the most frequent interracial pairing.
I wonder how much of black females getting less responses is due to class. Black females have the least money/power of any group, although there is certainly discrimination happening.
Also, almost by definition, minorities have to be more willing to date outside their race to be open up a broader pool of potential mates.
The most interesting data point is in the last table: for all races except one, women have a stronger preference to date their own. The exception: Asian men prefer their own women more than women prefer them.
Maybe this explains all the Asian-only social networks or Asian versions of other seemingly non-racial sites. The men are trying to hide their women from others. Busted!
@Ephram
You're right. Many Asian cultures tend to have a strong male bias. A lot of Asian boys grow up terribly spoiled by their mothers and what they look for in a wife is someone like their own mother who will continue to coddle them. A lot of Asian girls are now exposed to Western cultures and they definitely don't want such a relationship. That's why Japan's marriage rate and birth rate are way down, for example. On the other hand, several Asian countries now have significantly more boys than girls, so in the future Asian women will have vastly more selective power and we may see a pretty sizable shift in how Asian cultures treat women.
Anyone notice int he first graph that black women are least likely to respond to black men? Either the black guys on the net suck or....
Goes to show you size doesn't matter eh? Lolz.
The reason I don't like this article is not the implications of the data, but the conclusions drawn from the data by the writer. It only looks at one "study" it does not have any mathematical grounds, but instead makes decisions about race based on raw and limited data. This leads me to believe the conclusions are biased toward the authors own expectations.
While it may well be true that white men tend to date within their own race, this article name calls instead of searching for causes. Having "White guys suck" as part of the title is sensationalist. There are plenty of ways to provide this information without making conclusions, or "poisoning the well" before asking for user comment.
While I may be a white man, I have seen the injustice of racism and sexism in society. Unfortunately this level of journalism makes it worse, not better. It generalizes about a specific race of people, and draws negative conclusions about the entire race based on limited information. Isn't this the very definition of racism?
White people are racist because they aren't all attracted to other races? Attraction has nothing to do with racism. But this article is pretty anti-white as you can get. Remember white people, date people you aren't attracted to or you will be called a "racist." *smh*
This article itself is racist - and these days being PC is equivalent to being racist towards whites, isn't it?
The article leads with "White guys suck", yet none of the data presented supports that statement (except perhaps some other, unreported parts of the survey).
On the contrary, white males get the highest response rates - the other groups might subscribe to the same brand of white-bashing political correctness as yourself in their pronouncements, yet they clearly vote with their feet, so to speak, when it comes to responding to emails.
Throughout the article is the unspoken assumption that preferring one's own race is somehow a problem, something that needs to be addressed and corrected. Pffft! Like attracts like, always has and hopefully always will.
I don't really see why these results need to be looked at as "racial bias". There have been studies done that show that in general all races tend to find white people more attractive. So if across the entirety of the human species the features possessed by those of european descent are biologically hard-wired to be considered more attractive, then why should it be a surprise that white people on dating sites tend to generate more interest? To put it as delicately as possible:
Members of race A tend to be more physically attractive statistically speaking. If a member of race B sends out a message, the recipient of the message is statistically more likely to find that person unattractive. It's not a matter of "I hate race B", it's simply that Race A is more likely to be attractive.
Looks like Native American guys LOVE Middle Eastern gals.
I'm as progressive as the next person, but to use a horribly flawed set of data to draw inflammatory conclusions like 'white guys suck' is just trash. In addition to all the examples of the scientific flaws listed above, we don't know if the data is controlled for racial user percentage (if the user base is skewed heavily towards whites, then assuming everyone made a non-racial choice, then the results of the reply percentages would be skewed heavily towards responding to whites disproportionately, and whites would end up with lower respond rates to other races.) Also, their 'control' is to use the zodiac sign?
What a bunch of non-scientific bullshit dressed up as meaningful data. This is a marketing ploy by OKCupid, and you fell for it. Trash internet journalism at its worst.
As a white guy, I think it's funny when white people get all up in arms about "racism" directed at them. As if.
While the OKCupid methodology is not fully explained, based on the implied sample size of "almost a million", it's likely that this data is revealing some very real underlying trends.
Without knowing the details, I wouldn't put too much stock in differences in reply rates of less than 5%, but it's extremely unlikely that the disparity between a 40.5% aggregate reply rate for white men and a 46.9% reply rate is due to random chance.
For the survey question, the sample sizes are provided, so we can calculate the margin of error & it's going to be less than 2% (at .95 confidence) in all cases, and vanishingly small for whites. There may be other methodological issues (e.g., self-selection bias), but they are unlikely to explain such a huge difference.
In any case, the findings don't seem particularly surprising... I live in a fairly racially mixed area, and these results generally mirror what I see in the world around me: whites are mostly with other whites, and where they aren't, it's usually white guys with Asians or "light brown" women. White women with men of any other race are relatively uncommon, and white men with black women are few and far between.
Having said all of that, the language used to interpret the findings seems intentionally provocative and borderline juvenlie.
One can certainly argue with statements like "white men suck" (e.g., maybe they just get more matches, so they can afford to be more selective), but attacking the data because you don't like what it says is a tactic for the weak-minded.
Since the act of dating is a discriminatory process by nature, I think it's difficult to distinguish racism from preference. However, I believe if you are attracted to a person and suppress your desire for that person because of societal pressures or assumed stereotypical differences then I believe you are being prejudicial. As a person who has always been attracted to wide variety of women (Aishwarya Rai, Eva Mendes, Rosario Dawson, Gabrielle Union, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mila Kunis to name a few) I have always found it difficult to comprehend that an unbiased person hasn't dated at least one person of another race in their journey. I have dated women from several ethnic groups and found that I often have more in common with them than people I have grown up with. Maybe my dating perspective is due to my extensive travels, or living in mostly large and diverse communities, or that I'm not white :)
Why is anyone surprised that white women are the most racist when it comes to dating and marrying? Even in this most liberal city, Washington DC, many white women wont sit next to a minority in a bus. In the Republic of Singapore, a bunch of white expat women wont even date a white male who dated a local Chinese woman in the past..and they say the South Pacific character, Nellie Forbush is a thing of the past. Think again. White women suck!
Dont know why white guys suck? 60% of them are willing to date outside the race. It is the white women who are racist..54% not willing to date outside their race..anyone who prefers to date based on ethnicity is fine..thus a Chinese will marry a Chinese, a French will marry another French, a German marries a German, etc. This in itself is not racist. But, the question was based on skin color..anybody who has preference based on skin color (not culture) is a RACIST..end of story!
facepuncher, did you happen to notice that black women still reply to black men more than any other group of women on the site? black men's response rate to black women, though? yeah. the love is not so mutual.
i'm not surprised by this at all based on my own experiences. still it stings a bit to see it laid out so.
Note that although white men claim to prefer white women, they have better response rates to Middle Eastern, Pacific Islanders and other than they do to white women, and respond just as well to Asians as whites.
To go against some of the other comments, I think this article was interesting and relevant. The title and conclusions may have been deliberately provocative, but all Jolie O'Dell's articles are like that.
Just because it's not a scientific study doesn't mean it has no meaning and shouldn't be written about. No-one would say that about all the other stats tech blogs talk about.
For me the most startling, unambiguous and dispiriting statistic is that such a large percentage of people "strongly prefer to date someone of their own skin color/racial background". What the???
I feel like there are still levels of attraction. Studies (I know that's nebulous, but surf around the net a bit) show that people are attracted to others that look similar to themselves. It's probably a subconscious thing.
As a white guy, I find girls of other races attractive, but I have to say that I more attractive white women on a daily basis than women of other races. It could be that white women are more readily available, seeing as more than 50% of the US is white. So based on numbers, let's say I think two girls in 100 are hot - chances are higher that those girls are white.
That's just a thought.
Silly article and sillier conclusions. The reply rate is meaningless because you will get a reply depending on how attractive you are and how attractive your profile is - not necessarily your race. If you really want to see who is racist and what races people are looking to date, you should simply look at people's profiles on sites like santamatch which filter them out for you so you don't even have to write to people who are not intersted in you. The fact that 80% of emails on okcupid go unanswered just shows you what a waste of time that site is.
Sad. What a way to use a racially inflammatory "study" to gain headlines for a 2nd rate dating site I'd never heard of before this article.
Does not surprise me that white people are xenophobic. I think most people in general are inherently averse to what is different.
What is surprising and disapointing; as I always suspected it, is that most women prefer white men. Shows just how shallow and stupid most women are.
"So do people consider it racism if you prefer to date within your own race? I'm not trying to be inflammatory here - I really want to know. I think a lot of it has to do with how you are raised, what standards of beauty are ingrained in you, etc.
It's really racist if you find people of your own race the most attractive? Huh. I don't get it."
@Chris: No it isn't racist to be physically attracted to a certain race more often than any other race. This is because race is about appearance attributes, and so is physical preference.
It becomes racism if you have a prejudice against an entire race because in your mind you extrapolate someone's race to *non*-physical attributes, i.e. intelligence, personality, etc. For example, it would be racist to stay away from all black women because you think they're all angry, or all white women because you think they're all mentally weak.
"Does not surprise me that white people are xenophobic. I think most people in general are inherently averse to what is different."
As long as white people dont preach to the rest of us about the virtues of assimilation...when whites really dont want to assimilate. They love to complain about black kids sitting separately in the University cafeteria while they themselves practise white exclusivity. No one would give a damn if white people dont show up in India and condemn the caste system when they themselves worship white skin color...basically practise white skin worshipping paganism while they claim to be saved by the blood of the Lamb! Mormons are the number one culprit but Baptists and other missionaries are not very different.
"What is surprising and disapointing; as I always suspected it, is that most women prefer white men. Shows just how shallow and stupid most women are."
There are probably more white women attracted to white murder suspects than to Asian men...case in point..Drew Petersen.
This article is total garbage.
it seems white people were overall the most favored. If I'm reading this correctly if non-whites want to date whites their open-minded and loving but if whites want to date whites then it's because their ignorant racists this is so stupid
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