o_Owtf
Iron
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The underrated impact of the midface - People still don't understand what a long midface is
I stumbled upon an old thread earlier today. I was about to necropost on it with some analysis for posterity, but my response started to become a bit longer so I thought that I'd just start a new thread. I've only frequented this forum for like 2-3 months, but all the time I see people trying to bring up faulty arguments/counterexamples to combat the notion that short, compact midfaces are superior. I split these arguments into two camps which I intend to adress with the help of two examples.
Exhibit A: Ostensibly long midfaces, long face ≠ long midface
People keep talking about the length of the midface and its impact of attractiveness, and I saw it brought up here again with regards to Prince William, who used to be surprisingly attractive considering how much the sands of time have eroded his looks. Despite what people are willing to believe in the thread I linked, Prince William does not have a long midface (or at least he didn't in these pictures when he still was young.) He actually has an ideal midface ratio of 1.00. Also, the FWHR and midface ratio are correlated, and his FWHR is 606 px / 333 px = 1.82, maybe not completely ideal but definitely quite good. This serves as further indication that his midface isn't long, although that's neither here nor there.
Yet people look at him, and many other similar examples I keep seeing, and say "damn look he has a long midface but he slays!" Demonstrably, he doesn't have a long midface at all, but other problems that you mistake for a long midface. What's actually going on is that his jaw is very square + suboptimal FWHR. Look at these two images for a comparison.
See how this edit completely changes the character of his face? The midface is completely unchanged, I haven't touched his eyes, nose, nor mouth. However, I suspect that only few of the people who initially say that he has a long midface in the left picture still say that he has a long midface when they see the right picture. For some reason, this is really difficult for people to grasp.
Exhibit B: Faulty comparisons, sometimes a short midface appears long
I saw another thread last week where people yet again claimed that having a compact face is bad. The proof was apparently some eboy going around and showing a "narrow" face guy, and a borderline obese "short" face edit to various women. No surprise, they unanimously rated the former as more attractive than the latter. Horsecels rejoiced in the thread, unaware of the fact that the two pictures had the EXACT same midface ratio, a short, very ideal 1.05. The only reason the more attractive guy appeared to have a narrow face was because he was being compared against a subject with an artificially increased FWHR through excessive adipose tissue. The craniofacial morphology of the images could've for all intents and purposes been identical, both had very robust, short faces. They seriously looked at this guy and said he had a narrow face:
"206 px / 197 px = 1.05 narrow faces are clearly superiar saar" my point is that even if you understand what the midface is, you can still be deceived into thinking that a short midface is long and that a long midface is short just by comparison. This is actually kind of hopefuel for horsecels, if you keep comparing yourself to models like Jordan Barrett you will be ever dissatisfied with your midface, but keep in mind that he's at the true extreme end, you might not have it as bad as you think.
Conclusion / TL;DR
This post is meant to illuminate the constant equivocation I see between having a long "midface" in the sense of your face appearing less compact, and a truly long midface. You can have a face that appears long due to a bad face shape, poor eyebrows, insufficient soft tissue volume, etc, and people take that to mean that they have a long midface. A long midface is a much more specific thing. A long midface is, with few exceptions, a direct result of poor maxillofacial development. Prince William wasn't attractive in the photos IN SPITE of his LONG midface, he was attractive specifically BECAUSE of his SHORT midface, which compensated for other deficiencies. And just because an midface appears long doesn't mean that it neccesarily is long in the grand scheme of things. People need to stop coping about this, as far as I'm aware there are ZERO benefits to having a long midface.
Please do not get discouraged if you have a long midface. I myself have a midface ratio that is a bit lower than the ideal range, and this is not meant to be ropefuel nor crab mentality. You can still be considered highly attractive by many women even with an unideal midface, take Mads Mikkelsen, Keanu Reeves, and Brandon Lee for instance. Some women consider you attractive even if you have a true sasquatch face like David Schwimmer and Adam Driver. But seriously dudes stop coping trying to convince yourselves that it isn't a flaw, it's so sad and frustrating to see the cope. Just work with whatever you've got and improve what you can. Let the dreams of an ideal midface go, and ride into the sunset with your horse faces.
I stumbled upon an old thread earlier today. I was about to necropost on it with some analysis for posterity, but my response started to become a bit longer so I thought that I'd just start a new thread. I've only frequented this forum for like 2-3 months, but all the time I see people trying to bring up faulty arguments/counterexamples to combat the notion that short, compact midfaces are superior. I split these arguments into two camps which I intend to adress with the help of two examples.
Exhibit A: Ostensibly long midfaces, long face ≠ long midface
People keep talking about the length of the midface and its impact of attractiveness, and I saw it brought up here again with regards to Prince William, who used to be surprisingly attractive considering how much the sands of time have eroded his looks. Despite what people are willing to believe in the thread I linked, Prince William does not have a long midface (or at least he didn't in these pictures when he still was young.) He actually has an ideal midface ratio of 1.00. Also, the FWHR and midface ratio are correlated, and his FWHR is 606 px / 333 px = 1.82, maybe not completely ideal but definitely quite good. This serves as further indication that his midface isn't long, although that's neither here nor there.
Yet people look at him, and many other similar examples I keep seeing, and say "damn look he has a long midface but he slays!" Demonstrably, he doesn't have a long midface at all, but other problems that you mistake for a long midface. What's actually going on is that his jaw is very square + suboptimal FWHR. Look at these two images for a comparison.
See how this edit completely changes the character of his face? The midface is completely unchanged, I haven't touched his eyes, nose, nor mouth. However, I suspect that only few of the people who initially say that he has a long midface in the left picture still say that he has a long midface when they see the right picture. For some reason, this is really difficult for people to grasp.
Exhibit B: Faulty comparisons, sometimes a short midface appears long
I saw another thread last week where people yet again claimed that having a compact face is bad. The proof was apparently some eboy going around and showing a "narrow" face guy, and a borderline obese "short" face edit to various women. No surprise, they unanimously rated the former as more attractive than the latter. Horsecels rejoiced in the thread, unaware of the fact that the two pictures had the EXACT same midface ratio, a short, very ideal 1.05. The only reason the more attractive guy appeared to have a narrow face was because he was being compared against a subject with an artificially increased FWHR through excessive adipose tissue. The craniofacial morphology of the images could've for all intents and purposes been identical, both had very robust, short faces. They seriously looked at this guy and said he had a narrow face:
"206 px / 197 px = 1.05 narrow faces are clearly superiar saar"
my point is that even if you understand what the midface is, you can still be deceived into thinking that a short midface is long and that a long midface is short just by comparison. This is actually kind of hopefuel for horsecels, if you keep comparing yourself to models like Jordan Barrett you will be ever dissatisfied with your midface, but keep in mind that he's at the true extreme end, you might not have it as bad as you think.Conclusion / TL;DR
This post is meant to illuminate the constant equivocation I see between having a long "midface" in the sense of your face appearing less compact, and a truly long midface. You can have a face that appears long due to a bad face shape, poor eyebrows, insufficient soft tissue volume, etc, and people take that to mean that they have a long midface. A long midface is a much more specific thing. A long midface is, with few exceptions, a direct result of poor maxillofacial development. Prince William wasn't attractive in the photos IN SPITE of his LONG midface, he was attractive specifically BECAUSE of his SHORT midface, which compensated for other deficiencies. And just because an midface appears long doesn't mean that it neccesarily is long in the grand scheme of things. People need to stop coping about this, as far as I'm aware there are ZERO benefits to having a long midface.
Please do not get discouraged if you have a long midface. I myself have a midface ratio that is a bit lower than the ideal range, and this is not meant to be ropefuel nor crab mentality. You can still be considered highly attractive by many women even with an unideal midface, take Mads Mikkelsen, Keanu Reeves, and Brandon Lee for instance. Some women consider you attractive even if you have a true sasquatch face like David Schwimmer and Adam Driver. But seriously dudes stop coping trying to convince yourselves that it isn't a flaw, it's so sad and frustrating to see the cope. Just work with whatever you've got and improve what you can. Let the dreams of an ideal midface go, and ride into the sunset with your horse faces.
