UNC guys are some of the hottest in the country, Esquire magazine says

Everyone knows that UNC is always the top dog in every aspect of life — excellent sport organizations, amazing academic programs. You name it, UNC’s got it.

And according to an article Esquire recently published, UNC is also one of the top 10 colleges with the most attractive guys.

Other schools in the top 10 include Florida State University, University of Colorado and West Virginia University (the top spot).

The data came from a dating app called “Clover,” which ranked UNC in the ninth spot on the list.

“I think it’s accurate to a degree,” said Claire Lancaster, a first-year psychology major. “I have a boyfriend so it’s hard for me to look at other guys, but overall I think we are an attractive school.”

Jaein Yoon, a first-year journalism major, had similar thoughts.

“I think there are some cute people here,” she said.

But what makes a person attractive? It’s obvious that physical features play a major role in how people perceive attractiveness, but there have to be other contributing factors.

Is it a witty sense of humor, big brains or natural-born talent?

“Intelligence for me is really attractive,” Lancaster said. “I also think humor and acceptance are attractive.”

Yoon said she finds people who are hardworking, caring and sweet to be attractive.

But where do people’s perceptions of attractiveness come from?

Yoon said that a lot of times, perceptions of attractiveness can come from reading novels, but that many of the characteristics she values come from her dad.

Neal Thomas, a professor in the UNC Department of Communication Studies, said that while there are some factors that most people can agree are attractive, the things that people find attractive are often very relative to individuals.

“We have a mainstream or averaging of attractiveness, but to say that there is any one factor is very difficult,” Thomas said.

But overall, Thomas said media have had a huge impact on the way people view attractiveness, especially now that there are so many forms of media.

“The short answer is that media has always influenced how we perceive people as being attractive or not, but I think that it has been intensified because we now have more personalized and portable and ubiquitous media,” Thomas said.

The rise of social media has also created a very visual way to measure attractiveness.

“We had, in the near past, things like television that were setting up our sense of ideal types of attractiveness,” he said.

“But now, there are so many more different forces that are enacting upon how we conceive attractiveness, whether it’s social media platforms like Instagram, where we inevitably compare ourselves to others. And we have dating apps like Tinder with constant ratings of attractiveness.”

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