Ratemash rage runs rapid through Warwick

Students have branded “hot or not” site Ratemash “shallow and immature” after it wreaked havoc on campus.

Ratemash.com claims to “sort out your nightlife” but it invites the world to drool over students’ Facebook pictures despite uploading them without permission.

Now angry Warwick students have condemned the site, claiming it is “pervy” and calling for it to be shut down.

Hot or Not: Users get to decide who is the hottest girl/guy at any particular University.

The website works on the premise of users flicking through various photos, rating them ‘hot’ or ‘not’. These scores are then accumulated into leaderboards for both guys and girls of that particular univeristy.

Michael Healy (left) developed the website with £30,000 worth of backing.

English student Aamir Kapasi was one of the first to hit out on Facebook about Ratemash.com, bundling numerous reasons why he disliked the site:

“This ‘Ratemash’ thing has to stop.

A – It’s a breach of privacy…

B – It’s not healthy to categorise and rank people based on their looks. People do that in real life anyway – this site just markets and encourages it…

C – It’s not even original, go watch the film ‘The Social Network’…

D – The marketing is diabolical.

“Their slogan is ‘Sorts out your nightlife.’ If you are using Ratemash to ‘sort out your nightlife,’ then your life is obviously not chillin’ and you have issues…

“Instead of rating, comparing, perving, or whatever it is you do on this site, why don’t you go and tell the person you like how you really feel?”

Anna Carey, a PPE second year student, was lucky enough to make it onto the Warwick leaderboard at 16th position.

Anna Carey who is in 16th position

Despite her high ranking, Anna despises Ratemash. She said: “I think the website should be shut down. Anyone who uses it to sort their night life out should really sort their life out because ranking and judging people on looks is shallow and immature”.

She added, “I’ve been messaged by two guys introducing themselves!”

Despite the uproar, some have stood in defence of Ratemash.com. An International Business student (who wished to remain anonymous) said:

“The site is a bit of fun. Once you put a picture on Facebook of yourself it’s not yours anymore. The site is a bit of harmless fun and people shouldn’t jump on the bandwagon and should take life a little less seriously.”

And have you seen number 1 anyone? Actually have you seen half of them, the site is obviously a joke”, he added.

Cathryn Turhan, Warwick’s Welfare and Campaigns Officer, also portrayed her disgust and rage against the website:

“A lot of students have contacted me, and are very unhappy about the use of their image and other data on this website. I believe that the idea of creating a definitive list of people’s attractiveness according to their profile picture is fundamentally wrong.

“I also think it is wrong to lift data from students’ Facebook accounts without their explicit permission, regardless of whether their friend submitted it to the site or not. I wrote a response to this in order to inform students so that they can have their personal information removed, and this has been well received by the student body.”

Cathryn’s blog has also caught the attention of students about Ratemash.com.

Comment below to join the debate on whether Ratemash.com should be taken down.