Everyone has heard at least one person mindlessly regurgitate the clichéd, somehow self-assuring expression: “Looks don’t matter.” These words are often hopefully exclaimed to put self-evaluating minds at ease. But how much truth do they really hold?

“Looks definitely matter, but they’re not the only thing that matters. People that say they don’t matter are probably not being real. They wouldn’t know a new person until they go and talk to them, and whether they know it or not, almost everyone conducts an appearance-based evaluation inside their head when seeing someone new,” sophomore Sam Cave said.

Before someone takes notice of another person, before they know if this person is hilarious or a potential serial killer – attraction-based judgement comes into play. Attributing this to human nature, it is generally a hard reflex to stifle.

“Looks don’t really matter, but high schoolers judge each other a lot anyway. Like really, can we just chill out? Looks matter to most high schoolers, I’d say,” junior Drew May said.

It’s no secret that high schoolers can be savage towards one another, either blatantly or behind each others’ back, but this period of violent immaturity is cut short as they grow up. Not everyone shares in the belief that looks matter above all else.

“No matter where you are in life, looks are important to a lot of people in society, but it’s not always everyone’s defining factor. But people in high school care about appearances and getting attention for it,” junior Cassidy Wilson said.

Those besides Cassidy who claim to not place importance on appearances perhaps are reacting to the social pressures forced on them by the unspoken rule of adolescence: don’t be shallow. Some who are ridiculed for genuinely caring more about appearances over other factors are so quick to blurt out the banal, conscious-easing exaggeration explaining how looks don’t mean a single thing in their eyes.

However, there is a good portion of people who genuinely believe that someone’s deep seeded authentic qualities, encompassed in their overall personality, are a far more important aspect to consider than looks.

“Personality and how someone treats other people is more important than looks. The qualities that people have like how they interact with others are going to take them further than simply relying on looking good,” junior Cassidy Wilson said.

In 2004, after a study conducted by NBC, Dr. Gordon Patzer, an expert on physical attractiveness, concluded, “A person’s physical attractiveness — the look that they’re basically born with — impacts every individual literally from birth to death. “People are valued more who are higher in physical attractiveness. As distasteful at that might be, that’s the reality.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com)

The general consensus was that looks are the initial attention snatcher in relationships, but if someone is far too ugly on the inside, then how they look should be of little importance. So apparently looks don’t matter… unless you’re ugly.. on the inside.