Jon 
Overwatch is a competitive hero-shooter that prides itself on its inclusion. The game has the motto that “anyone can be a hero” and fulfills that promise by having a roster that is both geographically and biologically diverse in every possible way.
People love to play as Tracer, the conventionally attractive time traveling lesbian pilot from Great Britain or even as Winston, the charming monkey scientist from the moon who is very attractive by gorilla standards. However, it seems this love comes to an end when they are met with the more divisive Moira, who looks like David Bowie drawn from memory, or the scraggly Venture, who looks like they are a big AJR fan.
Why don’t people want to play as the ugly Overwatch characters? Well, studies have shown that we subconsciously view ugly people as being less competent, or in this case, ugly heroes as being less powerful. This is such a shame because in actuality, the two ugly overwatch heroes that I listed are incredibly powerful. In particular, I recently played a lot of Venture and reached a hero rank of Champion, placing me in top 0.1% of competitive Overwatch Players. A big part of this is because so few people play Venture, due to their ugliness, which means that nobody knows how to counter them in game.
This phenomenon is not exclusive to video games either. Even physical sports have their overlooked ugly ducklings. In the NFL, Cam Skattebo (who I believe shares a passing resemblance to Gnomeo from Gnomeo and Juliet) fell to the 4th round of the draft despite clearly being one of the most talented running backs in college football last year. Why? Because he looks like he eats dirt. But that shouldn’t affect his perceived level of ability. And now that his coaching staff is over the initial shock of his appearance, he has been a dominant starting running back.
What can we do to combat our subconscious bias against ugly people? Well, we can combat our subconscious with our conscious mind. What I mean by that is that you should actively try to look for hints of goodness in the ugly people around you. So the next time your gargoyle looking friend tells a bad joke, think to yourself, “Was that really a bad joke, or do I only think it was bad because it hurt me to look at him when he was speaking?” Who knows, you might just uncover a hidden gem!
An Interview With: redwater