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    I Dyed My Hair Blonde And People Treated Me Totally Differently

    Do blondes really have more fun? Or just get catcalled more?

    What's up, world? I'm Devin. And I've been a brunette my entire life. However, in LA, "blonde" isn't just a hair color – it's a way of life. So, for the sake of #science I dyed my hair platinum and conducted a series of tests to see if people really do treat blondes differently.

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    The first test was a street survey. Here, I had my co-workers ask strangers on the street to pick three words that best described me based on only a picture.

    When strangers were shown the brunette picture of me, they mostly described me as "serious, uptight, and artsy."

    The next test I conducted was the Tinder test. For this, I swiped right or "yes" 100 times to see how many matches I got for a profile with my brown hair. After 100 swipes, I matched with 33 out of 100 people.

    My final test as a brunette was the street harassment test. Usually, I would be thrilled that no strangers were shouting profanities at me. However, part of me was anxious that when I went blonde...I would have a different result.

    After conducting my first three experiments as a brunette, I decided to interview strangers one more time to get their thoughts on whether or not they thought blondes DID have more fun. And the responses were mostly like this:

    As a brunette, I knew that my hair color had nothing to do with my temperament or personality, so why did society think it did?

    After finishing the three tests as a brunette, I felt pretty nervous to go blonde. What if people treated me differently? Would others' ideas of me really change based on something as trivial as my hair color? I hoped not, but I had to find out.

    At work the next day my co-workers and friends were totally shocked and also flooded me with more compliments and attention than I've ever received.

    I was torn — part of me wanted people to love my new 'do, but a greater part of me felt uncomfortable being treated differently because of my hair.

    I was feeling pretty overwhelmed, but I had to continue the second part of my experiment. First up, I needed to re-create the brunette pictures I used in my blind survey and Tinder profile.

    Next, I sent my co-workers back to the street to poll strangers on what they thought of the blonde me.

    While strangers still described me as artsy as a blonde, they now said I was "curious and sweet" rather than "serious and uptight." So far, my theory that people perceive blondes as more fun was holding true.

    And for the Tinder test? Even though my blonde profile had the same description and identical poses, I got A LOT more matches as a blonde than I did as a brunette...55 more, to be exact.

    At this point, I was feeling pretty shitty. After the Tinder test and survey, it felt obvious that the general population favored blondes. But it was time for the last and final experiment: the catcall test.

    Despite wearing the exact same outfit, three different men said something to me while I had blonde hair, whereas no one said anything to me when I had brown hair. This confirmed that strangers treated me differently as a blonde.

    So do have blondes have more fun? Did I? TBH, not really. If anything, being blonde just showed me that society has some preconceived notions when it comes to hair color. However, just because society has decided that being white and blonde makes you some sort of "ideal" beauty, that definitely doesn't mean it's true. Whatever my hair color — red, blonde, brown, or no hair, I know that I can have as much fun as I damn well please.