HOT OR NOT: SIX CAPE GIRARDEAU ROOMMATES LOOK FOR THE ANSWERS ON LINE

It's a haunting question on the minds of the dateless every Saturday night, one that sends them scurrying to the nearest mirror for a serious once-over of face and body:

Am I hot, or am I not?

In our high-tech world, a piece of glass just doesn't hold the same satisfaction as, say, 7 million 'Net surfers anonymously and bluntly deciding the answer.

That would explain the wild success of amihot.com, a Web rating-and-dating service that attracts up to 10 million visitors a day ogling a quarter-million pictures.

It's simple. A brave person puts his or her picture on the site. That picture randomly pops up on a Web surfer's screen. A visitor rates it on a scale of one to 10. Another picture pops up.

And so it goes on a site that began as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology frat boy's personal project. Dan Ray, 20, and his fraternity brothers made a game of rating everything -- clothes, aquariums, television shows, food and, of course, people.

When self-proclaimed "king of all media" Howard Stern mentioned the site on his morning radio show nine months ago, listeners swarmed the site and crashed MIT's network. Ray, a 7.5 according to amihot.com visitors, was forced to either end the site or start his own business. He chose the latter, moving its headquarters to Los Angeles.

The site's co-owner, Mark Twohig, 26, says it isn't a cash cow, but it's surviving the dot-com depression. And amihot.com is becoming a bona fide part of pop culture, even spawning knock-off sites.

Dr. Larry Hamilton, a Southeast Missouri State University sociology professor, attributes the success to two key facts about young America: They're used to being evaluated at school and work, and they love the anonymity of the Internet.

"You can say anything, be anybody you want and do anything, and you're generally not held accountable," he said.

But five Southeast students and one recent graduate who share a house in Cape Girardeau agreed to shed that anonymity, put their pictures on the site for one week, get the answer and then discuss their experiences.

Midriff-baring Melissa Reed got a flattering 506 votes, a 7.3 rating and offers for dates. (Seventy percent of site participants are male.) Subdued Dan Drendel only got 28 votes and a decent 6.3. The number of hits for Patrick Capstick, James Riggle, Benny Pawloski and Ellen Grote fell somewhere in between.

They all get 10s for trendiness.

Q&A

Did you hear about amihot.com before this experiment?

Ellen: The guys on James' floor when he lived in the dorms used it. They were mean. Everybody got a one or a 10.

James: The pictures with cleavage were always a 10, and the black-and-whites were a one. The community advisers would be on there for their whole four-hour shifts.

Melissa: I first heard about it a year ago, when some of my friends jokingly voted on people. I didn't think it was that great.

How did you feel about putting your picture on the site?

James: I was fine with it. It wasn't going to affect my ego in any way.

Melissa: The people who put their own pictures up there I can't help but think they are trying to boost their self-esteem. But the rest of the house was doing it. I didn't want to let them down.

Dan: I thought it would just be kind of fun to do with everybody in the house, but it's not something I'd do on my own.

Did the scores match the way you saw yourselves?

Patrick: I thought it was higher than I'd get.

Ellen: Maybe I'm self-centered, but I thought it was lower than I deserved. But I'm not a photogenic person.

James: Yeah, the photo didn't do Ellen justice.

Benny: The picture made her look chubby or something.

Melissa: I don't think I'm good looking, so I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd gotten a lower score.

What about the morals and ethics of putting pictures online and letting 7 million people take shots at them?

Dan: I think it's everybody's choice to participate or not. They are providing a service people enjoy using. You know what kind of stuff is going to go on from people looking at it.

Patrick: I think it's a riot. Last semester, around finals, I was getting bored, so I put my picture on Excite just to see what would happen.

Benny: That's the only bad part I could see people getting on there and getting bad scores and getting depressed or something.

James: It's like Melissa getting that message saying she looked like Boy George.

Ellen: It was that picture! When she's doing her makeup, she usually focuses on her eyes, but she didn't do that this time.

Benny: It's not that bad. Boy George is a feminine-looking guy.

Now that you've tried it, would you recommend it to friends?

Benny: As long as they're not some kind of neurotic person who gets upset over it.

James: I would recommend it more to people who are interested in Internet dating.

Patrick: That's OK, except that there are eight people from Cape Girardeau on it, six of them are us and one of them is gay.

James: True. It's also an easy way of people-watching. I used to date a girl who was always looking at people. She'd say stuff like, "Why is she wearing those shoes?"

How did you rate most of the pictures posted on the site?

James: I would say a majority of the people on there are fives and sixes, right in the average. When we were looking at it, it was hard to find anybody over an eight, for sure.

Ellen: I was giving a lot of sixes and sevens. With some of those pictures, I don't even think it's a real person. It's a magazine cutout or something. I saw a couple of the same muscle-builder lady under different names.

Patrick: She was frightening.

Benny: One picture was of a guy from the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl. It may not have been him. Maybe it was somebody who looked really like him.

Would you date someone you met on the Internet?

Patrick: I've not dated anyone I've met, but I've gotten very good friends.

James: I've dated three very briefly. The main reason they didn't last was that they weren't who they said they were.

Ellen: I am too cautious. Maybe I'm not in the 21st century, but I just don't see it as something I'd feel comfortable with.

Melissa: I have a boyfriend now, but I even if I didn't, I would never respond to the people on the site. Don't get me wrong, the things they said made me feel good, but it's not for me.

Did being on amihot.com change you at all?

Benny: It was just fun while we did it.

Patrick: If I get a date out of it, you can do a follow-up article on that.

James: Whatever I got rated, I am going forth knowing I'm a 10.