I think people often tend to treat drastic deviations from standard appearance as an indicator for undesirable character traits.

If you are badly groomed as a man, you tend to be perceived as careless.

In my experience if you are obese, people think you lack will power and discipline.

Changing how people view you for the better always has an influence on your personal success.

▲ ausbah a day ago | parent [-]

first sentence is one step from outright discrimination even if not everyone recognizes it. if you’re visibly transgender/queer, have noticeable accent, visible disability, and on and on and on

▲ niemandhier 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That was ment as an observation, not an encouragement to apply this.

Some of the discrimination against trans people might have a similar reason, after all they drastically break with standards.

I was a badly groomed, overweight nerd. I started working out and taking care of my appearance and people started to treat me different.

▲ sokoloff a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It probably is zero steps from outright discrimination, but it matches my estimation of how humans actually behave.

I read it as a “is” statement not an “ought to be” statement.

▲ throwaway2037 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

    > have noticeable accent

It is weird that you picked this example. HN is dominated by folks working in technology. Depending upon where you work, a large minority of your co-workers probably have a "noticeable accent". Do you really think it still matters in 2026? I am forever trying to tell non-native English speakers who are concerned that their accent makes them sound dumb: For educated native English speakers, we don't care about your accent; we care about what you are saying.

▲

AuthAuth a day ago | parent [-]

Yes different accents carry different things subconsciously.

	▲	throwaway2037 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Can you provide some specific examples that affect you or others around you?

▲ elmer2 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I can get on board with this. However, discrimination based on political affiliation has been rampant in Silicon Valley ever since Trump has been president.

In addition to this, I regularly am looking for contract work, and have jobs outright ask me if I am part of the LGBT community in the interview process. This is almost all coming from California. Before DOGE cut most of the budgets, NGOs would tell me that they would only hire me if I was part of a minority group.

Since there's no test, I just say that I am to get more work (and this has gotten me more work).

I've worked with LOTS of people from the LGBT community. At this point, discrimination just isn't happening for those groups at any mainstream level. Women also make up > 50% of management in almost all companies I deal with, so the 'glass ceiling' is also a myth.

	▲	TMWNN a day ago \| parent [-]
		>However, discrimination based on political affiliation has been rampant in Silicon Valley ever since Trump has been president. Same thing in Hollywood (and long before Trump): <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_Abe>