Missed Opportunity

A few years ago I was sitting with a friend and paging though a binder of photos his wife had taken. I landed on a shot of the two of us standing by a lake in Oregon. My friend was standing slightly sideways, but I had my back to the camera.

“Who’s that,” I asked, pointing at myself.

My friend laughed and said “Dude, that’s you.”

I stared at the photo in utter confusion. Then I realized that the photo was taken in the spring, after a dark, rainy winter. It was a long-but-fun five months filled with Ben And Jerry’s pints, Heineken bombers, and movie watching. I was bloated and puffy. I looked completely different than I currently did.

I thought of that after reading about a Today Show expose on those dramatic Before-And-After photos companies use to promote weight-loss products. Apparently, many of the people featured in those ads have never heard of the dieting product or even tried it. They’ve just been paid for their photos. One woman even got paid to have her pictures used to promote several different products that she’d never used. Her name was simply changed for each ad.

The moral of the story? Don’t ever throw out an unflattering photo of yourself. Those things are worth gold. Well, maybe more like Bitcoins. But still, this scam has lots of promise. People in newly-wealthy areas like Asia and Africa are flocking to McDonalds. So demand for bogus diet products promoted with fake photos is guaranteed to remain high.

I’m gonna take a picture of myself right now and label it “After”. Then I’ll embark on a nasty Ben And Jerry’s/Heineken binge and take another photo. That one I’ll label “Before.” And then I’ll sell them to as many weight-loss product companies as I can find.

That was the best winter ever. I only wish I’d known at the time that I could’ve gotten paid for it.