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Posted by: Leland (209.205.149.30) on February 24, 2003 at 22:12:29

Location: The South

In Reply to: Models... A Serious Question posted by Christian B. on February 23, 2003 at 10:26:57:

I sat down tonight and watched a little television. More particularly I watched the commercials. In roughly an hours' time I saw lots and lots of people who looked like attractive commercial models deal with everything from yeast infections and hemorroids to drug addiction and dirty teeth, bad breath, constipation, incontinence, and erectile dysfunction.

And they all smiled, probably because of the paychecks.

The question you posed was a great little Internet "what if," but in reality you were only presenting an argument made of straw, with a goodly dose of smoke and mirrors thrown in for good measure. As has been pointed out, this little game of possibilities you present seems to be nothing more than an attempt to instill a bit of paranoia into wannabes, the effect of which is to make them question the motives of "TFP photographers." I can only imagine why you might want to do something like that.

But just to humor you, and to play a little game with myself, I had to evaluate all those commercials I saw tonight. The truth is that yes, I would talk about erectile dysfunction for the right amount of money, and yes, I'd be the face of herpes, and yes, I admit, I would put whitening gunk on my teeth and mumble over subtitles. I'd do any of those commercials in a heartbeat, though of course nobody's going to offer me money for my acting ability.

I don't think too many people in this country are stupid enough to identify a face in a commercial with the person portraying the role, and even that hypothetical net model whose face appears in the Valtrex ad in Hong Kong isn't going to be appreciably harmed by the exposure in her hometown of Des Moines.

But we're dealing with a hypothetical situation, aren't we, not something that's ever likely to happen. The things that actually do happen on the Internet are more mundane: a girl pays a photographer for pictures and shows the pictures to an agency, where she's told she hasn't an iceberg's chance in Hell, or she sends "development money" to some hotshot photographer in a city far, far away, and he pockets it, even after promising to make her a star. Another girl does a TFP and the pictures suck, but she's not out anything but her time; the hypothetical ad agency in Hong Kong, which has a $2,000,000 budget for putting together an ad about Valtrex spends real money on a real photographer, and they don't even have to add to the legal department's budget to handle the lawsuits.

I thought you worked in the "real world"; I'm amazed you'd even concern yourself with the hypothetical world of a modeling forum. I suppose you're just trying to save another poor girl from being damaged by yet another scumbag.

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: I sat down tonight and watched a little television.  More particularly I watched the commercials.  In roughly an hours' time I saw lots and lots of people who looked like attractive commercial models deal with everything from yeast infections and hemorroids to drug addiction and dirty teeth, bad breath, constipation, incontinence, and erectile dysfunction.

: And they all smiled, probably because of the paychecks.

: The question you posed was a great little Internet "what if," but in reality you were only presenting an argument made of straw, with a goodly dose of smoke and mirrors thrown in for good measure.  As has been pointed out, this little game of possibilities you present seems to be nothing more than an attempt to instill a bit of paranoia into wannabes, the effect of which is to make them question the motives of "TFP photographers."  I can only imagine why you might want to do something like that.

: But just to humor you, and to play a little game with myself, I had to evaluate all those commercials I saw tonight.  The truth is that yes, I would talk about erectile dysfunction for the right amount of money, and yes, I'd be the face of herpes, and yes, I admit, I would put whitening gunk on my teeth and mumble over subtitles.  I'd do any of those commercials in a heartbeat, though of course nobody's going to offer me money for my acting ability.  

: I don't think too many people in this country are stupid enough to identify a face in a commercial with the person portraying the role, and even that hypothetical net model whose face appears in the Valtrex ad in Hong Kong isn't going to be appreciably harmed by the exposure in her hometown of Des Moines.

: But we're dealing with a hypothetical situation, aren't we, not something that's ever likely to happen.  The things that actually do happen on the Internet are more mundane:  a girl pays a photographer for pictures and shows the pictures to an agency, where she's told she hasn't an iceberg's chance in Hell, or she sends "development money" to some hotshot photographer in a city far, far away, and he pockets it, even after promising to make her a star.  Another girl does a TFP and the pictures suck, but she's not out anything but her time; the hypothetical ad agency in Hong Kong, which has a $2,000,000 budget for putting together an ad about Valtrex spends real money on a real photographer, and they don't even have to add to the legal department's budget to handle the lawsuits. 

: I thought you worked in the "real world"; I'm amazed you'd even concern yourself with the hypothetical world of a modeling forum.  I suppose you're just trying to save another poor girl from being damaged by yet another scumbag.


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