Last week I was in Las Vegas at a health care finance conference. I had a pretty good time, first time in many years I have to say. I also noticed something pretty wild that helps me with the premise of what I have to say today.
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If you’re on either Twitter or Facebook, you’re going to see a lot of images of some very good looking people. The overwhelming majority are pretty women, but sometimes it’s a good looking guy (I suppose; I don’t notice the guys that often). They’re extremely good looking, to the point of perfection sometimes. They just look too good to be true.
Before my trip to Vegas I’d have said you just don’t see that many outstanding looking women in one place anywhere. That’s been pretty much true for my life. Not that I haven’t seen a lot of nice looking women, but rarely in one place, and certainly not in quantity.
That is, until I was at the Wynn. For 3 1/2 days I kept seeing some of the most outstanding women I’d ever seen in person. And most of them were wearing little black dresses, shorter than the ones in the image above. There’s a different walk from women wearing stuff like that. It’s confident and quick, with short strides, and you never see any of them slouching over. Then again, with 3 to 5 inch heels, I’m not sure if one can even slouch.
You know something else about the experience? You weren’t going to meet them. They weren’t there to talk to me or most of the people I saw. That is, unless you were one of three things.
One, you got into one of the big, expensive dance clubs that seemed to be open most of the day, definitely into the night (4AM, which for me was 7 AM; I didn’t sleep well). I was informed that many of the ladies are actually hired to go into the clubs to talk to some of the men that show up along; of all things!
Two, you were already part of their inner circle, because many of them already had their arms around or hooked up with some other young man, every once in awhile an older man. I have no idea whether the relationships were legit or not, just that they weren’t alone.
Or three, you happened to bump into them, which happened accidentally a couple of times because, well, I’ve noticed pretty people seem to think it’s everyone else’s job to get out of their way, and for the most part I do, but when I get irked after awhile I’ll just stop and let people walk into me, and since I wasn’t moving they pretty much have to apologize since I certainly didn’t walk into them. I’m pretty nice, but I have my limits as well.
I relate this to what I see online. For the most part we don’t know any of the women in the avatars. On Twitter, most of them are fake; that is, the women aren’t fake but the picture isn’t of the person whose Twitter account it is. Kind of like on blogs where you get the picture of a very pretty woman yet the writer’s name is John. Heck, every once in awhile the person isn’t even trying and has the image of a famous actress saying it’s them; please!
It’s things like this that make us not trust people, something I’ve talked about lately as you know. It reminds me of online dating, where I hear that people will put up pictures that are supposed to represent them, but it’s either a picture of someone else or a picture of them when they were 18 and they’re now 45. I remember knowing someone who put up a picture of himself on Facebook some years back from when he was in his 20’s and I called him out on it because he was closer to 60. Of course, that was before the days when people started randomizing their images and thus sometimes would put up pictures of themselves at a much younger age.
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I’ve been to some blogs lately where the owner has said that if someone leaves a comment and doesn’t have an avatar, they’re going to remove the comment, no matter how good it is. I’ve decided that criteria doesn’t work for me because I know some people are faking their avatars, some are using logos, and some folks use cartoon images to represent them. So, personally I don’t care about the avatars as much, especially since I have it set so that nothing worse than PG will show up here.
My main point overall is that if you get to thinking that maybe someone is worth following only because you see their image, without trying to check anything else about them, you’re going to be disappointed. The marketers or whatever you want to call them are hoping to trick you, to get you to follow them so they can market to you or have you in their clutches. Don’t get caught up in the game; you’ll hate yourself for it later on. Instead, hope to meet someone as attractive in person as I did while I was there. Yeah, I’m married and I wasn’t chasing, but it never hurts anyone’s feelings to have a picture with a nice looking person. Just don’t believe the hype. 🙂
It’s always shocking to learn for the first time that attractive women are often ‘placed’ at events to drag everyone else in. Such is life 😉
I’m with you Darren, although if I think about it I remember the old days when we used to go to computer fairs and there were always pretty girls hired to help sell stuff. You knew they didn’t know what they were talking about but you didn’t care. lol
Hi Darren, It’s the same with most clubs that have Lady’s night. They know if they can get the girls in the guys will follow. Smart marketing for clubs but pretty deceiving if the ladies are being passed off as legitimate guests in business events. I know some woman would be more than a little insulted being passed off as eye candy but, to others, a job is a job. Personally, I try not to judge in a case like that but I agree with Mitch 100%, “Just don’t believe the hype”.
Ive heard of clubs hiring girls to come in just to get crowds of people in to them, or even giving good looking girls free drinks just so they want to be there and draw in the crowd that way. I can definitely see your point here. Interesting how someone will add someone on Facebook(or some other site) just because there is a picture of a good looking person. Great post.
Thanks Tanya. I can be naive sometimes so I hadn’t thought about it until I was told by one of the poker dealers there. Still, so many pretty women in one place all at the same time… just don’t see that too often.
This is a very good point. All the publicity and marketing also use the same strategy to lure you into some products, by showing appealing people using them. In the internet this is even more evident, but in that case is more like personal marketing, like creating a second life. The main point is that this is silly to do so, because that strategy can only get results in a shorter term, while it fails in the long run.
Good point Kristina. Kind of like the old days when people used to call those phone sex lines or dating lines, then learned later on that none of the girls in the commercials were actually on the phones. I was never so gullible, but the commercials themselves were intriguing back then.
Hey Mitch,
I only follow real people on the web. I don’t have time to deal with tricksters and frauds. I like sites that have real people. Hold on, how do I know if that is really you? 🙂
I have never been to Vegas but I am sure one day I will venture there.
Justin, it’s easy to tell it’s me; if it weren’t I’d have used an old Harry Belafonte image and dared anyone to figure it out. lol As for Vegas, my third time there, but those first two certainly weren’t at this level of luxury.
I will be on a journey next Monday, honestly I am quite exited. Every 3 months, I am taking 2-3 day off, which boost my power for work. It is true that there are many beautiful people and I think as I am working quite hard in the last 4 months, when I go outside, almost every woman looks so beautiful to me. However, you are right, may be there are many fake profile images, but for sure there are some real. And the other part, I know at least 5 blog owners that remove all comments without gravatar, no matter how long and comprehensive is comment.
Carl, I know some of the images are real, but so many just aren’t the people who are putting out the information, especially on Twitter. And I won’t be one of those folks eliminating people who don’t have avatars since I kind of know better.
At Twitter definitely, I think Facebook cleaned most of this profiles and I think they have also reduced number of friends for up to 5000 which is more realistic.
Carl, I’m not so sure they cleaned anything up at Facebook because one still sees a lot of scantily clad women in some of the photos; not that I’m mad at that. lol The friends thing is an interesting one, though, and I can’t remember who said it, but it might be nice if one could segregate friends like one does on G+.
Hi Mitch. Sometimes, people just use any avatar they found in search engine’s result or somewhere else. Or worse, they either didn’t use any avatar, or use a fake picture of them. Sometimes, a person can be look like, let’s say, as pretty as an actress, but when we meet in person, it’s….just different.
It all goes back to what people pay for. It is a no brainer for the boy scout camp to have cute young girls work their snack bar, they make so much more money that way than if someone who looked like their mom or dad were selling snacks.
We vote for the way the world runs with our pocketbooks.
On twitter, facebook, google plus etc I like to click on their page before adding new people, some look nice, have a nice writeup, but you look at what they post, if spammy I’m out of there.
Heidi, probably the difference in a small way is that we will meet the good looking people at stores and the like, but online we’re probably never going to meet any of those folks. Still, it’s amazing how much we can be swayed by pretty people, isn’t it?
Yep, nothing wrong with having your photo taken with a beautiful babe standing next to you. Sure does you good to place that photo on a post where everyone can see it too 😀 I know because I do the same thing every chance I get.
I concur with the beautiful women in Las Vegas but, unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to have my photo taken with one.
As to Avatars, I won’t delete a comment just because they don’t have one but it can help me make up my mind when they are on the borderline.
I’m with you Sire, any chance to improve my appearance by standing next to someone good looking works for me as well. And these were conference ladies. I was able to get a picture of one of the waitresses but she said it’s not actually allowed, so I decided not to show that one publicly, at least here. And I’m not deleting anyone missing an avatar either; there are other things one can check if that needs to be done.
I knew an online marketer that found himself in a heap of legal trouble when he lifted over 30 pictures from a sexy woman’s old MySpace account and used them to create a fake Facebook account. It was pretty pathetic but he even made up a fake name and started building his profile up, as the hot woman, in hopes of selling cosmetic and beauty supplies. I met him at a blogger’s meet in Ann Arbor, MI and it turned out the ‘victim’ (my word), abandoned her MySpace account but was very active on Facebook. It wasn’t long before he lost his account and was visited by the police who was investigating him for identity theft. The funny thing was that he seemed to have little shame in admitting this to everyone. He actually laughed when he said the only thing that saved him was he made up a name rather than use hers. He said he name wasn’t sexy enough.
I imagine there are more people like that online than we’re even aware of. You never know who you are dealing with online until you’ve had a lot of time getting to know them on different levels. To me, that’s a big part of building relationships because reading a blog or following someone on Twitter will never tell the whole story by it’s self.
Great point Brian, and one of the things I love about visiting some blogs more than once. I think we all know when we’re visiting a quality blog as opposed to a “scam” blog, one where there’s no contact information or about page. True, not every blog has that, but those blogs that don’t have that info are usually associated with a webpage that has the information elsewhere; at least that’s what I’ve seen. And of course this isn’t to demean attractive women in any way but when you look like Christie Brinkley online and your name is Bruce, it’s just not going to fly. lol
ugh! You know, it’s funny. On facebook I posted some old photos of me to share with an old friend i recently reconnected with. One of the pictures was really nice, i had braids and freckles, and i was 20 years old. I made that into my avatar. Boy was that a mistake. Suddenly i started getting hit on. by men from all over the world. YUCK! I’m happily married. Once i realized what was causing the problem, I put a new avatar up, me with my grey hair, next to my dear husband. Problem solved. You know, I am glad I am no longer “Bait”
That’s funny Mimi, but all of us are attracted to the “pretty people” and sometimes it turns out to be “us”; well, not me anymore. lol Some people like the attention, while others will run from it because it’s not what they’re after anymore. I think true marketers get that while the rest of us try to say it’s not true when we know it is. We just have to be smart in not falling for all of it.
I also have an old picture of me as an avatar on my Facebook. I’m 3 in that picture 🙂
Here, you can find agencies that you can hire, who will send model looking girls to your party, event or whatever you had in mind, and they will stay there until 2 am. They are not forbidden to have personal affairs with the guests, but they are not obliged to do so in any way. They get the money simply to be there and mingle.
Ana, we have the same thing here, usually relegated to larger cities since they have way more going on. It really does prove that sex sells, which is a shame but still true.
Hey Mitch,
I would love to say that on social sites I only follow “real” people but I haven’t had conversations with all 5,000 of my followers. Darn it! But the ones that promote to me constantly are the ones that get booted quickly.
I also happen to know someone that I met here online last year. Really nice lady, I like her but she does have a few “issues”. I commented on her photo because she was always putting herself down. That’s when she informed me that her avatar was a picture of her, that wasn’t a lie, but about 10 years younger. Gosh I hate that. I have another friend who refuses to put his photo up. He says he has a big nose and is too embarrassed. I can only speak for myself but how are you going to get to know the real me if I’m too ashamed of myself to put up a real photo. Hey, I’m just saying!
Thanks for saying what a lot of people are thinking Mitch! I can always count on your.
~Adrienne
Good stuff Adrienne. I’ve called out some people in the past who had pictures representing them from a much younger age as well, but on Facebook those days are kind of gone as people are always rotating images of themselves. But I see some images on Twitter that I know aren’t those people or are them at a much younger age and for the most part I let it go. But I can’t lie, when I see images of the attractive ladies I wonder “is that person real”, then I look at the names and realize most of them aren’t. But for those that are, it’s still the reality that the majority of them none of us will ever meet, and if that’s the only reason one follows them then they’re in for a lot of disappointment later on.