My best pal Jimmy is a pretty smart guy, who has worked his way up from literally nothing. He has his own company. He is solid.
Well, he told me a story about when he was a teenager, and his getting involved with a mall modeling agency.
It's something he is embarrassed about now, and I am sure that, as an adult, he wouldn't fall for the scheme again. In all honesty, it was his mom who fell for it.
I don't recall anything like this in the mall I grew up in, but I have seen retro 80s TV shows making fun of the whole thing. Some sales guy at a mall convinced Jimmy's mom that Jimmy had "It" and could be a model.
He even jokes now about how they would go on and on about how he had the look, and the attitude. Jimmy's mom paid a lot of money, to this company, for pictures and for him to be at model events.
Even though I don't remember any businesses like this when I was a kid- I can say that I once worked next to a similar modeling agency.
My company at the time and the modeling agency were in a very run-down old building. I'll just say that mostly shady businesses were run out of the place. That didn't keep the parents from bringing their perfect, model quality children into the building for the modeling business.
It was mostly moms and their kids too. The moms were the ones I noticed mostly walking out with their attitude, and their noses in the air. Moms love to hear how great and perfect their kids are. Moms will pay lots of money to a modeling business that goes on an don about how perfect their little kid is.
At this dilapidated building, there was a bin under a stairwell in a rarely used area. It was off to the side, where the offices were vacant... Only a few people who worked in the building ever used these stairs.
The bin was huge. I'm not sure why it was there, but a couple of businesses, including the modeling agency, started to put their trash in the bin, instaed of taking it to the outside dumpsters.
Well, one day we noticed that the modeling agency had put a ton of "publicity photos" in the bin. When I say a ton, I mean that somewhat literally. There were thousands of these photos, I am sure weighing in at close to a thousand pounds. I assume these were unpurchased pictures that they tried to sell to those moms with perfect children.
We looked at the pics.... I don't recall any standing out.
My friend Jimmy, by the way, said that he threw away all of those photos his mom bought years ago.
