“Models now need to promote themselves, think like businesswomen and diversify their careers by doing other things. Chances are very slim that a mere model will become a household name today.”~ Tyra Banks
The modeling profession is something that I will admit that I do not understand. Nor do I pretend to understand it either.
It doesn’t appear to be glitz and glamour and rainbows. Some people get very famous and wealthy from being in the business and others struggle from day to day just to find work. One never really knows what will happen, it seems.
But I think that it would be safe to say that attitude is a big part of it.
And in my own personal experiences, there’s been a lot of great and decent people who have made it their profession to be a model, both male and female. And these decent people just can’t seem to get much of a break.
And then on the other side of things, there are those who have “the goods” for it, but their attitude seriously stinks. After that, they often wonder why they’ve not made it in the business.
I have known people who have done modeling in the past. And I know people who are currently doing modeling today. In my mind, a lot of those people who entered the industry struggle.
I have to shake my head at those who have the poor attitude.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to go to a party. It was at that party, I noticed this very physically attractive woman who was there. But I did not approach her to talk to her as she had many people surrounding her wherever she went. People were using their cell phones to take photographs and video of her. It had seemed that she enjoyed being the center of attention inside of all of the spotlight. And I thought to myself that she was attractive and so it made sense that she would be swarmed by people… mostly men.
I did not plan on staying too long at this party and eventually I ended up being in the same area as this particular woman. She caught my eye and I smiled. Then she came over and introduced herself.
Rather than just stating who she was by her name, it was like she was giving me her résumé. She had been seen on this music video and that music video that is on YouTube. She’s done several local events. And she even had done a couple of photo shoots for some statewide publications.
I was not interested in all of that, I just asked her again to tell me what her name was. And so she huffed a little and told me.
Okay, fine. You’re huffing. If I am talking to you, I just want to know who you are.
She seemed okay with the conversation and I made her laugh several times. But when she started talking about her modeling career again, I became less and less interested.
I was honest with her and admitted that I had never seen her before. I had no idea that she had done some modeling work here and there. And she became a little disappointed. So then she showed me on her cell phone a lot of different shots that she had done. I mean, A LOT!!!!!!!!
Several minutes had gone by as she showed me one by one by one of each shot she had saved on her cell phone.
Of course throughout the conversation, we would be interrupted by people wanting to speak to her. A lot of them though just wanted her to sit still long enough that they could take photographs of her with their cell phones.
She would forget where we had left off and then she’d start all over again. I probably saw the same set of photographs of her riding a horse four separate times. 
I could see that the conversation wasn’t going to lead to anything. It wasn’t going to change to “getting to know you” kind of stuff. It was just going to be about her and whether or not she could jar some kind of memory that I may have hidden to the point where I could tell her, “Yeah! I’ve seen you before!!”.
This wasn’t going to happen!
Had she talked about herself and not about her job, this conversation probably would have been a little more pleasant.
Deep down I was remembering the FIRST time that this had happened to me when I spoke with a woman who said her occupation was a model. That didn’t end well either.
I was beginning to feel out of place by just talking with her. But because I had made her laugh and smile earlier, I guess she decided to stick with it. But her mission of trying to get me to recognize her was doomed from the start.
There are over million people who live here where I am. I do not think that I am going to be able to remember every single person that I have ever come across in the past 11 years. Whether I believed them to be physically attractive or not, its just not a possibility to remember everything and everyone. Especially those who didn’t make any impact on me.
This woman surely was making an impact, but the WRONG impact.
Her boyfriend got a little jealous I guess and came over and interrupted her and I talking. He took her aside and did whatever he did.
Meanwhile, I am getting bombarded by these men who had been taking photographs of her all night long with their cell phones. They showed me that they had posted them all on the Internet. Facebook, Tumblr, etc. And that was all made possible by today’s technology. One shot with the cell phone camera and you’re bright and shining face is on the Internet in a matter of seconds for all the world to enjoy.
So anyways, the model came back and apologized for her boyfriend’s rude behavior. She started to explain her situation but I told her that it wasn’t necessary to get into all of that.
Then I decided to ask if I could take a photograph of her. This is where it took a nose dive into stupidity.
She began to explain her rates and her rules about “photo shoots”. I stopped her and repeated my request for her a little clearer and spoke slower. Thinking that she had misunderstood what I was asking her.
Again, she talked about her rates and rules.
When I told her that I was not a photographer and I had no intention on doing a photo shoot with her and I just wanted to take photograph of her and I together, she got crazy as well as indignant.
She explained to me that she did not “pose for pictures”. And that to me made no sense whatsoever. She’s a model. OF COURSE she poses for pictures! That is probably one of the general definitions of the ins and outs of the occupation of modeling. 
She continued to inform me that I would have to pay her in order to have my photograph taken with her. Heaven forbid that I would change my mind and ask for an autograph because I had heard guys coming up to her, telling her that she was hot and gorgeous and sexy and all of that and they wanted an autograph and she declined offers the entire time.
But I have to pay for a photograph with her?
I walked away from her, telling her that it was nice to have met her. Even though now I believe that that I was lying my butt off.
I looked her up on the Internet. I couldn’t find much. I saw maybe less than half a dozen websites that mentioned her. Either because she was captioned in a photograph or she was mentioned in an article. She’s not that famous to be in a position to be charging that kind of money for something that she does in the first place.
To the best of my knowledge, celebrities and famous folks of all kinds will either decline the request and walk away or they will simply take the photographs with someone or give them an autograph and be done with it. They don’t go into business mode and start telling their fans how much it is going to cost them in order to have these things. Especially if they are met by someone on the streets.
But this model felt she had enough of the goods where she could do that, and it was a serious deflation of interest in her and what she does.
I have personally received many denied requests for autographs from people. And most of them were because they either felt that their autographs weren’t worth anything or they were just shy and uncomfortable about it.
This woman however, was bold and full of it.
It would seem to me that because she is not all that “well known”, that she would gladly pose for a photograph. And possibly by either word of mouth or by someone posting photographs on the Internet that she just might get discovered and then she’d catch her break. One simply doesn’t know if and when those kinds of situations will happen. So to me, what was the big issue and where was the harm in it?
Had she agreed to the photograph and I had posted it and someone DID notice and contacted her, then that would definitely been something to work to her advantage.
You never know what to expect when you meet certain people.
When she asked me where I was going because I had ended the conversation, my only response to her was: “Things are sometimes only skin deep.”
I’m not expecting her to figure out what I meant by that. Nor am I expecting her to come crawling back with tears in her eyes and being full of apologies. But it sure does wonders for the mind.
But I guess in a way one could say that her constant nagging of trying to trigger a memory out of me that actually was never there to begin with, is now a memory of how much of a pain she was. If she wanted me to remember her, then her mission is successful after all. Unfortunately for her though, it is not a good memory.
I do not have any hatred towards people who are or were in the modeling business. And to be truthful, I do not have any hatred towards this model either. But what drew the line for me, was her attitude.