I Like People to Look Like People

Sadly for me, that doesn’t seem to be in right now.

When I wrote about garish weddings earlier this month, the linked page included an image that really caught my eye:

Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos

The woman on Jeff Bezos’s arm is apparently Lauren Sanchez, his wife. I poked around a bit more, and wound up on an article that included this comparison of Sanchez at age 33 (2002) and age 55 (2025):

Lauren Sanchez in 2002 and 2025

Yes, how do these rumors get started?

Look, I make an effort not to comment on the appearance of other people. If someone stops looking like a person, however, an exception may be made. If that’s the result of plastic surgery for a billionaire’s wife, no one is safe.

This came up again when I read about a bizarre murder (and beheading!) in Australia. Tamika Chesser is charged with killing her boyfriend Julian Story. In something of a reverse “In The Pines1, Story’s body was found in an apartment, but his head never was found.

Chesser’s head, meanwhile, looks like this:

Tamika Chesser
[Photo credit: Tamika Chesser]

When I saw this picture, I wondered how police were going to arrest a mid-2000s video game character. Chesser has somehow fallen backwards from human into something out of the Uncanny Valley, and she looks like a virtual reality rendering.

That led me to ask ChatGPT to re-draw Chesser in the style of Fortnite. It came up with this:

Tamika Chesser

Somehow, that AI creation looks more realistic than her actual photograph. Compare!

Chessers, one real and one fake

Anyway, seriously folks, aging is OK. So is looking your age! Looking like not a person, and paying for the privilege? No thanks.


Footnotes:

  1. Perhaps more familiar as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”. ↩︎