The internet is almost always a bizarre place, but we never know just what kind of surprises it will have in store for us when we put ourselves out there.
But in all the chaos of how we connect with each other, it can be easy to forget how quickly we can find ourselves in an unexpected place when someone needs a photo.
My dad was pretty excited to see that one of the cool photos he took made the cover of some magazine in Italy, but this phenomenon was a little creepier for one woman who found herself edited out of her own photo for a Chinese TV show.
But if anyone can demonstrate just how far this hunger for usable pictures can spread, it’s The Office actor B.J. Novak.
In an Instagram story posted on October 26, Novak shared a recent discovery that his face was being way more widely used than he thought.
As he explained , “Years ago, someone mistakenly put an image of me on a public domain site.”
And it seemed this opened the floodgates for any business that wanted to put a handsome, recognizable face on their packaging.
It apparently wasn’t lost on these entrepreneurial types that Novak was sporting some stubble in the photo that formed the center of this mishap.
Of the five photos that Novak shared in his stories, two of them featured companies using him to advertise electric razors.
Are they trying to tell him something?
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But if there’s any recourse that Novak can take now that his photo is fair game, it seems he’s not interested in exercising it.
As he put it, “I am too amused to do anything about it.”
I guess there’s something flattering about knowing you cut a striking enough profile that some company in Sweden thinks you’ll help sell their cologne.
And besides, it almost wouldn’t feel right to crack down on this after seeing how creative some of these folks are with your face.
For instance, whoever was selling this face paint in Uruguay had to put in some serious Photoshop work to make it look like Novak was actually wearing their flag.
I guess it helps that he isn’t being used to promote anything too embarrassing.
