The Pooper Effect
A Pattern Study
In 2021, BrandCo signed a well-known leading man to a five-year spokesperson deal.
The announcement came in a third-party deck with phrases like “strategic brand alignment” and “elevating our visual presence” and a photo of him looking expensive and approachable in the way that only people with good agents can pull off.
Leadership was thrilled. Marketing was thrilled. The board was thrilled.
We—the creative team—were told to build the brand shoot into our Q2 production calendar and make it happen.
So we did.
We booked the photographer. Secured the studio. Prepped the shot list. He showed up, smiled at the camera, said something vaguely inspirational about “the journey,” and left.
We got the assets three days later. Reviewed them. Approved them. Uploaded them to the website.
His face went live on the homepage, the about page, and the trade show booth backdrops by end of quarter.
Everyone was happy.
What we didn’t know—what none of us could have known—is that we’d just given a celebrity’s cosmetic surgery schedule complete control over our company’s organizational structure.
But here we are.
Year four.
Still reviewing the assets.
Still watching the face.
Still waiting to see what it means for us.
2023: The Facelift
The first time we knew for sure, it was October 2023.
Year two of the contract. Annual brand shoot. We got the assets on a Thursday afternoon.
There were twelve of us in the conference room when we opened the files. Usual crew: art director, two designers, the photographer’s retoucher, a few people from brand who had nothing better to do.
Someone pulled up last year’s hero shot on one monitor. This year’s on the other.
We stared.
“His face is different,” someone said.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Just... different.”
We zoomed in. Compared the jawline. The angle of the neck. The overall structure of the lower face.
“Oh,” our art director said quietly. “Oh, that’s a facelift.”
“You sure?”
“Look at the jawline. That’s not aging. That’s not weight loss. That’s surgical. The face is more... heart-shaped now. The jowls are gone.”
Someone Googled “types of facelifts” on their phone.
“There’s like, different kinds,” they said, scrolling. “SMAS lift, deep-plane facelift, mini lift...”
“What’s the difference?”
“SMAS is the... Superficial Musculo-something System. They pull up the layer under the skin. Deep-plane goes deeper, under the muscle. Both tighten the jawline and neck.”
We looked at the photos again. The jawline was sharper. Defined. The neck was tighter. The whole lower third of his face had been restructured into that heart shape our art director mentioned.
“Which one do you think he got?”
“Hard to say. Could be either. SMAS has faster recovery though. Like a few weeks. Better for actors.”
“When would he have had time?”
We sat there. Staring at his restructured face on the monitor. The before and after side by side.
Someone finally said what we were all thinking: “So what does this mean for us?”
“We approve the assets,” our art director said. “We update the website. And we wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Nobody answered.
We already knew.
Six weeks later, November 19th, 2023, leadership announced layoffs.
67 people. 20% of the company. Week before Thanksgiving.
They called it “organizational realignment.”
What they actually did was restructure the foundation. Cut deep. Remove what was “no longer strategically necessary.”
The company’s jawline was sharper now.
Leaner.
More defined.
Just like his face.
We didn’t say anything in the all-hands. We didn’t post about it in public Slack channels.
But that afternoon, someone created a private channel.
The channel name was simply #PooperWatch.
Within an hour, all twelve of us had joined.
The first message posted was: “So we’re all seeing this, right?”
“Facelift in October. Layoffs in November.”
“Has to be coincidence.”
“Does it though?”
Someone posted a side-by-side. The before-and-after from the shoot. His restructured jawline next to the org chart showing 67 people gone.
Nobody said anything for a minute.
Then: “We’re calling it The Pooper Effect now, right?”
“Obviously.”
That’s when we started tracking.
2024: Confirmation
After the facelift and the layoffs, we watched every shoot like it was a threat assessment.
Because if it happened once, it could happen again.
And if it happened twice, it was a pattern.
The next shoot was scheduled for March 2024. Quarterly content. Just a refresh, not a full campaign.
We cleared our calendars. All twelve of us gathered in the conference room before the files even finished uploading.
Spring 2024, March shoot:
Assets came in on a Tuesday. We pulled up the previous shoot from December for comparison.
“His forehead,” someone said immediately.
We zoomed in.
Smooth. Completely smooth. No lines when he smiled. No furrow when the photographer asked him to “think about something meaningful.”
“Botox,” our art director said. “Recent too. Maybe four weeks ago.”
We approved the assets. Updated the homepage.
Two weeks later, leadership announced a hiring freeze.
“All open roles on hold pending strategic review.”
The company’s forehead was frozen now. No movement. No expression of concern about headcount or capacity or the fact that three people had quit and we couldn’t backfill any of them.
Just smooth, strategic stillness.
Someone posted in #PooperWatch: “It’s real. The Pooper Effect is real.”
No one argued.
We started a spreadsheet that day. Every procedure. Every corporate response. Dates. Correlation.
The pattern was undeniable.
Summer 2024, July shoot:
We saw it before we even opened the files.
The thumbnail in the upload folder showed it. His face looked... fuller. The cheeks were rounder. More prominent. Like someone had inflated them slightly.
“Filler,” someone said immediately during the review.
We zoomed in. The cheekbones were higher, more defined. The hollows that had been there in previous shots—the natural deflation that happens as you age—were gone. Filled.
“Where?”
“Cheeks. Maybe mid-face. Could be filler, could be fat transfer.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Filler is temporary. Inject it, lasts like 6-12 months. Fat transfer is surgical—they take fat from somewhere else and inject it. More permanent.”
Someone pulled up photos from the March shoot. Put them side by side.
The difference was obvious. The mid-face had been replenished. Plumped. The natural sinking and deflation that comes with aging—reversed.
“He looks like Cillian Murphy now,” someone said.
“Or Barry Manilow,” someone else added.
Everyone laughed. But it was true. The prominent, rounded cheekbones gave his face a different quality. Still handsome. Still expensive. Just... different.
We approved the assets.
One month later, leadership announced a rebrand.
$485,000. New logo. New tagline (”Innovate. Integrate. Elevate.”). New brand guidelines with 84 pages of instructions on how to communicate “with authenticity and strategic clarity.”
We were the ones building it. Creating the assets. Writing the copy. Sitting in the kickoff meetings with the consultant who kept saying “permission to play.”
And the whole time, we kept looking at his cheeks on the monitor.
Prominent. Rounded. Plumped.
Just like the new brand was trying to be.
The old website had real blog posts from real people. Rough edges. Human.
The new website has an AI-generated “Thought Leadership Hub” and stock photos of hands touching tablets.
Smooth. Polished. Inflated with something that looks like substance but isn’t.
Just like his face.
Late Summer 2024, September shoot:
This one was subtle. We almost didn’t catch it.
The skin. His skin looked different.
Smoother. Glowing. Like someone had taken an eraser to the top layer and revealed something new underneath.
“Laser treatment,” our art director said. “Or chemical peel. Something that removes the surface.”
We zoomed to 300%. The fine lines around his eyes—faded. The sun damage—gone. The texture that makes a 50-year-old face look like it’s been lived in—erased.
“When would he have had time?”
“Laser resurfacing has pretty quick recovery. Couple weeks for the redness to fade. Could’ve done it in August.”
“So we’re looking at... what, complete facial renovation at this point?”
Someone counted on their fingers. “Facelift in 2023. Botox and filler in early 2024. More filler in July. Now laser. Yeah. Complete renovation.”
We approved the assets.
Three weeks later, leadership rolled out new corporate messaging guidelines.
Every all-hands became a script reading. Every update became smooth, reassuring phrases that meant nothing.
“We’re investing in our people.” (They weren’t.)
“Building a culture of resilience.” (They were building a culture of fear.)
The company’s messaging was polished now. Smooth where there used to be rough honesty. Glowing where there used to be authentic struggle.
Just like his skin.
By the end of 2024, the spreadsheet was full.
Four procedures. Four corporate responses. Perfect correlation.
Whatever he did to his face, the company did to its structure.
We weren’t just tracking it anymore.
We were waiting for it.
Expecting it.
Dreading it.
We were living inside a cosmetic surgery roadmap.
And nobody—not leadership, not HR, not the people getting laid off or frozen out or rebranded into oblivion—nobody was talking about it.
Except us.
In the conference room.
Zooming to 300%.
Waiting for the next procedure.
Wondering what it would cost us.
2025: The Eyes
Which brings us to three weeks ago.
October 2025. Year four of the contract. The annual brand shoot.
We got the assets on a Wednesday. All twelve of us were already in the conference room before they finished uploading. We’d learned to clear our calendars for this.
Someone opened the hero shot.
We went quiet.
“Oh fuck,” someone said.
His eyes.
His eyes were completely different.
Wider. More open. The lids looked lifted. The hooded quality they’d had in the 2023 shots—gone.
“Upper blepharoplasty,” our art director said.
“You sure? Could just be a brow lift.”
“Could be either. Both would make the eyes look more open.”
We pulled up the 2023 shoot. Put them side by side.
The difference was undeniable. In 2023, his eyes were more hooded. The upper lids had that excess skin that comes with age. Now? Clean. Lifted. Wide awake.
“Blepharoplasty removes the lax skin from the upper eye socket,” someone read from their phone. “Brow lift raises the entire brow. Both make you look more alert.”
“Which one do you think?”
“My money’s on bleph. It’s more common. Less invasive. Faster recovery.”
“When would he have done it?”
“Had to be summer. Summer’s when he gets work done. You need at least six weeks for the swelling and bruising to fully resolve. If this shoot was late September, he probably got it done in July or August.”
We zoomed to 400% on the new shot. Looking for evidence. Scar lines hidden in the natural creases of the eyelid. They’d be there if we knew where to look, but the retouching was good. Professional.
Someone pulled up Daily Mail articles on their laptop. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who’d noticed.
“Listen to this,” they said. “Plastic surgeon Gerard Lambe says: ‘His eyes do look a bit wider and more open.’”
“Does he think it’s a bleph?”
“He says upper blepharoplasty or subtle brow lift. He can’t tell for sure either.”
“What about this other surgeon?” Someone pointed at another article. “Dr. Maercks thinks it might just be aging and bad Botox placement.”
“Bad Botox?”
“Yeah, like if you inject it too low on the forehead, the eyebrows drop and the eyes look different.”
We all looked at the photo again.
“I don’t think that’s bad Botox,” our art director said. “That’s intentional work. The eyes are lifted. Clean. That’s surgical.”
“So what do we call it in the tracker?”
“Upper blepharoplasty, question mark. With a note that it could be brow lift.”
We sat there. Staring at his refreshed, alert, wide-open eyes.
“So what does it mean?” someone finally asked.
Nobody answered.
Because we didn’t know yet.
And that was the problem.
After work yesterday, a few of us stayed late.
Not working. Just sitting there. Looking at his face on the wall.
“You ever think about what it’s like for him?” someone asked.
“Who, Pooper?”
“Yeah. Does he know? Does he know that every time he gets work done, people lose their jobs?”
Nobody said anything for a while.
Then: “I don’t think he thinks about us at all.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
We sat there until security did their rounds.
The face stayed on the wall.
Eyes open.
Watching the empty room.
Fourteen months left on the contract.
The all-hands is Tuesday.
The website is live.
And somewhere, he’s already planning his next procedure.
Already changing.
Already deciding what happens next.
We’ll see it first.
We always do.
Brilliant. Quite brilliant.
Wow! You kept me reading right to the end 🙏