Fiction: The Picture of Dorian Grey
This was the best Instagram post he had ever made, thought David to himself. He had captioned it “Ca va comme ci comme ca,” and it was stylized as a photodump of him in Montreal. Plenty of “if you know, you know” style content, with some obvious low fruit for the aspirational plebians that followed him. Of course, it was the stuff they didn’t know that added to his aura of prestige and taste that drew them back. A pair of Miyakes at the Ssense flagship. A speakeasy near the outskirts of Atwater. A poutine at Green Spot which casually showed off his necklace and sunglasses. A coffee bar in Old Port. A cute twink in Habitat 67.
Truly, he would never be able to top this post he thought to himself. The likes were raining in, giving him a little hit of dopamine every time. He studied the post some more. The Indian summer was ending, and he could almost feel the November wind whipping around outside as he took the train back to Toronto. He looked at his post again. Oh how he wished he could stay in that moment forever, young and enviable. The years were starting to creep up on him already: creaky bones in the body, perpetually weak ankles, and a penchant for sleep. Only if the image could age in his stead.
David forgot all about the post soon enough. After all, there were better posts to be made. A visit to Paris, a ski trip to Vermont, and a resort in Monteverde. And the likes never stopped coming. It seemed like his prime was yet to come. His sponsors grew with his list of followers. And he stayed Ozempic-skinny without the semaglutide, his teeth veneer-perfect without any dental procedure, his face Botox-sharp without any injectables. David quit his job. Well, this was his job now. And was it ever busy: content didn’t grow on trees, it had to be created. Fits planned, photoshoots arranged, collaborations sought, and feuds manufactured. Not every brand profile was a good match with his following. He thrived on promoting smaller brands on the precipice of mainstream success: his ability to help them do so made him ever more valuable to them, and further established his reputation as someone who was in the know.
Which brings David to a Thursday morning surprise when his plastic surgery was trending on TikTok. Because he had never undergone any procedures. He riffled through his organizer, and confirmed he didn’t have any beef scheduled. Curious, he clicked open a video. One of those famous plastic surgeons from LA had complimented his procedures, and then stans of his latest beef were circulating pictures of his Montreal post from years ago. Badly photoshopped images of his post from years ago: His face flushed and swollen while downing a beer. A protruding gut as he greedily consumed his poutine. His eyebrows and mouth were twisted into a leer in Habitat 67, cruelly looking at the other creator.
David flipped back to his old post. To his horror, that’s exactly how it looked. He quickly privated it. Then he unprivated it, knowing that doing so so quickly would be an admission of guilt. Nothing to do for now as people besmirched his good name. But how had this happened? Had someone gone into his Instagram and edited the post? That’s impossible, the post showed no edit history. Perhaps someone at Facebook did so maliciously? He dismissed these wild hypothesis just as the social media tabloid circus moved onto the next thing. He quietly hid the post a few months down the line, and no one seemed to bring it up ever again.
Eventually, David’s brand shifted, as did his sponsors. Gone were the small cafes, the independent designers, and other unique creators. The contract with Kerring came first, then came the Rolex brand ambassadorship. He became the first Michelin dining sponsored influencer, and flew around the world just to eat and drink. His name was spoken of in the same rarified tones that had previously been reserved for the Kardashians and the Jenners. He was still a tastemaker, but now lived just to the left of the average on a normal curve. For fun, he calculated the number of nights he slept at home in the past year and that it was less than a hundred. But he only logged two hundred hotel nights, meaning the rest were spent on a long plane journey. In spite of his exhaustion, he remained the paragon of good looks. He knew that this was the source of his fame, and letting it go would be professional suicide.
These days, he didn’t even manage his own Instagram, instead using a burner whenever he got the itch. But he still maintained access, which was good for reviewing drafts that his team had created. Today, he accidentally clicked onto his hidden posts, and saw the plastic surgery post again. Or perhaps it was intentional, in a masochistic way, to want to see the manipulated pictures again. But when he opened the post, the images had become more macabre than before. He was wearing the same kitschy Gucci sneakers in all of the posts instead of his painstakingly curated selection of boots and loafers that trip. His lips had that pouty look only achievable through injections, and his forehead looked ready to explode. His body looked a lot flabbier except for his abdomen, which he didn’t need an LA plastic surgeon to tell him was a sign of liposuction and ab-sculpting. In pictures with other people, they were clearly leaning away from him, as though he had horrible halitosis, or was an aging American politician.
Horrified, David deleted the post and took a few deep breaths. He was reminded of a book he had to read for class in high school, wherein a character tried destroying a painting that was slowly turning into an evil caricature of themselves, but was instead found dead, and the painting intact. He never understood what happened. He pinched his face. Nope, he was definitely still alive. But when he felt his face again, it didn’t feel like his face. Something felt off.
With a sense of unease that was reaching fever pitch, he ran to the washroom. Staring back at him in the mirror was the David of the deleted picture. His face was so bloated with silicon that it was hard to the touch. He lifted his shirt up and there were obvious scars from the procedures he had undergone. He felt like he had aged forty years. His scalp itched and he knew he had a very good toupee. He quietly stumbled back towards his bed and reflected on his options. David now understood how the man in that book died.
