MyFace

Free Market Faces

Face transplants are in the news again.

Remember the woman in France who had the first face transplant a couple of years ago? I saw the photo of what she looked like presurgery. The whole lower part of her face had been torn off by a pit bull. She looked like one of the cadavers in that recent Chinese exhibit. I was skeptical, too, when I read that she started smoking not long after the transplant. That didn’t seem like a good thing for a new face. But the transplant worked!

The technique for a face transplant is developed but there is a new problem—people don’t want to be face donors.

“The liver, yes, the heart yes, the lungs, yes, but no, no, not
my face. I want to bring my face into the afterlife.”

Seems to me that the free market needs to take hold! Here are some of my musings about that prospect.

First of all, the upscale market needs to be emphasized. The rich will be first on board. Not as donors, but as donees. Wannabe CEOs will want a rugged executive face. “You can’t get ahead without one.”

Trophy wives will be a great niche market. Some Russian or Saudi billionaire, some hedge fund manager with an eight figure salary will get tired of his wife and want her to look like Angelina Jolie. He could pay to get Jolie’s face when she dies. As a gift for his wife’s 40th birthday! If Angelina dies within two years, her estate would receive, say, ten million dollars. If she died at age 65, the value of her face would be vastly reduced to, what, $20? It will only be useful as a memento or souvenir. Of course any hedge fund manager would also want to make a down payment on other attractive faces, perhaps in a cancer ward.

Many jobs will be created, for example in Homeland Security. Passport photos will no longer suffice as proof of identity; dental xrays will have to be analyzed at airport security checkpoints.

There will be opportunities for face recruiters. “Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, I’m so sorry to have to tell you that we lost Debbie on the operating table. But there is a way that you can keep her memory alive forever. Just sign here.”

As companies like WalMart get into the act, a market will be created for “budget” or “value” faces, which will be the only ones that the less well off can afford. Such as old ladies’ faces that still have powder deep in the wrinkles. Old men’s faces with hair coming out of the nostrils. Or faces where a bit of rigor mortis has set in.

The mass market (the faceless masses) will start seeing XS, S, M, L and XL sizes. Then “one size fits all”. When it’s too large, it bunches up around the edges. When it’s too small, it will gets stretched over your face. Those cheap faces will be itchy. People will have to wear a cone around your necks post op, like dogs get when neutered.

Other problems will have to be solved. For example, it appears that unwanted DNA is part of any transplant.

I read about the woman who got a heart and lung transplant from a 19 year old male. Not long afterwards, she was walking down the street and saw a young man she had never met. She recognized him and knew his name; it turns out he was a friend of the donor. I imagine she also found herself hungering for pizza and beer. Along with other unaccustomed desires: “I don’t know, doctor. I have this overpowering desire to have sex with myself.”

With a new face, you might find you can’t help picking your nose. If you got a younger person’s face, you’d get a libido boost, too. At least for oral sex.

A whole underground market will grow. People will start auctioning their faces on Ebay. Eface, it will be called.

That’s what I am waiting for. I figure I will get top dollar because my face comes with a ready made career as a performer and public speaker. Plus a web site. And a blog.

end

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Facial difference, Funny. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.