Way glueless

You must have been hiding under a shell if you haven’t heard about the Gorilla Glue fiasco (by that, I mean you haven’t been accessing social media). The latest was, some girl with highly advanced notions of beauty, having ran out of her usual hair polish, had the lamentable idea of substituting glue to spray on her locks.

In all fairness, the hair on Tessica Brown’s scalp did come out slick and smooth - except that, even after a long time (like a month) she couldn’t get the product out. The glue was just there, comfortably nesting on her head, and resisting efforts to be evicted. Eh natural, as my imaginary grandmother would say (I did have grandmothers, except they didn’t speak in such an arch manner). That’s glue you’re using, girl. What did you expect?

Except, she expected something else, thinking it would wash away like everything else, disregarding the warning label on the product cautioning against use on eyes, skin, or clothing. Not just caution, the label actually says “no”. As in, “stop whatever you’re thinking of, including applying on extensions, eyelashes or, god forbid, pasties.

Now, the gossip rags caught the story, the attention of the webbed world was captured, and everyone’s waiting to see what comes next (not quite at the same level as the Thai football players stuck in the cave, and perhaps with some added level of derision). The rumor planted by TMZ is Tessica will sue the manufacturer. Her finest legal argument: Gorilla Glue had a warning against those items - but it didn’t warn against applying it on the scalp!

What strikes me most about the ridiculous situation is not that Tessica is thinking of actually suing. After all, having decided to apply glue to her scalp, it’s probably so easy for her to also think she has a good case against the manufacturer (if she thought her decision to use glue was good, of course a decision like suing Gorilla Glue would also be equally wise). I’m sure she’s also being egged on by all the thousands of laughers, I mean, followers, who viewed her self-incriminatory video.

Let’s also just conveniently disregard the fact that part of the scalp right above it, that’s skin --which is explicitly mentioned in the warning label.

Instead, what’s remarkable is that she capitalized on an unfortunate situation. Rather than hide her booboo, disappear, and lick her wounds in private so as to be spared from embarrassment, which is what we have been conditioned to do, this social media world has allowed her to bare her soul (including the lack of IQ), and despite that, gain followers, sympathy, and even financing.

Yep, there’s now a collection hat being passed around for her, to help address her fix. She garnered sympathy and fans with cash. Thousands of dollars have been donated. And within a few days of the news story, a Beverly Hills surgeon, no less, has offered to perform “surgery” on her absolutely free (that surgery was valued by media at US$12,500 - how they arrived at the figure, I’m not exactly sure).

Now how’s that for a modern miracle? (Newsflash! Surgery done, and successful! Patient Tessica wakes up to a glueless future, and sobs in relief at the revival of sensation. Another miracle!).

So there’s some value to sharing sob stories that have the potential of bringing the world’s judgment down on you. Never mind if the sob story was self-inflicted. Never mind if the sob story attracted detractors, potential stalkers, and ridicule, all at the same time. The benefits just might outweigh the disadvantages, as it did in this case.

Social media has allowed us to focus the world’s attention on some of the strangest things. Speaking of, did you hear about the lawyer attending a zoom court hearing with the cat filter on?