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The Terrible Photographer is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and creative humans trying to stay honest in a world that rewards pretending
Belle Gibson never had cancer.
The Australian wellness influencer built an entire empire on the lie. Three hundred thousand Instagram followers. A bestselling cookbook called The Whole Pantry. Partnerships with Apple and Penguin Publishing. She documented her "journey"—how she cured herself through nutrition, determination, and love. No chemo. No radiation. Just quinoa, green juice, and the power of positive thinking.
She looked radiant. She looked healthy. She looked like proof that if you just believed hard enough—and bought the right ingredients—you could heal yourself.
And people believed her. They bought the app. They bought the book. Some of them—people with actual cancer—rejected conventional treatment because Belle showed them it was possible to do it naturally.
Except it wasn't possible. Because Belle Gibson never had cancer.
And she didn't just fake one diagnosis. She faked a medical history that would have killed ten people. Brain cancer. Blood cancer. Spleen. Uterus. She collected terminal illnesses like merit badges.
She made it up. All of it.
In 2015, journalists exposed her. She admitted the fraud. The Australian Federal Court fined her four hundred and ten thousand dollars. She hasn't paid a cent. And to this day, no one knows exactly why she did it.
Maybe the performance just became more real than reality. Maybe the curated life—the one that got the likes, the book deals, the validation—was easier to inhabit than the actual one.
(Small beat. Shift in tone.)
Myka and James Stauffer never meant to become villains.
They were just a nice couple from Ohio. A nurse and an engineer. They had a YouTube channel where they documented family life. In 2017, they adopted a two-and-a-half-year-old boy from China. Huxley. And they brought their audience along for the journey.
Huxley was diagnosed with autism. Level 3. He needed support. He needed structure. He needed more than Myka and James were equipped to give.
But the content? The content performed beautifully. The videos got views. The sponsorships rolled in. Pampers. Walmart. Fabletics. The Stauffers were building a brand.
And then, in May 2020, Huxley disappeared from the videos.
Followers noticed. They asked questions. And finally, Myka and James posted an update: Huxley had been "rehomed." Given to another family. A family better equipped to handle his needs.
The internet exploded. The sponsorships vanished. And people started going back through the old footage, looking for the moment it went wrong.
And they found it.
In a video where Myka sat on the floor, weeping about the crushing financial burden of Huxley's special needs care. She was begging for understanding. She was explaining why it was so hard.
But if you looked closely at her wrist, you saw it. A Cartier Love bracelet. Gold. Six thousand dollars. Screwed shut onto her arm.
The frame told the truth that her mouth wouldn't.
(Beat.)
The LaBrant Family has thirteen million subscribers. But to understand awful story, you have to look at the origin story - it begins with a guy named Cole.
Cole LaBrant didn't start as a wholesome Christian dad. He started on Vine. He was part of a trio called "Dem White Boyz." They made videos of themselves shirtless, twerking, acting like frat bros. It was shallow. It was viral. It was effective. But Vine died. And Cole needed a pivot. So he found Jesus. And he found Savannah. Savannah was a Christian fashion blogger who already had a daughter, Everleigh, from a previous relationship. And when Cole put Everleigh in a video? The numbers spiked. He realized something that every marketing major knows: You can sell "bro humor" for a while, but you can sell "wholesome family" forever. He didn't just fall in love with a family. He fell in love with a business model.
In 2018, the LaBrants uploaded a video titled: "We left our house because of fires in California." The thumbnail is terrifying. Cole looks panicked. The narrative is clear: They are refugees in their own state, fleeing the flames to save their children. Except... it was a lie. Residents in their neighborhood confirmed there was no evacuation order. The fire was miles away. They weren't in danger. But "Stayed Home and Watched the News" doesn't get views. "Evacuating the Family" does. They didn't flee a disaster. They scouted a location. They turned a tragedy affecting their neighbors into a backdrop for their content.
And it gets darker. If you sort their most popular videos—the ones with tens of millions of views—you notice a pattern. It’s not the sermons. It’s not the pranks. It’s the thumbnails of the girls. In bathing suits. Doing gymnastics. Stretching. Data analysts have looked at the demographics for family vlog channels like this. You’d expect the audience to be other moms. Kids. Families. But for the LaBrants and other family vlogs? The demographics skew heavily male. Cole and Savannah know how the internet works. They know what the algorithm rewards. And they know that the algorithm doesn't care why someone is clicking on a thumbnail of a six-year-old in a bikini. It just cares that they clicked. They are feeding their children to the machine, one thumbnail at a time. Then profiting thousands of dollars off of each video.
In 2018, they uploaded that video titled simply: "Cancer." The thumbnail showed their daughter looking devastated. Millions clicked, terrified for the child. She wasn't sick. The video was a documentary about another family’s tragedy. But the LaBrants took someone else’s cancer and wrapped it in their daughter’s face to sell ads. It doesn't matter what the truth is. It matters what the click is worth.
But what happens when you've been playing that game so long—from Vine twerking to fake fires to clickbait cancer—that you can't remember what the truth was? And if you’re someone like Cole Lebrant, you wouldn’t know what truth was if it bit you in the ass.
(Music stops. Silence. Just your voice.)
Ruby Franke started in 2015. Just a mom in Utah with six kids and a YouTube channel called "8 Passengers." By 2020, she had 2.5 million subscribers. Her videos had amassed one billion views. This wasn't a hobby. It was a media corporation. And the product was "Discipline."
See, Ruby figured out a niche. While other family vloggers were selling "chaos and fun," Ruby was selling "control." She was the strict mom. The mom who didn't raise brats. And the comment section loved it. They called her a hero. They asked for advice. So she gave it to them.
She filmed herself taking away her son’s bedroom for seven months because he played a prank on his brother. Seven months. Sleeping on a beanbag. She filmed it. She edited it. She uploaded it. And she titled it "My Son Lost His Bedroom." It got millions of views.
She filmed herself refusing to bring a lunch to her six-year-old daughter at school because the girl had forgotten it at home. The teacher called, worried the child was hungry. Ruby told the camera—with a smile—that she wouldn't bring food because the six-year-old needed to "feel the pain" of irresponsibility. She monetized her daughter's hunger. She turned it into a lesson for the audience.
But as the channel grew, the control had to escalate. The "perfect family" narrative required perfect compliance. When the cameras were off, the Director didn't stop directing. She just started using harsher tools.
In her journals—which were later recovered by police—she didn't write like a mother. She wrote like a warden. She described her children as "manipulative" and "evil." She wrote about shaving their heads. She wrote about withholding water. She wrote, quote: "These are the days of my life... I am in a penitentiary with a demon." She wasn't talking about a criminal. She was talking about her son.
She had convinced herself that the abuse was love. That the starvation was "cleansing." That she was editing the sin out of them, the same way she edited a vlog.
August 30th, 2023. That "demon"—a twelve-year-old boy—escapes from a window in Ivins, Utah. He climbs into a neighbor's yard. He is emaciated. He has open wounds on his wrists and ankles from where he had been bound with duct tape. When the police arrive, they find his ten-year-old sister in a closet, so malnourished she has to be hospitalized immediately.
Ruby Franke is now serving four consecutive sentences of one to fifteen years in prison. But here is the detail that haunts me: In the days before the arrest, while her children were starving in the basement, Ruby was still filming. She was still posting advice. She was still smiling for the camera, playing the role she had cast herself in.
The Director never yelled "Cut.", nor her own conscience.
The justice system had to do it for her.
(Theme music begins to fade in—slow, ominous cello)
But here's what I think we actually missed.
It didn't start with abuse. It didn't start with religious extremism.
It started with a camera. And an audience. And the moment Ruby realized that the curated version of her life got more love than the real one.
These aren't isolated incidents. These aren't just bad people who happened to have cameras.
This is what happens when the performance becomes the priority. When the aesthetic becomes the ethic.
Belle Gibson wasn't documenting her recovery—she was manufacturing a wellness fantasy. The Stauffers weren't documenting their adoption—they were producing a reality show where the cast members couldn't quit. Ruby Franke didn't start out as a monster—but the moment money and eyeballs got involved, she stopped being a mother and started being a Director.
And when the real life didn't match the story she was selling? She didn't change the story. She punished the real life until it complied.
Ruby Franke is an extreme. She's a grotesque. She's what happens when the disease goes terminal.
But the disease? The disease is everywhere.
(Beat. Lean into the mic.)
And if you've ever positioned your kid in better light before taking a photo... If you've ever waited to post something until the aesthetic was right... If you've ever chosen a coffee shop not because the coffee was good, but because the tile work would look good on your feed...
Then you're in the Director's chair too.
We all are.
(THEME MUSIC SWELLS)
(THE HANDSHAKE)
PATRICK: (Let the music fade. A breath. Acknowledge the weight.)
That was... a lot. I know.
My name is Patrick Fore. This is The Terrible Photographer—and today is Episode 39. I'm calling it "The Curator's Disease."
If this is your first time here—I'm sorry it's this one. This one is a little bit more intense. But also, welcome. These episodes are in no particular order, so feel free to jump around. And as always, you can email me anytime. Questions, thoughts, existential spirals. I respond to everything. Email's in the show notes.
(Brief pause. Then, conversational.)
Today, we're talking about validation. Ego. And the cost of turning your life into content.
(MUSIC FADES OUT)
(THE DIAGNOSIS)
PATRICK: Alright so, social media didn't invent this. Social media is really just the distribution channel. The disease I think, was already there—the platforms just gave it a stage and a monetization strategy. A feedback loop that turned a low-grade cultural neurosis into a full-blown epidemic.
And honestly? It doesn't matter which platform is worse. They're all running the same con. They've all gamified human connection. They've all turned your life into a performance metric. Views. Likes. Subscribers. Followers. Different words for the same drug.
This is about something bigger. Something older. This is about the professionalization of living.
We have taken the tools, the aesthetics, and the strategies of commercial image-making—things that were designed to sell stand mixers and luxury sedans—and we've imported them into our personal lives.
We location scout our own weekends. We style our kids for the park. We only shoot in good light. We treat our families like supporting cast in a movie where we're the protagonist. And we hide everything—everything—that doesn't serve the narrative.
And it's not just photographers. It's everyone.
Take the mom at the park. She isn't just pushing her kid on the swing. She’s checking the lighting. She dressed the kid in muted neutrals because she knows neon doesn't look good on the grid. She's not a professional. But she's art directing her life. She's thinking about engagement. She's thinking about which caption will get the "You're such a good mama" comments. She's not living—she's producing.
Why? Validation, sure. Humans are starved for it. We've outsourced our self-worth to an algorithm. We don't feel like we're doing it right unless the metrics confirm it.
But it's not just validation. There's ego in this. Ambition. The chance to be seen. To matter. To be the main character in a story that other people are watching.
And here's the dark truth: It is easier to curate a perfect life than it is to actually live one.
It is easier to present a varnished, color-graded facade of the life we think we should be living than it is to actually do the work of living it.
So we perform. We curate. We edit. We hide the mess. We only show the approved scenes. And eventually, we convince ourselves that the story we're telling is real.
But it's not. It's a commercial. And the problem is, we are both the product and the Creative Director.
PATRICK: So let’s look at how the sausage is actually made. And by sausage, I mean the "aspirational lifestyle" you’re trying to replicate on a Tuesday.
Take a Lululemon campaign. Or any high-end ath-leisure brand. You know the images. The perfect Saturday afternoon at the park. The light is soft and golden. The outerwear is curated. The family looks healthy, hydrated, and ridiculously happy. It’s a vision of a Sunday morning where no one is hungover, no kids are screaming, and everyone has their shit together.
When you see that image, it burns into your subconscious. You want the leggings, sure. But mostly, you want the feeling of that Sunday morning.
But here is what I know—because I have been in these rooms for twenty years: That image isn’t a moment. It’s a strategy.
That "casual" Saturday afternoon? It started six months ago in a glass-walled conference room. There were Art Directors building mood boards, debating the emotional impact of "playing at the park" versus "hiking on a trail." There were Creative Directors pitching concepts to Product Managers. There were arguments about budget. About casting. About whether the "mom" looked relatable enough or too aspirational. There were teams of people deciding exactly how that sunlight should hit the hoodie to make you feel like your life could be that peaceful.
They aren't just selling you yoga pants. They are selling you a set design.
But the problem is, the consumer doesn't see the mood board. They don't see the budget meeting. They just see the life.
And then the brain worm burrows in. You start to believe that in order to be happy—to be a "good" parent, a "healthy" person, a "successful" human—your life needs to look like that campaign. You adopt the Lululemon brand into your own main character energy.
So what happens? We start reverse-engineering our existence. We don't go to the park just to go to the park. We go to the park to perform the Lululemon ad. We style the kids. We scout the light. We act out the "joyful family afternoon" that was invented by a marketing team in Vancouver to sell polyester blends.
We aren't just buying the product. We are attempting to recreate the production.
And that is where the professionalization of living becomes dangerous. Because Lululemon had a two-hundred-thousand-dollar budget and a crew of thirty people to make that Saturday look effortless. You are trying to do it alone. With a toddler who needs a nap. And a spouse who is annoyed. And a dog that won't sit still.
You are trying to hit a commercial production standard on a home-video budget. And you wonder why you’re exhausted? You’re exhausted because you’re working an unpaid internship for a lifestyle brand that doesn't even know you exist.
(THE THIRD PARTY: THE COMPOSITE CLIENT)
PATRICK: I want to tell you about a shoot I did a few years ago. I'm not going to name the client—because I don't trash-talk clients, and also because the specifics don't matter. This could be any shoot. This could be every shoot.
It was for a kitchen appliance brand. Mid-tier. Nice product. The campaign concept was "family connection." You know the vibe: Multi-generational. Warm. Authentic. The kind of thing where the tagline would be something like, "Bringing families together, one meal at a time
So we cast a family. Not a real family—actors. But people who looked like a real family. We pulled profiles from a casting site. Looked at headshots. Demographics. Age ranges. We needed a dad in his early 40s. A mom, late 30s. Two kids—one preteen, one younger. Maybe a grandparent if the budget allowed it.
We booked them. They showed up to set. They looked amazing. I mean, they looked like the Platonic ideal of an aspirational American family. The dad had the right amount of silver in his beard. The mom had the kind of effortless style that suggested she "just threw this on." The kids were cute but not too cute. Diverse enough to check a box, but not so diverse that it would alienate Middle America.
On paper? Perfect.
But when we started shooting, something was off. The chemistry wasn't there. They looked great standing next to each other, but they didn't feel like a family. The interactions were stiff. The smiles were a half-second late. The mom would touch the dad's shoulder, and it looked like she was touching a stranger. Which, to be fair, she was.
So we had to manufacture it. And here's where the technical machinery takes over.
I'm shooting tethered. Shooting at f/4 because we need everyone sharp but the background soft. The key light is actually a large wall of windows I’ve gaff tape sealed in gridded silk on the outside, aiming two 1000 watt profoto strobe umbrellas at.
I've got a reflector on the right to fill the shadows just enough—not flat, but forgiving. There's a hair light behind them mounted above a cabinet, just bright enough to separate them from the background.
Everything is controlled you know. Everything is designed. I'm watching the live view on the monitor, checking the histogram, making sure the skin tones land where I want them. The client is standing behind me, nodding. The art director is checking her phone. Producer is staring at the ipad stressing about getting through the shot list.
And I'm directing. "Okay, Dad, lean in a little. Mom, tilt your head toward him. Kids, look at the food, not the camera. Laughing—now. Bigger. Hold it. Hold it."
We shoot for 10 hours. I take close to 1000 photos and complete the twelve images we need.
It looked perfect. It looked real.
The client loved it. It tested well. It probably sold a lot of product.
But here's the thing: It was a lie. Every single frame. The family didn't exist. The moment didn't exist. The warmth, the connection, the intimacy—it was all engineered. Dialed in. Calculated down subtle streak of warm light on the back wall.
And that's fine. That's the job. That's what I get paid to do. I manufacture aspiration for a living. My goal is to show people a life they could be living—but aren't yet—if they would only buy the product I'm photographing.
It's a commercial. Everyone knows it's a commercial. Nobody's confused.
Except... I think we are confused. Because we've stopped being able to tell the difference.
(THE CONFESSION)
PATRICK: And not to be all arrogant or whatever. I’m fucking good at this. I can do this better than most people. And I do.
Because this is my job. I know what will work and what doesn’t. I know how to style. I know how to position people so it flatters them—and the product. I know how to make the light bend to my will. And I know how to manufacture a moment that looks spontaneous but was actually planned three days in advance.
And it's hard to turn that off.
No—that's not true. It's not hard. It's impossible. I don't know how to turn it off anymore.
So when I look at my own life—when I look at the tens of thousands of photos I've taken of my family over the years—I have to admit something: The photos look a hell of a lot better than my actual life.
And I'm not saying my life is bad. Objectively, my life is pretty good. I live in San Diego. I have a family. I have a dog. I get to do work I care about. If you looked at my feed, you'd probably think my life was borderline aspirational.
Epic hikes in Washington. Sunset wave frolicking with my family and Loki on the beach. Ice cream cones at farmers markets on perfect Sunday mornings. Road trips. Golden hour family portraits. All the things I want to show people. All the moments I have approved—as Creative Director—to show people.
But here's what I haven't shown you: The toddler meltdowns. The diaper blowouts at 2 AM. The moments early on when I was so exhausted and frustrated that I put her in the crib, closed the door, and sat on the floor in the hallway with my head in my hands. The times I've yelled. The times I've failed. The nights I lie awake feeling like a failure as a father, as a husband, as a human.
Those moments? I hide them. Because they don't contribute to the story I'm creating. They don't serve the main character storyline. The images when things are real and messy and hard—those aren't the supporting cast narrative I want to show people.
So I curate. I edit. I location scout my own life. I only post the approved scenes. I manufacture the intimacy. I art-direct my own existence.
And I know—I know—there's a cost to this.
(THE INFECTION)
PATRICK: The cost isn't just internal. It's not just the exhaustion of maintaining the illusion. It's not just the gap between what I show and what I feel.
The cost is external. Because every curated post, every carefully framed moment, every aspirational image I put out into the world—it's a contagion. It's a toxin. It infects everyone who sees it.
Here's how it works: You see my beach sunset photo with my family. It looks beautiful. It looks effortless. It looks like the kind of life you wish you were living. And even if you consciously know it's curated—even if you tell yourself, "He probably took fifty photos to get that one"—there's still a tiny voice in the back of your head that says, "Why doesn't my life look like that?"
And that voice grows. It metastasizes. Because it's not just my photo. It's everyone's photos. Your feed is an endless scroll of other people's best moments. The highlight reel. The approved scenes. The art-directed lives.
And no matter how good your life is—no matter how objectively fortunate or happy or stable you are—there's always someone whose life appears to be better. Someone whose kids are better behaved. Whose vacations are more exotic. Whose kitchen is cleaner. Whose marriage looks happier. Whose everything looks more put-together.
And you start to feel like you're not enough. Like you're failing. Like you're a bad parent, a bad partner, a bad human—because your life doesn't look like the commercial.
But here's the sick joke: Their life doesn't look like the commercial either. They're curating too. They're hiding their mess too. They're performing too. We're all performing. We're all lying. We're all infecting each other with a toxic dose of comparison that leaves us—no matter how good our lives actually are—feeling like we're not good enough.
And I'm complicit. I'm not a victim of this system. I'm a participant. I'm spreading the disease. Every time I post a curated moment, I'm contributing to the problem. I'm manufacturing aspiration—not for a product, but for my own life. And in doing so, I'm making you feel like yours isn't good enough.
I'm poisoning you. And I know it. And I can't stop.
(THE PIVOT)
PATRICK: So here's what I used to think: I thought social media made us curators. I thought the platforms trained us to see our lives as content. I thought the algorithm rewarded the performance, and we adapted to survive.
But I don't think that's true anymore.
I think we were already curators. We were already performing. We were already desperate for validation, for approval, for proof that we were enough. Social media didn't create the disease—it just gave us the distribution. It gave us the audience. It gave us the feedback loop.
And it turned a low-grade human neurosis—the desire to be seen, to be valued, to matter—into a full-time job.
Ruby Franke didn't start abusing her children because of YouTube. She probably already had the impulse. The camera just gave her a reason to justify it. To frame it. To turn it into content. To convince herself that the performance was more important than the reality.
The platform didn't make her a monster. It just made her a public monster.
And the rest of us? We're not monsters. We're just tired. We're just trying to feel like we're doing it right. Like we matter. Like our lives are worth documenting.
But somewhere along the way, we stopped documenting our lives and started directing them. We stopped being present and started producing. We turned our families into supporting cast. We turned our homes into sets. We turned our existence into a campaign.
And I don't know how to stop.
(THE RESOLUTION)
PATRICK: Here's the truth: The only honest photos are the ones I didn't take.
The meltdown in the grocery store. The fight with Jaimi at 11 PM when we're both too exhausted to be kind. The morning I woke up and realized I had no idea what I was doing as a father. The moment I looked at my daughter and felt nothing but frustration and guilt.
Those are the real moments. Those are the true images. But I didn't document them. Because they didn't serve the narrative. Because they didn't fit the aesthetic. Because I didn't want you to see them.
And maybe that's fine. Maybe there should be a boundary. Maybe some things are private. Maybe not everything needs to be content.
But I think the problem is deeper than that. I think the problem is that I'm not even living those moments anymore. I'm too busy thinking about whether they're worth photographing. Whether they'll perform. Whether they serve the story.
I've professionalized my own existence. I've turned my life into a client project. And I'm both the Creative Director and the talent. And I'm exhausted.
And I know I'm infecting you. I know that every time I post a carefully curated moment, I'm contributing to your sense of inadequacy. I'm making you feel like your life isn't good enough. Like you're not good enough.
And I know it. And I can't stop.
(THE RESTORATION)
PATRICK: I don't have a solution for you. I don't have a three-step plan to cure the disease. I don't know how to un-professionalize my life. I don't know how to stop seeing every moment as a potential composition. I don't know how to turn off the Creative Director in my head.
But I know this: We're all sick. And we're all infecting each other. And the only way this gets better is if we stop pretending. If we stop curating. If we stop performing.
And maybe that starts with admitting the truth: Your life doesn't look like your feed. Neither does mine. Nobody's does. We're all lying. And the lie is killing us.
So maybe the first step is just... honesty. Radical, uncomfortable, unfiltered honesty. Not as content. Not as a performance. Just as a fact.
My life is messy. My parenting is inconsistent. My marriage is hard sometimes. My house is cluttered. My kid has meltdowns. I have meltdowns. I don't have it together. I'm not the main character in a movie. I'm just a guy with a camera who's trying to figure out how to be present in his own life.
And maybe if I say that—if we all say that—the disease loses some of its power. Because the disease only works if we believe the lie. If we believe that everyone else has it figured out. That everyone else's life is better. That we're the only ones struggling.
But we're not. We're all struggling. We're all faking it. We're all just trying to feel like we're enough.
And maybe we already are.
(THE LIGHT LEAK)
PATRICK: I'm going to try something. It's small. But it's all I've got.
Next time I have a moment with my family—a real moment, a messy moment, a moment that doesn't serve the narrative—I'm not going to reach for the camera. I'm not going to think about the light. I'm not going to position anyone. I'm just going to be there.
And maybe I'll forget what it looked like. Maybe I won't remember the details. Maybe it'll just disappear into the ether like every other undocumented moment in human history.
But at least it'll be real. At least I'll have lived it. Instead of directing it.
And maybe that's enough.
Stop curating your life. Stop performing for an audience that isn't watching. Stop poisoning yourself—and everyone else—with the lie.
Just live. Messily. Honestly. Imperfectly.
Stay curious. Stay courageous. And yeah... stay terrible.