Yesterday I posted a movie and some commentary on the ethics of manipulating photos. Now there is a viral video from diet.com talking about the same thing, but with a diet and body image slant.
I haven’t actually listened to the whole thing, as I am supposed to be working. Some of the tricks remind me of some things that I saw on the ‘Watch Us Lose’ table on the front page of Kimkins over the last year or so. Of course some of Heidi’s pictures needed nothing more complicated than a slight vertical stretch to help recreate past weight loss success.
I removed this post because I wasn’t happy with my first attempt at creating a screen cast.
In it’s place, I am going to have a reminder.
Archive.org is very useful for reviewing the content that was on a website in the recent, or less recent past. Being banned from accessing the URL of the current website does not impact your ability to look at content that has been archived by third parties, including Google.
Consumer Affairs journalist David Wood wrote an very good article about Kimkins and it hit the net early today. He was pretty critical of Woman’s World, so much so that I want to go back and see if they really wrote some of the stuff that he is quoting. A lot of the hype sounds almost insane in retrospect.
The only new news for people who have been following along are some frank quotes from lawyer John Tiedt.
I am glad to see the story retold on a website with the reach and traffic of a site like ConsumerAffairs.com.
The seven figure sales at Kimkins.com were due in no small part to the favorable coverage in Woman’s World Magazine. This publication has huge circulation, and the print versions will often sit in waiting rooms and salons enjoying months or years of repeated perusal. People seeking to expose the Kimkins fraud did not get very far in trying to convince Woman’s World to make any kind of reversal or apology. We personally received no answers to our questions last year and instead got a cease and desist order. In response to the letter, I made changes to the cover image that I was using to make it arguably transformative. There was no follow up from the magazine. I didn’t send any further correspondence to them. Many, many interested people did.
After a long wait, the magazine has finally apologized in detail, on their website. A print apology is also forthcoming. I thank them for it.
I assume that you are aware of the fact that the founder of Kimkins committed fraud by claiming to have had a dramatic weight loss. I noticed that you are continuing to update your affiliate site and I am wondering if you realize that you are exposing yourself to potential legal action by continuing to publish lies.
I would appreciate any response to this email and I must advise you that I would consider publishing the content on a blog.
Sincerely,
Martin
And, less than 20 minutes later (Know any people who get into trouble with impulsive behavior ?)
wouter van dyck to me 8:22 pm (23 minutes ago)
who are you and why should i justify myself to you?
i don’t now how you do your research but that blog isn’t updated in like 2 months
and as far is i now, i really don’t follow that, there has been no conviction or arrest so legal action against me?
please
wouter didn’t put his name at the bottom of the response. I don’t know if he had intended to reply anonymously.
Kimkins is optimized for search engines. The SEP work was carried out before Heidi Diaz came clean about her actual weight. If you search the term Kimkins on Google, you will see Kimkins.com at the top of the search. Below the site description are seven links to pages within the site. One of them is the old Who is Kimmer page. On that page is the fraudulent after picture and also the 198 lb weight loss claim and the text of the old interview with Jimmy Moore. This page should be deleted. I have to wonder whether it had been left up on purpose.
Heidi Diaz has decided to, in her words, come clean on the Kimkins website. She is no longer claiming to look like any of these after photos. I couldn’t help but notice that the recent photograph of the real Kimmer that was added to the website today looks a bit vertically stretched. I am curious as to what other people think.
Please feel free to leave comments on this blog. I have had to use full moderation, but I will be approving as often as possible.
Google Trends is a tool from Google that has not really caught on. I guess the disclaimers about accuracy might have something to do with that. Nevertheless, when I was researching something entirely unrelated, I got the idea to see what the Trends Graph for Kimkins looked like.
Take a moment to picture what you think it might look like before you click the link.
This is just a quick post to remind people who have an interest in Kimkins that there is a Slamboard YouTube Channel with a couple of relevant videos.
I chose not to embed these videos on this blog, but they are embeddable for any other bloggers who want to publicize them and comment on them. They are surveillance videos.
During the several days spent on surveillance, I observed Ms. Diaz out of the apartment twice. She was usually seated at a window on her computer. I remember thinking “what a strange woman”, just sitting at the computer all day long creating diet schemes to take money from people who have placed their hopes in her hands to help them lose weight.
I passed by her vehicle one day and noticed a tray of sugar cookies with sprinkles just recently opened and sitting on the passenger seat of her mini van. This from a woman telling other people to eat 500 to 800 calories a day all the while she is taking in much much more than that.
