Taking selfies still seems to be all the rage and I'm sure sales of selfie sticks remain strong even though nobody talks about them anymore. But what's better than a selfie of just you? How about you and all your friends looking really happy together?
There's one problem with snapping a photo of you and your friends, though, and it's not managing to get everyone in the same place at the same time. It's the fact there's a lot of people out there without any friends. In Japan, that isn't a problem thanks to a service offered by Family Romance called Real Appeal.
If you want to snap a photo with friends, but don't have any, Family Romance will send some friends to a location of your choosing to make the photo happen anyway. They'll pose, smile, and look genuinely friendly in your company in return for a fee. Family Romance make some cash and customers get an image to post on those all-important social networks.
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As RocketNews24 rightly points out, this may temporarily solve your real-life friends problem, but does it really do anything for your online social profile? There's also a big problem with the Real Appeal service. Family Romance sends out members of its staff to act as friends, and there's only so many of them. After a while, it's going to be easy to spot them appearing in images as not real friends.
Customers can mix it up, though. Family Romance allows you to select gender, age, and a number of visual characteristics you'd prefer in your friends. The service also suggests it can be a great way of making an ex jealous and potentially getting them back.
As for cost, it's a minimum of $71 per friend, which gets you two hours with them. If you're using props in the photo, for example, you want a scene where friends are eating and drinking, the bill for that is the responsibility of the customer, too. So, fake friends aren't cheap.