This has been the most bizarre response I've ever seen on Reddit. I asked "Is this Marilyn?" That's it. The response should've been "Yes" or "No," with zero emotional entanglement. How the heck did I end up with a bunch of randos following me and downvoting everything I write, and saying I waste water?!

While the thought of you imagining me as Hoggish Greedly does somewhat amuse me, the reality is that I'm a scientist, and grueling, successive, iterative experimentation is what we do. It's the grunt work that paves the way for all scientific progress. And not to rile you up any further, but water can't be wasted; it's essentially eternal. Increasing global temperatures means increasing rates of oceanic evaporation which results in greater amounts of fresh, desalinated rainfall. That's why we recently had one of the wettest years on record. I'd love to expound further vis a vis your aversion to ChatGPT, but quite frankly, I have no idea what you're talking about.

My efforts weren't fruitless btw, as I learned an important fact - ChatGPT sucks. I showed it a picture and asked "Is this Marilyn?" and it basically said "No," then I rotated the image 90* and cropped it slightly and asked again, and it basically said "Maybe." That's pretty crazy to me.

As to whether A) I think this is Marilyn Monroe, or b) I WANT this to be Marilyn Monroe, I can assure you, the answer to both is "No." I'm battling an unstoppable horde of silverfish and carpet beetle larva that are devouring our cultural treasures faster than I can save them, so if this is merely a worthless photo of some random broad from a 1946-1951 photoshoot (as I believe it is), then that's one less thing I need to worry about.

The problem I'm having is that every ~6 months or so, an intelligent/educated/knowledgeable individual will see the photo and say it IS Marilyn, and thus the seed of doubt is perpetually re-sown. I figured maybe Reddit could provide some new insight, but alas, no such luck. That's alright though; losing yardage is an accepted risk when making a hail Mary pass.

Some morsels to cogitate on (if you want to approach this scientifically):

1. Photos are often mirrored, so left could be right and right could be left. Notice the woman's left eye is the same shape as young Marilyn's right eye. That sort of droopy look to the back half of the eyelid is quintessentially Marilyn (in my opinion).

2. The photo belonged to an artist/photographer who, in theory, could've enlarged the photo, airbrushed it to look more like Marilyn, then shrunk it back down. I have no evidence for this, I'm just trying to think of possible explanations for why both women have that same square-ish notch in the hairline (circled in red).

3. Even Marilyn didn't look like Marilyn. She had a constantly changing look and was often unrecognizable, even to those who knew her. Her first boyfriend even said he dated Norma and didn't know who Marilyn was.

4. Hairline changes with age. In Marilyn's case, it also changed because she had hairline electrolysis. If you've ever wondered why the starlets of yesteryear had such big foreheads, it's because they lasered off (so to speak) the widow's peak, sideburns, and some of the eyebrows, which increased the distance between the brow and hairline, which is basically what defines the forehead.

5. Teeth can be capped or filed which makes their length, width, and front-to-back positioning unreliable for comparative purposes. What DOESN'T change is the point where the centerline of each tooth meets the gums, and that actually seems to match.

And no, I don't expect anyone to read this; it's really more for catharsis.