Are you here for the photo shoot? Of course you are, why else would you be lurking around? Let’s get things moving. Follow me and stand over there, please. No, there. More to the left, now take a seat. Perfect.

Where’s the camera guy? He was here just a second ago. Hey, you! No, not you. Him—yes! Send him over here, we’re starting.

You’d think he would show a little more gusto for a job we could replace with AI at the snap of our fingers. Maybe that was cold. But let’s face it, we could easily, easily get some chatbot to spew out a thousand stock photos of beautiful, demographically representative stock traders in an hour. But the VP thinks readers will respond better when they see real human suffering, which will give our articles a higher click-through rate. So here we are, like it’s 2023.

Listen to me blathering on while you sit there looking all professional like a real stock trader. Let’s start with you wearing a headset. Sure, the one on your head. Give me your best worried look.

Not bad, a little cutesy. Try it again and think about every stock market in America crashing into fiery flames like the Hindenburg. Imagine you’re watching your own 401k nosedive straight into the ground where it keeps going, burrowing into the crust of the earth before disintegrating into mantle purée.

Good, good. Now I’m feeling concerned about my financial future.

Let’s try one with the headset around your neck, flaky Gen Z worker-type. Do something with your hands—anything—and show me pure terror. Too Macaulay Culkin, but I appreciate the effort. Imagine you’re a bright-eyed trader on their first day on Wall Street and the Nasdaq gets eviscerated before they have time to show you where the bathroom is. Your deodorant hasn’t even worn off and the market doesn’t exist anymore. Unthinkable, but there you have it folks. Kaput.

That’s great. You’re making me want to call my broker in a craze and tell him to sell it all. But remember, we need to see the horror in your eyes. Otherwise, readers can tell it’s staged. Cry—inside or outside, I don’t care—but use your eyes. Not bad, not bad.

Do we have those headlines? Let me read some of these to you for inspiration. These are the kinds of doomsday articles we're hoping these photos will get paired with. While you respond with all the emotional prowess that your MFA in Performing Arts bequeathed, keep in mind these are all real and taken from the last 48 hours: “Stock Market Crash Goes Nuclear,” “Meltdown Makes Chernobyl Look Like a Kitchen Fire,” “Nobody Can Retire for 30 Years,” “Warren Buffett Changes His LinkedIn Status to ‘Open to Work.'”

Let’s get visceral. Unbutton your shirt and frazzle your hair. God no, all I see is Noah Centino pretending he has a real job. Push it out at the sides and find the frazzle inside. Imagine they connected an electrical shock to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and every time it loses a point, you get a five-volt shock. Is that a lot? I don’t know. Just imagine it hurts. Like that, perfect.

Show me deep pain. Think of some personal trauma so horrible that you’ve never even considered telling another soul about it. Now imagine it’s displayed on the S&P 500 for every human on Earth to gawk at, and after the only reasonable thing to do is to find a deep hole and crawl inside until winter comes to end the suffering. That’s what I’m talking about. I think you just gave me a chill.

Remember, cry with your eyes.