Get Paid $1,000 To Watch Glow-Up Classics Like 'Pretty Woman' And 'Miss Congeniality'

One lucky movie buff now has the incredible opportunity to win $1,000 simply by watching some of Hollywood's glow-up classics like Pretty Woman and Mulan. Shane Company—the largest privately owned jeweler in the United States—recently put out a call for film lovers who feel inspired by a good transformation story to celebrate the joy of "feeling actualized in their career or feeling comfortable in their own skin for the first time." Announcing the competition earlier this month, it wrote: "To celebrate the transformational tale, Shane Co. is enlisting someone to binge-watch 10 glow-up movies and compare the protagonists' transformations to win $1,000."

According to the press release, an ideal applicant is one who enjoys transformational tales and relates to the protagonists' transformative journey. They must also be someone with "a strong personal growth or glow-up story of their own, a love for all things cinematic, and the ability and availability to binge-watch 10 movies in a short period of time." Furthermore, applicants must be 18 years or older and a U.S. citizen or permanent resident to apply. 

A glow-up is a transformation that could be physical or mental. It is a complete 180-degree shift in the person. However, it doesn’t always have to mean a transformation from what is widely considered unattractive and insecure to someone who is conventionally attractive and confident. A lot of queer creators on the internet use the term to show a glow-up between the closeted versions of themselves to the openly queer versions of themselves.

The movies shortlisted to watch are as follows: Pretty Woman, The Devil Wears Prada, Miss Congeniality, My Fair Lady, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Mulan (2020), Last Holiday, Can't Buy Me Love, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Moonstruck. Applicants will receive a worksheet for each movie to take notes and track specific details from the films. All the films must be watched and worksheets must be completed by September 9, 2022.

The winner will be selected based on their performance and the lucky person will be announced on Friday, August 12, 2022. Apart from receiving a $50 gift card from Amazon to rent the films on the list, the winner will also receive a $1000 payment. The deadline to enter the competition is Friday, July 29, 2022. Those interested can apply here. 

Shane Company has been an active host of a number of such competitions, regularly announcing new and exciting contests through their website. They have had one for watching 90s romcoms, another for watching science fiction films, and even a couple of fun online events urging contestants to share a bachelorette picture or photos of people resembling their pets. One time, the company also challenged netizens to give up using the popular social media platform, TikTok. However, it is not the first company to pay people to watch movies. Streaming giant Netflix also has an army of people watching films and TV shows.

This is a legitimate job called Tagging which interested candidates may sometimes find available on the Netflix Job Board. According to The Washington Post, "tagging involves entering words or phrases that describe the movie or television show into the company's database in an effort to make Netflix's search functions more precise. It helps the company categorize their ever-changing catalog, and bring more accurate recommendations to viewers. It involves a humanizing element to a complex, engineered algorithm."

Josh Garrell, one of 40 official taggers employed by Netflix in 2015, revealed that the number of assignments given vary from day to day. He said that although he'd have liked to be a tagger full-time, Netflix only provides tagging jobs part-time. "Even if I didn't do this job, I would probably be watching as much as I am anyway," Garrell said. "I'm just lucky enough to get paid for it." While he also works as a freelance producer for TV and film on the side, he spends many hours on his couch in front of a 110-inch projector screen, tagging for Netflix.

Unfortunately, while Netflix does try to give taggers movies and TV shows they would enjoy, it is not a guarantee. So when Garrell had to watch Bonnie and Clyde: Justified, he felt like it was his most ridiculous assignment. "Some of what [Netflix] looks for in a tagger is somebody who has a voracious appetite for when it comes to watching all types of television shows and movies," he said. The job, as you can imagine, is highly coveted with job listings going down as soon they are released. "I would say, outside of riding an ice cream truck, this is absolutely the best job out there," said Garrell.