I think you all are misunderstanding the article. It's extremely common on medium articles to use stock photo at the top of your article. This probably also serves as an article thumbnail in article summaries/indexes.
The author clearly uses a photo of what is ostensibly themselves as their profile pic. Nothing in the article indicates "this is me."
More important: there is little if anything to be gained by this deception. The article includes self promotion, including "Connect with me on twitter" in the author byline. But this is IMO a par for the course quid-pro-quo in nearly every blog article ever written.
I know it is extremely common, but one thing is when you write something about (say) biking let's say titled "Biking is good for your soul" and have a nice stock photo of a "generic biker" on a mountain trail, another IMHO is if the title is:
"I’m learning to code at 56. Here’s an epic beat-down of my critical inner self."
and just after the title you put an image of a good looking fiftyish guy looking at the reader straight in the eyes, and right after it you repeat:
"I’m 56 years old and learning to code.".
Maybe it is not "intended" or done in any way in "bad faith", still it does seem like saying, "here I am, at 56, look at me".
The author clearly uses a photo of what is ostensibly themselves as their profile pic. Nothing in the article indicates "this is me."
More important: there is little if anything to be gained by this deception. The article includes self promotion, including "Connect with me on twitter" in the author byline. But this is IMO a par for the course quid-pro-quo in nearly every blog article ever written.