By Teresa A. Martin
Yup, I’ll admit I don’t exactly have a life. Which is why I find myself drawn again and again to Ebay.
I have been fascinated with EBay since its inception. It’s always reminded me of my favorite childhood Saturday morning talk radio show in our rural town. The show was called “Swap Shop” and people would call in with objects they had and objects they were looking for – which ranged from the mundane (size 7 ladies leather ice skates) to the offbeat (there’s this part my truck needs and Ford doesn’t make it any more and ...) It was theatre, commerce, and community all wrapped into one.
Ebay is just like that, but it runs 24/7. From the very start, it has been a mirror of all things human – the good, the bad, and really really weird. About nine weeks ago I found myself pulled into it again ... late one night, when I couldn’t sleep ... there was a whole world out there of stuff, browsable stuff.
In short order I was in vintage land, poking through racks of 1940s gabardine jackets and classic wool suits, at Hollywood starlet owned gowns and oh so much much else. As I browsed (ok, and bid a little too!) over the past few weeks, I’ve realized again that communities do form around shared interest – and that in vintage land, I was right in the middle of one.
When events around us rock our sense of balance – the tragedy in the Amish school, a shoot out in nice quaint safe Cape Cod – we inevitably start to ask where things went wrong. We start pointing at anything and everything to explain the unexplainable. It’s our society. It’s technology. It’s our lack of direction. It’s ... fill-in-your-favorite-explanation.
Maybe that’s why I’m attracted to vintage land, where the colors and shapes give off the glow of something elegant, of glamour, or simple right/wrong and yes/no constructs. Vintage land is a very busy place – at this particular second there are 56,018 objects in that category alone. The market is speaking and showing that there’s a demand for classic objects from our past.
Of course, the past wasn’t really so glowing when it was present. At the same time in history when someone was buying that glam mermaid dressing gown I have my eye on, my grandmother was pressing flat used tin foil for reuse and storing it the spare room where we’d find it years later -- because it was the war and times were pretty darn tough, and in an immigrant community nothing was terribly clear cut or black and white.
All of which circles back to remind me that technology only does those things that are part of what we already are. We seek answers. We seek connection. We make markets. We look for kindred souls and communities of interest. We do that in the real world ... and today we do it on line.
Commerce is part of what we do with each other. Through eBay, there is a market for all sort of objects of interest to very vertical communities -- communities that find each other through that marketplace.
That fact is very simple and very profound at the same time, and speaks volumes about the way our social interactions are the same as they have always been -- but are just powered by different tools.
Have you ever gone to the same flea market or auction house and seen how the regular vendors and the regular patrons all know each other? Or worked at a mall and gotten to know everyone working the stores all around you and all the regular shoppers? These aren’t deep interactions in the F2F world, but they are very real. And they are mirrored in eBay as well. These “virtual” social interactions are every bit as real.
I’ve talked (well, typed) to many real people. I’ve got near real time answers about fabrics and compared what kind of Coach bags we have in our closets. I heard about the loss of grandchild. I looked at listings because person A knew person B and they’d both had eBay stores for several years in related areas and person A directed me to person B.
This is human interaction. This is not depersonalized technology.
We want to point to technology as an explainer of why the world feels topsy-turvy, but on deeper exploration all we find is a different technique for doing the same things. Congress wants to ban and block evil social networking sites that threaten our children and fabric of society. Uhm, just like jazz did, right? Or rock-and-roll? Or punk?
The world only looks like it is changing. Underneath, it’s the same scary place it’s always been, and the thing that makes it all hang together is each other. And we’re going to use every tool we have to interact in a myriad of ways.
Which reminds me, it’s time to go check that auction for the little black dress that has my name written all over it! Don't you just love the global virtual vertical world?
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