Front Page Crapfest
This post first appeared on Regretsy on August 10, 2011.
If you have a shop on Etsy, then you’re already familiar with their sophisticated method of promoting sellers. I like to call it, Get Your Friends to Buy Your Shit. I don’t know what Etsy calls it, but it’s probably something like, Locally Sourced Commerce Incentivizationizing™.
Of course, you don’t get to be the 53rd biggest web site in the United States by taking your customers for granted (that’s just a lucky bonus). And that’s why Etsy also offers their favorite sellers two exceptional promotional opportunities:
• Etsy’s Handmade Portraits: hoary, desaturated YouTube videos of women with oversized glasses riding bikes and talking about yarn
• Etys’s front page: the mecca for all scrambling handcrafters who use their disability benefits to buy pony beads
With so few real opportunities for exposure, the front page has become a coveted piece of real estate. Not only does it get you much needed publicity, it’s also the only time Etsy acknowledges your existence. Apart from collecting your listing fees.
Needless to say, Etsy takes the curation of this page very seriously. And by seriously, I mean “let’s put that up there because it’s yellow.”
Here then, are a few selections recently chosen for Etsy’s front page. Think of this as a teaching moment. If you’ve never had a piece on the front page, study this work carefully, and compare it against your own.
And then you can pour yourself a drink with your bloody, burned, stained fingers.
What a fantastic tale! I wonder if I can get it on Kindle.
By the way, I hear they’re making this into a major motion picture starring Helen Mirren as the button.
Five bottles of Pepsi, delivered to your door for $75. Awesome! I think BevMo had a sale like this in 2031.
$32. For a plastic shark. Plus $15 shipping. Because it ships from Switzerland. Which means you’re going to have to go to the post office and fill out customs forms. For a toy shark. Because you’re an idiot.
It has come to our attention that the artwork you are currently displaying is in violation of our copyright. We demand that the finger painting on your refrigerator entitled “Momy” (sic) be removed by end of business day, or we will pursue our claim to the full extent of the law.
Sometimes, when I’m really stressed out, I like to look at my wall decal and remind myself to take a nice deep breathe.
Isn’t that so French? It’s from Le Road Rash collection™. It reminds me of the time I had my wisdom teeth extracted and drooled all over my sham. ça vaut le coup!
Okay, all kidding aside, I can see why this made the front page. Of everything here, this is may be the most nuanced and carefully crafted. It has an interesting textural quality – a playful and unexpected juxtaposition of soft and sharp, cool and hot, smooth and rough. I would actually wear this.
Nah, I’m fucking with you. It’s a piece of shit.
July 21, 2012 at 9:37 am
That pillow is for light to medium sleep flow.
July 21, 2012 at 9:39 am
It’s all going to crap. Break out the popcorn.
July 21, 2012 at 8:54 pm
I think I’ve been on Regretsy too long tonight.. I wasn’t surprised until I reread your comment anjd realized it *didn’t* say “I’m going to crap.”
July 21, 2012 at 9:40 am
I really think my class of preschoolers could do better! At least they like to use a much more sophisticated color palate.
July 21, 2012 at 9:41 am
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/228011_10150175470839440_766789_n.jpg
meant to add this. oops.
I’m in the middle of making watermelon vodka balls.
July 21, 2012 at 9:41 am
I don’t think the pillow was handcrafted.
I’m sure they thought Etsy was an easy way to try to get rid of the cushions from their red tent party.
July 21, 2012 at 9:42 am
ewwwwww!
July 21, 2012 at 10:56 am
Incidentally, I was JUST talking with one of my friends about red tent parties.
…it may have been to suggest that she make a RT pendant out of a broken iPod knockoff, but still, trippy.
July 21, 2012 at 1:40 pm
I think Etsy counts it as “handcrafted” even if you make it with body parts other than your hands.
July 21, 2012 at 9:42 am
PILLOW = BIO-HAZARD
July 23, 2012 at 9:53 am
Zombie pillow fight results? (imagines a sexy pillowfight with zombie girls and shudders)
Mind you, actual cushions with an embroidered or silk-screened blood spatter pattern…I can think of three of my friends, minimum, who would buy those RIGHT NOW.
July 21, 2012 at 9:42 am
I want a decal on my wall that says “pump blood”- you know, so my heart knows to keep me alive.
July 21, 2012 at 10:16 am
My current wall decal says KEEP BLINKING REGULARLY OR YOU WILL LOSE THE FUNCTION OF YOUR REMAINING EYEBALL.
July 21, 2012 at 10:41 am
You mean, “Pump Blod,” right?
July 21, 2012 at 10:50 am
The misspelling sucks, for sure, but the proliferation of these sorts of decals is really what bothers me. They’re the new “Hang in There!” kitty posters, and they’re fucking stupid.
July 21, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Ugh, me too! I want to punch that bitch who came up with the Keep Calm and Carry On posters right in the ovaries.
July 21, 2012 at 1:52 pm
I’m pretty sure the members of the UK Ministry of Information c. 1939 would be more trouble to punch than you’d care for.
July 21, 2012 at 2:00 pm
I think she’s referring to whomever resurrected it for it’s hipster revival.
July 22, 2012 at 8:06 pm
I completely agree that these phrases are stupid, but what irritate the fuck out of me is the complete uselessness of the single words. FAITH. FAMILY. LOVE. DREAM. KITCHEN. Like you’d forget where you were in your own house, or who those weird people in the living room were, if not for the constant reminders. Guests might never realize they were in the BATH without those words, even while staring right at the toilet. I would never have thought to have a DREAM if not for my inspirational message resin pebble!
Maybe these things are helpful to those with severe memory problems, but the ubiquity of them in every store and magazine leads me to believe that helping those who may actually need it was never these objects’ real purpose.
Of course, it might be fun to have a pocket full of the WISH pebbles, and keep throwing them at someone annoying until they leave. Wish granted!
July 21, 2012 at 9:44 am
Those “vintage” pepsi bottles really take me back to the turbulent times of the Cola Wars. It’s a great keepsake and reminder of how many were lost. Never forget.
July 21, 2012 at 9:59 am
I think even more were gained, though. Despite there being a diet option on each side.
July 21, 2012 at 10:00 am
Crystal Pepsi was one of the casualties. It died so young…just makes you wonder why, you know?
July 21, 2012 at 10:07 am
New Coke, we hardly knew ya.
July 21, 2012 at 1:11 pm
‘Cause it tasted like carbonated spit?
July 21, 2012 at 1:54 pm
You’re too generous. Then again, I only tasted Diet Crystal Pepsi, which I am almost certain was bottled Matmos.
July 21, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Crystal Pepsi turned me off permanently from drinking Pepsi. Any kind of Pepsi.
July 21, 2012 at 1:13 pm
If they really are “vintage”, what would happen if one were to drink the contents of said vintage bottle? I could have sworn I’ve seen bottles just like these at my neighborhood bodegas and Mexican restaurants recently.
July 21, 2012 at 4:20 pm
My parents had some decades-old Cokes that they were saving, and I talked them into letting me drink one. It didn’t taste great but there were no adverse affects.
July 22, 2012 at 6:50 am
Your avatar says otherwise.
July 22, 2012 at 8:25 pm
The Mexican sodas use real sugar instead of corn syrup, too. Of course, this makes the local health food stores who carry Mexican coke feel justified in charging $1.75 per 12 ounce bottle, when the regular grocery across the street has 1-litre corn Coke for $.99.
The Home Depot near me carries Mexican Coke, as well, but manages to charge the same $1.29 that they do for ALL of their cold drinks.
July 21, 2012 at 9:47 am
(ding dong)
-Who is it?
-Plate shark.
-Who?
-Plate shark.
-I’m not letting you in.
-Candygram
-Oh, okay
July 21, 2012 at 9:48 am
You can convert inch to cm here, because I just can’t be bothered to do two quick bits of arithmetic, once and list the results. I’d rather do a Google search to find some website that can do the conversion (which Google could do too) and post the link so you can take your own time to figure it out.
July 21, 2012 at 10:03 am
You want her to buy it for you, too? She already spent upwards of 4 minutes incorrectly copying a lame saying and posting it! Give her a break, she’s tired!
July 21, 2012 at 9:49 am
I don’t know about all y’all, but I jump at any offer labeled “Sham.”
July 22, 2012 at 8:29 pm
That does jump out at the reader, doesn’t it? Boyhowdy, if I’m ever tempted to try and sell an old, stained throw pillow, I’ll be sure to add “SHAM” to the description as often as possible.
July 21, 2012 at 9:50 am
I’m gonna have nightmeres of being strapped to a chair, Clockwork Orange style, then forced to watch all the unedited hipster b-roll from these seller videos.
July 21, 2012 at 9:52 am
Come on people,Its just breath. How important could it be?
July 21, 2012 at 9:56 am
Maybe they meant “Just Garlic Breath”. That would be important to know.
July 21, 2012 at 10:17 am
Sir Hal of Tosis won many a bout with his infamous “joust breath” and, like the Earl of Sandwich, has lent his name to posterity. True story.
July 21, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Sire, ’twas it a just breath?
July 21, 2012 at 9:59 am
As to the buttons, I truly do hope the narrative is correct – that there is/was a transcendent transoceanic connection at the most basic and pure of levels. I find it inspiring.
Because if there is no deep connection it would mean that someone was sitting at their desk one day, opened their junk draw, saw some string and two mismatched buttons, was about to throw them away, but happened to notice an old-fashioned manila envelope, thought to themselves “wait – instead of tossing these things, I’ll just copy that, write some ridiculous horseshit about narratives and interconnectedness and get some hipster douchebag to pay me $225 for it.”
Because that would make me sad.
July 23, 2012 at 9:56 am
I could write a better short story than that in five minutes. (Granted, I’m a writer.) Also, ‘interconnected narrative’ gives me unpleasant flashbacks to softcore counselling techniques I learned in university. Shudder.
July 21, 2012 at 10:10 am
Well, I’m still trying to figure out why my apples need to wear jackets: http://www.etsy.com/listing/62336376/apple-jacket-cranberry-with-lime-green?ref=fp_treasury_7
And seriously, a teachers gift? Why don’t you just give the teacher $20 bucks instead of an apple sweater?
July 21, 2012 at 10:17 am
because apple sweaters are trendy and cute, duh.
July 21, 2012 at 10:39 am
It prevents the fruit from bruising, while making you look like a pretentious douche.
July 21, 2012 at 1:33 pm
This seller has 1024 sales. That’s just fucking depressing.
July 21, 2012 at 2:33 pm
I like the shark beer can cozies. Sure it may seem like a way to make hipsters treasure their PBR more, but….you can use it for like root beer and stuff and say that the shark will bite anyone who tries to take your drink.
July 21, 2012 at 5:19 pm
I’m not sure why apples need cozies, but the shark cozies are amazing.
July 21, 2012 at 5:20 pm
My comment makes it sound like I’m talking about cozies for sharks, but that would just be silly. They’d get all wet.
July 21, 2012 at 4:55 pm
So THAT’s where that parent bought it! I am a bit relieved – at least she didn’t make it herself. The class hamster did a wonderful job of lining her nest with it though. Is it just me, or is that apple picture slightly vaginal? Ahhhh, the influence of Regretsy.
July 21, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Did you know there’s actually a term (“vulvic”) for things that look vaginal? And yes, I was looking to see if that observationvhad been mentioned. Regretsy consistently fails to disappoint!
July 21, 2012 at 10:10 am
http://www.learninghouse.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/i/m/image_1_334.jpg
#4 Humpty Dumpty – Play School.
July 21, 2012 at 1:34 pm
*shudder*
July 21, 2012 at 10:16 am
I actually like the blood pillow…but not $200 like it. I’m also inclined to agree with a previous poster – doesn’t look handmade.
July 22, 2012 at 8:42 pm
I dunno. I’ve been cleaning out my garage over the past couple of days; there were things that have been in moving boxes for over eight years. I’ve seen bits of water-damaged cloth that looked just like that pillow.
I threw them out, ’cause that’s what Goodwill would’ve done, if I’d tried to donate them.
July 21, 2012 at 10:17 am
Video highlight: “My name is Yokoo, but my friends call me Yokoo.”
July 21, 2012 at 10:45 am
WHERE DO THEY FIND THESE PEOPLE?
July 21, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Wandering around the Bellevue outpatient treatment center.
July 21, 2012 at 2:12 pm
She could be crocheting with unicorn hair, and I still wouldn’t buy from a weirdo, ‘hard core’ hipster with a bad bowl cut. Silence my ass… you don’t have any friends to talk to.
How up your own ass can someone be?
July 26, 2012 at 8:47 am
my favorite item in her shop is the
shirt with the saying “all the boys peepee when they see me”.
/it’s been too long since i’ve used html so i hope that coding works.
July 21, 2012 at 10:22 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
July 21, 2012 at 10:34 am
Whenever I used to see a particularly awful front page, I would take tremendous joy in leaving my sentiments. (Usually, “what the fuck is this shit?” or, “who broke into the medicine cabinet?”)
There is a limit on how many times you can do this, before the Cupcake Squad mutes you with silence sprinkles. Approximately 4. And they will still have the balls to ask for your listing fees, after bringing you no traffic and helping you sell zero items.
They’ll get that $2.60. Over my fat, jealous, dead body.
July 21, 2012 at 10:45 am
The repeated items on Front Page Treasuries makes my eyeballs peel.
Over 10 million listings on Etsy and these items were featured multiple times on the Front Page Treasury in the last two weeks of June. http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NTU5OTA2MnwyNzIwNDIyMzEx/rinse-repeatrinse-repeatrinse?index=0
July 21, 2012 at 11:03 am
The sellers thanking you for the “feature” is the icing on the cupcake. That totally made me splorf.
Its all the damn cross-promotion (or, as HK once put it, mutual masturbation). Etsy eats that shit up like freshly baked scones. They shamelessly promote it, and the same damn items/sellers end up on the FP day after day. Its like some sort of complex food web, except nobody is evolving.
The truth of the matter, is that Etsy is falsely advertised. They are not an artist-centric community, they’re a department store, same as Target or Walmart. That’s why you can find the same goddamn “handmade” and “unique” octopus necklace a million and a half times.
(P.S. April, if you can hear me, maybe the empire of regretsy.com needs an artistic marketplace thingie? I mean, we’re all already here. But I know you’re a busy lady granting all sorts of wishes, and I’m happy with just the daily doses of fuckery.)
July 21, 2012 at 11:06 am
Did the word “fap” come from Front Page? Thanks for that, Etsy.
July 21, 2012 at 11:03 am
The Justice League was going to put that decal up in their hall but Superman thought it was a bit much and Aquaman didn’t like the font.
July 21, 2012 at 11:04 am
Yeah, that pillow is a SHAM alright.
July 21, 2012 at 12:45 pm
I’ve got an extra E lying around, if you’d like to add it on to the end there…
July 21, 2012 at 11:05 am
Wow, I bought that same shark at Goodwill for $.99, and the bottles of Pepsi at my neighborhood bodega for $1.25, I’m sitting on a freaking gold mine!!!
July 21, 2012 at 11:21 am
Oh God the childs painting lists ‘heart’ under materials.
My Mum’s basically a hoarder (I still live with her so can keep her from nicking old bits of dishwashers from skips) and used to collect vintage coca cola bottles. We even have an old, rusty cooler thing. I’m going to be a millionaire!
July 21, 2012 at 9:06 pm
I would have expected that in the pillow’s ingredients list. Couldn’t have spotted it in the painting
July 21, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Etsy is using a color averaging algorithm. It’s the same sort of thing used to make portraits of people constructed entirely of other small pictures. When they want “yellow” it just randomly selects a set of pictures that matches the color they’re attempting to turn into the day’s theme.
Unfortunately, to do it, they have to accept ALL pictures as input, because otherwise, it might imply that they care, which as we have established, they don’t.
July 23, 2012 at 10:07 am
But but but…couldn’t they hire a person or two to review front pages before they set them up? All it would take is two or three people, working in shifts, to…
Oh wait, then they’d have to carefully select things.
WAIT…I demand a hand-crafted front page! Even people who create treasuries are getting screwed.
July 21, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Our fearless leader went with “wisdom tooth extraction drool” for that pillow–and she’s not wrong. But, I immediately went to “giant maxi pad.” I guess the lesson here is that sometimes, your bloody garbage is good enough for Etsy.
July 21, 2012 at 1:39 pm
You know that’s true when you see the number of “wombmyn goddess menstrual painting art” on Etsy.
July 21, 2012 at 12:57 pm
I find this after spending two hours working on an 1860′s style pioneer bonnet…and I’m only half way through making it. That’s it I’m going to glue a bunch of glitter and crap on it and see it make the front page!
I’ve seen some work that people spend hours, if not, days on and this stuff makes the front page. It’s enough to make me want to stick my head into the oven.
July 21, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Not into the Pepsi bottles but if someone has any of the failed “New Coke,” we’ll talk business.
July 21, 2012 at 1:59 pm
I’m on a hunt for Crystal Pepsi. According to Cupcakeville, that’s got to be “vintage” by now.
July 22, 2012 at 8:51 pm
Pepsi Blue, or no sale. I don’t even care if it qualifies as ‘vintage’ – it was the only Pepsi I’ve liked since Pepsi Free.
I can only conclude that I have terribly wronged PepsiCo in a past life, and they have been exacting their revenge since the early 80s. “Oh, you like this product, Crab? DISCONTINUED. MUAHAHAHAHAHA.”
July 21, 2012 at 1:59 pm
“The Tale of Two Buttons”?? Really???
The Tale of One Person Who Probably Knows Someone at Etsy:
“I found two buttons that didn’t go to any of my shirts, so I figured I’d shovel on a steaming load of horseshit to make this D- effort appear romantic and artsy. Fuck it, somebody will give me $25 for it. Chad told me he’d put it on the front page.”
July 21, 2012 at 4:06 pm
The tale of two butts.
July 21, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Ah, “Just Breath” is one of my all-time favorite Etsy spelling fails ever.
July 21, 2012 at 7:53 pm
It is better than an unjust breath!
July 22, 2012 at 8:53 pm
It was my favorite line from Ever Aft.
July 21, 2012 at 3:04 pm
“I grew up poor, but only because everyone else had money.”
No. That’s not how “poor” works. You grew up “Middle Class”. Poor is when you have to live on welfare, in the parts of town that aren’t necessarily safe, and don’t feel at liberty to choose your own path in life because of limited resources–for example BUYING APPLE PRODUCTS. Your house is gorgeous. You never “grew up poor”. I did, and I resent your appropriation of my past!!11
July 21, 2012 at 3:47 pm
“I grew up a poor black child.”
July 21, 2012 at 4:05 pm
Ex–except she’s white and–and in Atlanta–fuck, in Georgia you very well HAVE to be white to be happy. White, and not a lady. What with the criminalizing abortions and everything. That’s another thing. So glad I did not go to college there.
July 21, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Steve Martin used that line for comedic effect. But I can see some little Etsy twit using that line seriously. While being white and comfortably middle class.
As an aside, my state house representative in Colorado introduced yet another “Personhood Amendment” a couple months ago. After such an amendment had been on the state ballot–twice–and was decisively shot down–twice. It’ll probably be killed by the state Senate, but Georgia is, sadly, not the only state that seeks to criminalize abortions. So, I feel your pain on that one.
July 21, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Speaking of “The Jerk”/Steve Martin…remember that scene where he’s at the circus (or whatever it was) and he only made $14 from the weight guessing thing? Then his boss came up and said “Look at those prizes. Each of them is only worth 50 cents. So you made 14 dollars off of something that is only worth fifty cents.”
Aka. Etsy in a nutshell.
July 22, 2012 at 3:05 am
This is off the original topic, but… I am just in love with your name, CollectorOfWaywardRacistWhiteCousins. I know nothing about you, but I feel like we have so much in common!
July 21, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Those old broken pencils from Hoarders post the other day are on the front page right now…
July 21, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Ahh! They’re already gone.
July 21, 2012 at 3:34 pm
the people who depend on clueless 20-somethings to buy there shit is welcome to those customers. Trendy may ass.
July 21, 2012 at 4:43 pm
“My collection is centered on the concept of “SHAM”"…no shit, really? Best example of a sham I’ve seen in a while, well at least since I’ve looked at the previous Regretsy entry.
July 21, 2012 at 6:47 pm
If you look on that last necklace, it says “keep you warm.”
It’s a tiny piece of string. How is that supposed to keep me WARM in EXTREMELY COLD WEATHER.
July 22, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Perhaps the freezing cold metal will feel like you’re burning?
…Somehow, I don’t think it’s an accident that, in the photo, it’s artfully draped to look vaguely like “my little pony” – wouldn’t the childhood memories keep you warm?
July 21, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Perhaps you’re supposed to set it on fire?
July 22, 2012 at 4:25 am
It’s the same twist Etsy puts on “bumping” google feeds because if your feed expires 99% of non-favorite sellers fell off that cliff too. Etsy selects all feeds and clearly spends a lot of labor updating the same shops they have for 7 years. Can such a rich company have such a paltry and pedestrian FP curator after 7 long and very boring years? Including such a small-town Brooklyn bias?
50% of my returning customers do not shop on Etsy for many reasons, the FP is one of them. Those $$$$$ salaries at Etsy really have gone to their heads.
July 22, 2012 at 10:08 am
That “Just Breath” misspelling is very prevalent on my facebook feed, among people who are not particularly well-educated. I’ve noticed that some misspellings seem to catch on like wildfire.
This one in particular drives me crazy. I think it’s because the phrase itself is a little pretentious. It’s like it’s supposed to be motivational, but it’s not. And then to add misspelling to that, one that associates it with garlic breath and morning breath, and dog breath. Well, that can only make it worse.
But I never tell people they are misspelling it, because then I would feel like a dick. Unless they posted it in an etsy listing. Then it’s fair game.