AC Dickson: eBay Power Seller

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If you check out one eBay auction this week...
by acdickson

Make it this one.

There is a rare strain of eBay auction that transcends mere commerce. Internet storytelling at its finest? Yes. Funny? Absolutely. Post-modern art? Maybe. Postings like The Ultimate Hippie Vacation illustrates how eBay can be so much more than an on-line flea market.

Cody the hippie may actually be the first eBay personality to transcend eBay nation and make waves in the 'real world.' His trip on a hippie bus has created a website with its own heavy traffic chat room, spin off auctions of t-shirt and buttons, and interest from a documentary filmmaker and TV producers.

And check out the guy who won the bus trip for $6,000. I think I'd rather watch him and Cody drive around in a hippie bus playing out the age-old conflicts of the counter-culture and the straight establishment over most of what's on the tube.

There is no doubt something radical is afoot here. In the ultimate democratization of celebrity, eBay and the internet community are on the verge of pushing the evolution of fame one step further.

For centuries celebrity was based on power, might and magic. Kings, warriors and religious figures were the names on people's tongues. The ability to control people through fear of imprisonment, destruction or damnation elevated your name above the masses. As civilization grew so did the power of money, another way to control, I suppose, as the merchants of Italy, the sultans of the Middle East and the Industrial magnates of America became more famous, then the physically powerful. At the turn of the century, the society pages were filled with the aristocracy. You know the rest of the story, the rich found their newspaper ink slowly but surely shrink as neutered warriors (athletes) and movie stars captured the public's imagination. For awhile the only way a rich person without a personality could get any attention was to go to jail.

Recently, reality TV gave way to the celebrity next door phenomenon. Anyone could capture the cover of People, so long as they made it through the casting process. Reality TV stars are at their best when they are utterly normal: jealous, petty, sentimental, annoying. The smart and clever tend to be voted off the island or crowded out of the spotlight by the characters we love to hate. And in a nice closing of the circle, the modern aristocracy are taking advantage of this new loophole to get their own names back into the ether. Is there a family name bigger than Hilton, Trump or Stewart right now?

Is Cody the Hippie the first of a new wrinkle in the history of fame: desktop celebrity? If Cody indeed becomes a TV star, he might be the first person 'discovered' from his living room. And he's done it on his own terms. The question is whether this new-found avenue for the creation of cult of personalities will be used for sometime more noble than making fun of hippies. That's probably a bigger question that AC can answer.

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