What the actual…
Huh, is this real? Why in the hell would someone buy this?
The caption suggests the item in question is being sold in the Hamptons, which also answers your question.
this refers to Notting Hill rather than the Hamptons but the point (and stereotype) still stands (warning, some slight NSFW language)
Just because it’s a commercial enterprise doesn’t mean that the money that is exchanged there is generated there. Both the rock-wrapper “artists” and the boutique owner are barely squeaking by (or, more likely, are indulged by a wealthy spouse). The people who live in the ornamental area where the shop is located belong to the class of people who can blow $190 on a rock because their money is generated in a lot of miserable places spread all over the world.
Because it’s a REALLY GOOD rock.
Oh, come on. It’s a little artsy-crafty tchotchke. Its value doesn’t come from its utility as a rock, it comes from how aesthetically pleasing you perceive it to be.
Now the price of the tchotchke is also a function of other things - like who made it and where it’s being sold - but calling it a “$190 rock wrapped in twine” is a bit like calling this a “$141M pile of bronze.”
But it’s not even in a box!
I burning your dog.
It’s the Hamptons - you’re not going to throw just any old rock from your glass house. The twine’s for grip.
“Hey, Michelangelo, can you put that Pieta in a box for me?”
It is - it’s a boxed set with paper and scissors - believed to be cursed. Local legend has it that the first known purchaser stabbed themselves with the scissors, wrote a suicide note on the paper and chucked the rock at the paramedics. It took a fifth of bourbon to calm them down, thus becoming the traditional accompaniment when giving the set as a gift.
I completely agree…
Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around.
/TMBG
Maybe the maker of the rock thought, “Hey, we’re in the Hamptons. Tourists here will buy anything for any price.” and figured, what the hell. Just throw some twine around a pleasing looking rock and slap an almost $200 price tag on it, then see what sucker bites. Not like they put much material or work into for it to not be worth the minimal amount of effort. A+ for moxie.
That’s not twine. It’s rattan. Much classier.
shakes my tiny fist
(I wanted to say that. :D)
I see someone didn’t live through the Pet Rock phenomenon of the 1970s. But I don’t recall those costing this much though, not even adjusted for inflation.
But what’s the use of wondering, when you’re all alone?
Is it by some “name” artist, however small and local that name may be?
I don’t believe that’s twine around the rock. It’s raffia. That makes it a craft, and therefore worth $100 times what it cost to make.
Also, there’s probably a decorative knot on the other side. I mean, who puts the cost on the top of the rock?