In this Cafe Society thread: Movies That Will Stay In The Can, Mr. Blue Sky brought to our attention a listing on EBay where a man was trying to sell a Spiderman poster for way more than it is worth because it features the WTC. Here is the listing for all interested parties: Spiderman Movie Poster RARE BUY IT NOW!! I found the whole thing absolutely sickening, and let him know that in this email:
He shortly replied with:
As if that weren’t enough, moments later I get this little nugget of beauty:
Well, I seriously want to kick this man’s ass. Ooooh, how I want to. But, I don’t know where he lives. So all I can do is reply with a scathing flame email of the likes he’s never seen or even dreamed about. I’m talking peel the paint scathing. Alas, I am incapable of such voracity. I need the help of my fellow Dopers to give me a hand, ‘specially jarbabyj, who has such a knack for the creative swears.
So, if you feel as I do that this man is a nugget clinging to the anus of society, please help me construct the proper response for him. If, OTOH, you all agree with him and think I’m the anus-nugget here, I’ll write him back and apologize. Thank you all in advance!
[SUB]Damn, this post was better the first time I wrote it. But it’s still my first BBQ thread! Yay![/SUB]
It may be tacky, but it’s not uncommon for there to be a market for such things. I personally think you should save your maximum outrage for when somebody (or multiple somebodies) starts peddling genuine pieces of the World Trade Center…and yeah, I think that’ll happen.
Hmmmm…not that I’m encouraging this, but wouldn’t it be a shame if someone registered with a phoney account and bid, oh, say $10,000,000 for it. The user name might even be "FUKUBLOODSUKR@hotmail.com.
I agree with you Little Bird, but unfortunately swearing at this seller will only make him ignore you or swear back at you. I’m not quite sure what it would take to communicate the magnitude of an event like this to a person like this. I live eight blocks away from the WTC and can tell you first hand that all of the television coverage in the world (literally) couldn’t do justice to the tremendous damage. Plus, everytime a subway goes by underground, I jump. Is it another building collapsing? Is it another plane?
Perhaps a more personal letter to this person expressing your feelings about this horrible act would work better than simply flaming him. Just a thought.
(Still, there’s certainly a part of me that’s glad that you let him have it, Little Bird.)
Little Bird it looks like your email may have done some good. If he really did report your email to eBay, it certainly would have brought attention to his ad. Or perhaps another like-minded person brough it to the attention to the eBay admins. Either way, it’s gone now. Job well done !
FTR, yes, it’s true, people started peddling pieces (literally) of the WTC last week. Hardly had the fires died down before folks were all over Ebay and Yahoo, auctioning off chunks of rubble, and various WTC souvenirs (postcards, coffee mugs, etc.)
And after about 12 hours Ebay and Yahoo finally shut it down. They are no longer accepting WTC “memorabilia”.
I saw a World Trade Center thing on ebay and there was a false bidder with the name of YouMakeMeSick bidding the thing up to $18,000. I was taken down before I could point anyone else to it.
i believe ebay have only taken down things which have stuff like “wtc” or “world trade center” in their descriptions. people can still peddle stuff as long as they reference it as something along the lines of “memorabila from a recent disaster” or something equally crass. (in ebays defence they do have something like 1 million items for sale at any one time)
In the grand scheme of things, so fucking what some unemployed guy is selling a Spiderman poster…
I’m far more disgusted with your misplaced outrage than I am about the poster sale.
But hey, Ebay pulled it, so now you might have some free time to crusade against beer commercials or retailers that sell cigarettes…cause lord knows people have died this week from drunk drivers and lung cancer.
This is weird, since I do agree that it’s extremely tacky, tasteless, etc, to be selling WTC memorabilia at electronic auction houses, but I’m gonna have to agree with Krispy’s point. In the scheme of things, it’s just a poster. So fucking what? He’s not selling passports of the dead, or anything. It’s a goddamned poster. I didn’t get a chance to see the ad, so I have no idea how it was worded, or how much it exploited the WTC tragedy, but he has every right to sell it, if you believe in a capitalist system. If there just happenes to be a higher demand, and hence, higher price, why shouldn’t he sell it? If everyone were outraged, then there should be no demand for it.
Hey, like I said, I don’t know the details, and I’m not what you would describe as a true capitalist, but within the free market system as it is, I don’t think what he’s doing is as mortal a sin as you’re making it out to be. You don’t like it? Don’t buy it. Go out and donate $10 to the Red Cross. Give blood. Do something productive with your anger.
I don’t know what’s worse - people trying to capitalize on a tragedy by selling stuff like this, or the people who would actually buy the item. Without one, you can’t have the other.
