It's Not Rocket Science

When I first heard about the internet, I imagined it as this glossy, endless place where you could find anyone and anything. A nerdy child, I worked in a comic book store as a 13-year-old and would gape at the adverts for America Online in Wizard Magazine, the recently defunct bible of the comic-reading world. It looked terribly exciting. I used to buy Wired magazine and even though 90 percent of the time I had ZERO idea what the articles were banging on about, I read it avidly, in much the same way I had consumed books about programming computer games in the 80s (my primary school had those chunky Macs everyone had in 1989; there were no girls in the computer club). My first experience of the internet would have been in 1994, via a friend’s brother’s 486: Excellently, the first website I ever saw was an episode guide to The X Files. It wasn’t quite the slick everything-at-once-universe I had hoped for, but I was pretty stoked and confident that eventually the internet would match what I had imagined. I can now say, with great honesty, that the contemporary interwebs is EXACTLY has my 12-year-old self hoped it would be and even better because she had no idea that one day she would be able to buy a tiki mug at four in the morning. She definitely would have approved of the idea though, particularly when you added “also, vintage Mad Magazines in bulk, cheap”.

Which brings me to eBay, where my wallet goes to die. But this is not about the stuff I buy there, or my varied watch list or the row I am having with a costume jewellery purveyor in Taiwan (FYI LADY IF YOU DON’T WANT BAD FEEDBACK MAYBE REFUND MY MONEY WHEN YOU SAY YOU’RE GOING TO). No. This is about the glorious language of the eBay product description.

You can describe your product in a straightforward way - item, size, brand etc. Maybe you can add a few descriptors - colour, style - or a few related things it’s similar to. But if you REALLY want it to stand out, you need a completely personal adjective, and the best one, the adjective of eBay champions, is “amazing”. Here is a list of things currently being described as “amazing” by their sellers on eBay:

-tickets to see Eminem

-A copy of “Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City” (this comes with three exclamation marks) for PS2, as well as a Tiger Woods 2005 game.

-A pendant in the shape of an octopus

-a steam mop that uses H20 PADS

-A zircon-plated crystal ring

-A hand-cut crystal jug

-a Trelise Cooper dress

-three floral iPhone covers

-a Polaroid camera

-a pair of glittery brogues

-a rosewood snooker cue set

-A “Rambo III-style” knife

-“100 percent natural” acne treatment

-a lamp that projects the night sky on your ceiling 

-a necklace of multi-coloured shells

-a Kanye West t-shirt

-200 beige silk rose petals

-a 78-colour eyeshadow set

-200,000 fonts on DVD

-A men’s leather jacket from Bisonte

-A sippy cup

-100 golf tees

-slanted tweezers

-a mermaid costume for Barbie

You get the idea. There were 35,000 results. So far only the men’s leather jacket (Seriously, someone should buy it. Twenty bucks! BARGAIN) and the night sky lamp seem to deserve the word “amazing” in their descriptions. But I love the enthusiasm. ONE HUNDRED GOLF TEES OH MY GOD DUDE DID YOU SEE THIS IT’S FUCKING AMAZING THERE ARE ONE HUNDRED OF THEM.