Abstract
Michele White critically examines eBay to show how the popular auction website has a set of norms, values, beliefs, and rituals that constitute a distinct online culture. This culture, she goes on to claim, “configures” users to interact with the site and one another in ways that have social and political consequences. More specifically, the author shows how eBay’s online culture perpetuates various forms of inequality, including heteronormativity, sexism, and racism.
For example, in Buy It Now: Lessons From eBay, White relays the company’s “origin story,” one in which the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar, reportedly began the precursor to the site, AuctionWeb, in 1995, so that his then fiancée could buy and trade Pez candy dispensers with other collectors across a wide geographic region. This oft-repeated and carefully crafted story, the author argues, led the company, which eventually evolved into eBay, to embrace a culture that emphasizes the traditional family and, in theory, stresses the importance of community over profit. Online bulletin boards, as well as in-person conferences and workshops, reinforce this culture that espouses small town values, sameness, and righteous citizenship (pp. 29–31).
After discussing how eBay creates such a culture, White attends to how it normalizes heterosexuality, as well as a binary gender order. The author argues that eBay affirms heterosexual relationships not only through its origin narrative, but also through popular marketing campaigns that feature advertisements for wedding rings and dresses. She also points out how members sell these and other gendered items, including romanticized descriptions to increase the desirability of their products to potential buyers. In so doing, White shows that, “. . . the eBay company and many members collaboratively configure the site as having a heterosexual lineage and being heterosexual” (p. 86).
These practices marginalize certain users. For instance, White compares the experiences of those who sell traditionally gendered items to those who sell “gay” and “gay interest” items. (These terms are used by sellers to attract attention to their auction listings and are not necessarily used in a derogatory manner.) Examples of the latter include vintage photographs depicting members of the same sex interacting in ways that might be interpreted as romantic or sexual. They also include more risqué items, like men’s swimwear or underwear, which are frequently accompanied by suggestive photographs of the seller or others modeling the items, illustrations of which, like the wedding items mentioned above, are included in the book.
EBay, according to the author, sometimes relegates auction listings that include the terms “gay” or “gay interest” to its adult content section, limiting those who can view them, and effectively stigmatizing the items and sometimes their sellers in the process. This is despite the fact that, as White reports, Playboy magazines and other sexualized items (produced for a mostly heterosexual audience), could be found in their respective listing categories accessible to all eBay users, at least at the time of the author’s research. These practices further illustrate how eBay reinforces an online culture that is both heterosexist and sexist in nature.
Even so, White explains how sellers of gay and gay interest items resist eBay’s culture by continuing to sell their items, and by creating alternative readings of them. For example, by defining individuals (most unknown to the sellers) in vintage photographs as gay or lesbian and providing a “queer reading” of their lives, these sellers question and challenge heteronormativity. This, in turn, according to the author, allows sellers to politicize issues related to sexuality. However, these sellers’ actions are limited in their effectiveness, because the items are sometimes relegated to the adult content section of eBay’s website, removed from auction by eBay administrators, stigmatized, or subjected to complaints by other eBay members. Regardless, these sellers’ actions challenge practices that justify and reinforce larger inequalities.
The same cannot be said of the ways that users list and sell “Black Americana” items on eBay, according to White. Black Americana generally refers to items produced during Reconstruction, the Jim Crow period, through “the expansion of racial segregation” (p. 180), as well as popular reproductions of them. Postcards depicting blacks eating watermelon, paired with racially offensive text are one example. Collectible “Mammy” items, those caricaturing blacks as monkeys or child-like, and housewares and kitchenware, such as Aunt Jemima cookie jars are others.
The author adds to a body of research on the way these items reinforce racist stereotypes. She cites scholars like Turner—who labeled such items as “contemptible collectibles” (p. 181)—and analyzes how sellers (most of whom are presumably white) market them on eBay. For instance, some sellers describe these items as “cute” and “nice,” and a part of “history,” without considering who created the items, when, and why. White also critiques how eBay reinforces the commodification of blacks by allowing these items to be sold, despite having an “Offensive Material Policy,” which contradictorily forbids the listing of Nazi and Ku Klux Klan (KKK) items. Such inconsistencies in policy conflict with the culture of inclusivity and community that the company purports to encourage.
The author does acknowledge that some buyers, mostly African American individuals and organizations, have sought to purchase these items to take them out of circulation or to use for anti-racism education. However, she does not explain how this education is accomplished or what new messages about the items are created in the process. White’s analysis could thus be strengthened by supplementing her work with interview data from buyers and sellers, data that could have been collected, for example, at the eBay conferences that she describes in the book.
This omission illustrates one of the few shortcomings of White’s work. The methodology used to collect and analyze data is not clearly described, and is lacking in some important ways. For instance, while the author’s analysis certainly rings true, especially for those who have experience as buyers or sellers on eBay, a more detailed discussion of how content for the book was selected for analysis would bolster the strength of her claims. It would also reassure readers that she used a systematic approach in selecting and analyzing eBay content, rather than leaving the impression that she only included examples that supported her analytic claims. A more systematic approach would have also likely produced a more nuanced analysis of the eBay site, for example, by comparing auction listings with less obvious differences than those between wedding dresses and gay or gay interest items. Supplementing the study with interview data would also have been helpful in this regard, and would have made the author’s arguments more convincing.
Nonetheless, White provides an insightful analysis of how eBay creates a culture that maintains and reinforces various forms of inequality. She draws on a variety of fields, including visual and media studies, sociology, feminist theory, and queer studies among others, to do so. The author’s work is thus interdisciplinary in its approach, making it appealing and useful to a wide audience, including those who study inequality, media, and culture, as well as those who are fascinated by the world of auctions and collecting.