Comments on: Handmade Consortium

By: Carola Rodrigues

Carola Rodrigues — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:28:28 +0000

Hey! I only saw myself here today! YEY!

By: Miriam

Miriam — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:54:27 +0000

I think the craft “movement” thing is a little funny - it’s only a movement not from intention but because (as the author of the article says) the “D.I.Y./craft scene [is] something that was already social, community-minded, supportive and aggressively using the Web.” True ‘dat. As far as Etsy goes, I think it’s a precarious balance. They’re an aggressively consumerist storefront based on DIY, which is essentially not consumer-based. Thinking about it makes me scratch my head a bit. It’s capitalist, but not. I think it works because of a certain model of consumerism that’s really not very capitalist that creates value for non-monetary consumer ideas such as “indie” or “handmade” or “artistic.” When price is not the only consideration, people consume differently. It’s just one more model of economics dependent on individual value prioritization. It’s almost a way to be a consumer, but not, at the same time.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:43:58 +0000

It’s true that the need to define the movement in the article runs to the funny, but the article has interesting points to make about a DIY movement in a capitalist culture. For example, “The real lesson of the Black Apple may be not how many Emily Martin stories there have been (not many) but how many people figure that they, too, can achieve what she has (lots),” shows how American the phenomenon is. Most Americans don’t think we should tax the rich more because they believe that someday they will be that rich. There’s this belief “the money will follow.” But the reality is far more complicated.