What a Mess

Abstract

eBay promises to engage everyone while asserting its organizational logic and configuring people. eBay encourages members to identify as traditionally gendered and heterosexual by employing personalization and Web 2.0 conventions. Members tend to follow eBay’s directives and self-present with such culturally approved identities as binary gendered individuals and heterosexual couples. These identities, including the over 1000 portrayals of heterosexual couples and chaotic homes that I analyze using the humanities methods of close visual, textual and theoretical analysis are worth studying because they are derived from significant identifications with objects, consumerism and the company, and compromised by the messy aspects of collecting and the purportedly defiling features of used objects. Members’ depictions of disordered homes negatively code individuals, render the eBay site and auctions as less desirable and suggest the association of the company with goodness and heteronormative purity is fraudulent. The clutter and disorganization of other Web 2.0 sites also troubles traditional identity positions and organizational logics. Further research into the ways norming occurs in these settings is imperative because narratives about internet empowerment make it difficult to identify how regulation and personalization work together.