Sentimental Value: Shopping for Human Stories on eBay

What social psychology has to do with Victorian romance and the official White House gift wrapper.

Since 2007, Emily Spivack has been scouring eBay posts to uncover the remarkable secret stories people share about their things. The project, aptly dubbed Sentimental Value, is as much a fascinating exercise at the intersection of digital and analog anthropology as it is a vicarious journey into the lived and unlived lives of others. Today, I sit down with Emily to chat about the impetus for the project, the most curious stories she’s dug up, and the fundamental psychology of sentimentality.

The mandatory question: What inspired Sentimental Value?

I’ve been working on projects about how clothes function in society for a while, so Sentimental Value came out of that interest. I’ve also been into vintage clothes since I was a teenager, obsessed with their one-of-a-kind-ness. I’m fascinated with the little clues left behind about the garment’s former life — a rip in the knee of a pair of jeans, a handwritten name in a shirt, a lingering smell of perfume.

Victorian travel dress a newly wedded bride intended to wear to meet her husband until he was killed in a horse and buggy accident

I started looking for vintage clothes on eBay and noticed that I’d occasionally find interesting stories people would share about the garments they were selling. I started collecting them, using the site like most people, only instead of hunting down things, hunting down the stories about those things — the provenance of the article of clothing, a story about wearing it, or the reason the seller is giving it up.

I was drawn to the idea of eBay as a place that’s indirectly become a repository for sharing stories and memories. I loved how eBay could offer an unexpected window into strangers’ lives. So, with Sentimental Value, I’ve been working to cull the best stories from what’s been posted.

What are some of the more interesting sentimental treasures you’ve excavated over the course of the project?

It’s hard to pick — there are all sorts of elements that make for a good story — the story itself, the way it’s told, the actual object, the photos… Over the past few years, though, I have seen some specific themes and patterns emerge amongst what I’ve posted.

For example, there are tons of stories about relationships, like this guy who was selling sneakers with air pockets slashed by an ex-girlfriend. There are people who share transformational life experiences, like this woman, who was selling a gown she was once levitated in. At times, I learn something completely new, like the fact that these earrings had been owned by the official gift wrapper for the White House during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. Or there tend to be loads of wedding-related stories, like this one about a drunken bridesmaid mishap.

Sequined gown worn by a woman who believed to have levitated in it.

I appreciate learning about the historical provenance of an item, especially when you get to see a photo of the garment actually worn by the owner, like this dress, which had been worn by Ann Schofield in 1903 when she was presented to the King and Queen of England. Occasionally there’s a celebrity tie-in, like these sunglasses that were touched by Michael Jackson. Or some stories I’m just drawn to purely for the way the story is told, like this handmade Vash the Stampede costume.

There’s a certain notion that digital platforms are completely devoid of the sentimentality we tend to associate with analog objects and keepsakes. Yet Sentimental Value seems to be an experiment in the opposite. What insight has the project given you into the ever more hotly contested question of whether or not technology is making us shallow and dehumanized?

With Sentimental Value, I found affirmation that the attachment I feel towards certain pieces of clothing (that had been, for instance, handed down to me, purchased on a trip, worn on a certain occasion) were echoed in the stories people were openly sharing on eBay.

Earrings worn by the official White House gift wrapper for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson

I love that this online platform, based on transactions and consumption, has indirectly become a trove of stories, albeit ephemeral ones. I really appreciate eBay as an anonymous marketplace where hundreds of millions of people all over the world are buying and selling goods alongside the rich storytelling by-product that has evolved from it. People are craving an online space to share memories. As a result, they’re finding ways to make digital platforms, like eBay, less sterile or shallow, incorporating personal elements into what might have once been relegated to an offline context.

We tend to think of sentimentality as highly personal, confined to the individual. And yet platforms like eBay, and certainly networks like Facebook and Twitter, are making it highly social. Do you think there’s any ‘sentimental value’ lost in broadcasting these intimate stories to the world? Is there any found?

The reasons we hold onto things (or get rid of them) are usually quite personal. As we continue to feel more comfortable putting more of our lives online, we wind up sharing those stories publicly with less hesitancy.

K-Swiss sneakers worn by Suge Knight, a.k.a. Big Suge, founder of iconic rap label Death Row Records

I think there is significant value to airing those feelings in a public forum. It provides an outlet to more easily document our attachment to the objects in our lives , something that’s often lost generation-to-generation. It allows us to process why we hold such an attachment to certain objects. It turns the sensation into less of a solitary experience and instead, into one that can be more community-driven and interactive.

This may be idealistic, but I like to think that perhaps, with this increasing sense of fondness expressed online and in open spaces, people will become less interested in fast, disposable fashion, feel less inclined to buy the newest, coolest, fanciest ‘thing’ and instead hold onto the object that’s already been imbued with a different kind of value.

What’s next for Sentimental Value?

For about a year, I’ve been buying quite a few of the items with more unique provenances that I’ve posted on Sentimental Value with the intention to put together an exhibition or gallery show. One of my favorites pieces that I now own is a 1920s gown with blood splatter from a mob-related murder. I’ve also collected a rayon blazer owned by a woman who sold her clothes to join a nudist camp, a pair of K-Swiss sneakers that belonged to Death Row Records’ Suge Knight, and a Victorian travel dress that a newly wedded bride intended to wear to meet her husband until he was killed in a horse and buggy accident. The garments will be shown alongside their stories.

Rayon blazer owned by a woman who sold all her clothes to join a nudist camp

I’m also working on creating a Sentimental Value book. I’m excited about working in that format as I’ll have the opportunity to organize the stories by common themes, draw connections that are more difficult to make in its current online format, and add perspective by distancing the anecdotes from the proximity of the platform from which they’ve been culled.

Ed.: You can follow the project on Facebook for a delicious feed of found sentimentality.

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Arthur Conan Doyle, Psychic: Rare Footage from 1930

What the world’s most analytical detective has to do with exploring the fringes of spiritual life.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may be best-known as the creator of the iconic Sherlock Holmes stories, but in this rare newsreel from 1930, recorded mere weeks before the author passed away, he talks about something unexpected: After telling the story of how Sherlock came to life, Conan Doyle delves into his profound fixation on spiritualism and the psychic world. It’s particularly fascinating to see a man whose literary thought hinged on analytical insight and objectivity explore the nebulous, shape-shifting corners of the human mind.

People ask me, will I write any more Sherlock Holmes stories and I certainly don’t think it’s at all probable. But as I grow older, the psychic subject always grows in intensity and one becomes more earnest upon it, and I should think that my few remaining years will be probably devoted much more in that direction than in the direction of literature. My principal thoughts are that i should extend, if I can, that knowledge, which I have on psychic matters, and spread it as far as I can to those who have been less fortunate.

I don’t for one moment suppose that I’m taking it upon my self to say that I’m the inventor of spiritualism, or that I’m even the principal exponent of it. There are many great mediums, many great psychical researchers, investigators of all sorts — all that I can do is be a gramophone on the subject, to go about, to meet people face to face, to try to make them understand that this thing is not the foolish thing, which is so often represented, but that it really is a great philosophy and, as I think, the basis for all religious improvement in the future of the human race.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

via @matthiasrascher

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Green Porno: Isabella Rossellini Celebrates Animal Biology

How dolphins do it, or what the first rule of advertising has to do with expanding the market for biology.

This Saturday, the great Isabella Rossellini — actor, filmmaker, author, philanthropist and one of the very few people in the world I’d qualify as a “role model” — is turning 59. I’ve been a longtime fan of her Green Porno series for Sundance Channel and her birthday is lovely invitation to revisit Green Porno: A Book and Short Films by Isabella Rossellini — a fascinating, humorous, kooky and illuminating book-and-DVD based on the project, in which Rossellini, clad in various bodysuits, offers a wildly entertaining and scientifically accurate reenactment the sex lives of animals as biologically far from us as possible — bugs, slugs, marine life and other peculiar creatures.

Each film is about two minutes long and an absolute gem of edutainment. From anchovy orgies to the squid’s ten-arm embrace to the makeup-sex routine of whales, the endearingly odd short films and accompanying visuals reveal a lively and wonderful world in the depths of the ocean.

I always wanted to make films about animals – there’s not an enormous audience. But there’s an enormous audience for sex.” ~ Isabella Rossellini

Revisiting Green Porno is particularly timely after last week’s World Oceans Day and the release of the 2011 State of the Oceans report, which revealed the devastating impact of human activity — an impact in large part due to mankind’s inability to see marine life as anything more than a source of food and commerce. Rossellini’s films

What’s perhaps most fantastic about the series is the deep thought with which Rossellini approaches it, looking beyond the immediate message of science literacy to think about the broader issues of where culture and human communication are going, and how the web lends itself to new models of storytelling.

The Internet is the future. And it was fun to make these videos. Just as my father, who remembered the times of silent cinema, I feel like I am assisting to a revolution” ~ Isabella Rossellini

Charming, funny and surprisingly articluate, Green Porno is the kind of cross-pollinator between pop culture and serious science that opens new doors for the understanding of our world and, in the process, fosters a deep appreciation for the precious and intricate ecosystems we’ve done such a disgraceful job of protecting and preserving. Because underpinning Rossellini’s goofiness is nothing less than an impassioned invitation to treat our fellow creatures with a little bit more understanding, empathy and respect.

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