Etsy Boycotts--support genuine crafters and vintage sellers

I'll be participating in 3 one-day boycotts of Etsy this month. I'm protesting the influx of factory-made goods, and Etsy's disregard for its core of crafters and vintage sellers. A full explanation of the issue is below, in my previous blog post.

The boycotts are:

May 1st--I guess this here is the website for this one, until something better comes along. Started by Etsy seller Liz Hornbrook and myself

May 3rd: http://www.neogami.com/baligate.html

May 10th (this is looking to be the big one. Sign up at http://www.protesty.com/index.php)

A couple of tips:

If you're putting an announcement on your shop, DO NOT mention Ecologica or Etsy by name--this can get your shop permanently closed for "calling out" or "being negative", which are not allowed on Etsy, even when they're pretty well deserved. Say something like "I handmake all the items in my shop. I am closing for a day to show my solidarity with genuine handmade artists and vintage sellers. Buy genuine handmade. I will reopen tomorrow. Thank you for your support."

Please refrain from personal remarks about Mariana Schecter, especially her appearance. It goes to the "calling out" rule listed above, but beyond that, it's sexist. The issue is not that she's pretty or well-dressed; the issue is that she's acting in an unethical way, and Etsy is supporting her. Ecologica is just the tip of the iceberg anyway.

Spread the word! The more people who get involved, the likelier Etsy is to reconsider their policies. They need to see how badly this story is hurting their brand. I am also concerned that if only a few people protest, Etsy will shut down their shops for trumped-up reasons, but they cannot erase thousands of shops.

Most things are mass-produced--Etsy pretends to be different. They should honor their mission statement and stop making excuses for Ecologica and other resellers.

Etsy boycotts--background

I've been an Etsy seller since 2009, and generally, Etsy's been good to me. Their listing fees are reasonable, and the interface is intuitive and easy to use. More than that, though, I love the idea of a handmade marketplace, where shoppers and crafters can make a personal connection. There are many lovely, talented people on Etsy, and many wonderful creations.

Recently, though, Etsy's been plagued with "resellers"--people who buy factory-produced items and sell them as their own, handmade creations. Many resellers are large-scale importers, and their items can also be found in non-handmade venues like Ebay. For example, here are the results of a search for "pocketwatch" in the handmade category. Clearly, most of those watches (over 10, 000!) aren't handmade, or vintage. Etsy Terms of Sale DO allow for altered items--meaning that if you buy a factory pocket watch and incorporate it into a necklace you assemble yourself, that item is allowed. But it's pretty obvious that over 90% of pocket watches on Etsy are straight-up factory produced items. Look at this one. The same item is available from multiple sellers on Ebay.

Many of the genuine crafters and vintage sellers on Etsy have been very frustrated by this. Etsy has a flagging system in place, where you can report factory made or non-vintage items, but often nothing is done about flagged items or shops. And yet, Etsy aggressively promotes itself as a "handmade marketplace", and enjoys considerable brand cachet derived from this image.

On April 20th, 2012, Etsy published a "Featured Seller" article about a furniture shop called Ecologica Malibu. It drew attention for being suspiciously light on actual technical info, and heavy on Etsy-riffic copy like "I always felt that there was magic in the trees and a mysterious energy in the ocean." The article seemed to imply that Mariana Schechter, the owner, actually hand-built the items by herself. However, the next day, satirical site Regretsy published compelling evidence that Schechter was, in fact, importing the furniture from Bali. In large amounts. The same furniture is available at Overstock.com, and also at http://allfromboats.com/. Comments on the article exploded, with many Etsy users calling for the feature to be removed, and the Ecologica shop closed. Regretsy's evidence included photographs of Balinese carpenters building the furniture in Indonesia, and shipping records marked "furniture" and signed by Mariana Schechter. Clearly, this shop was in violation of Etsy's stated mission.

Instead, Etsy leapt to Ecologica's defense. An Etsy moderator deleted all comments, and Etsy rewrote the article, "clarifying" that Ecologica was a "collective", and adding the names of Schechter's employees, who were not mentioned in any way in the original. Multiple Etsy members started forum threads about the issue, only to have them summarily deleted within hours. Customers who had purchased supposedly handmade, one-of-a-kind items from Ecologica began leaving negative feedback. Schechter left them negative feedback in return. Etsy deleted the negatives from the Ecologica page, while allowing her retaliatory feedback to stand. Considering that Etsy has summarily closed small shops for a single factory-made item, this consideration struck many Etsy users as profoundly unfair.

Many longtime Etsy sellers have been left feeling betrayed. Etsy promotes itself as a paradise for small-scale businesses, and the many independent crafters on Etsy help to maintain that image. They also pay listing and sales fees, which helped Etsy earn 314 million dollars in 2010 alone. Etsy can't be expected to catch every single instance of reselling, but their ongoing refusal to close Ecologica's shop is a clear violation of Etsy's stated principles and public image.


Many Etsy shop owners are organizing temporary boycotts--a 1-day shop closure on May 1st, another on the 3rd, and another on the 10th. You can show your support by not shopping on Etsy on those days.

Feel free to reproduce this article! However please give credit to me, Aurelea River. I believe I've provided links to all of the sources I used in writing this post--please let me know if something is uncited!

Again, City Park

 Ducks! There's also a squirrel in this picture, if you're eagle-eyed. Louisiana squirrels are small, brown and zippy.

Iris! I love irises. Also ducks. This duck didn't know what to make of me.

Is this voodoo? Someone would have you believe that it is. 

Stormy Day in City Park

Holy moly, it's been a long time since I posted anything. It kind of got away from me... I don't know if anyone's still reading. Whatever, I'm amused.

City Park is pretty amazing. I love the Bywater, where we live, but one thing it doesn't have is decent-sized parks. Marky Park is cool, despite (because of?) the overwhelming urge to call it Marky Mark Park, but it's pretty teeny. City Park is actually bigger than Central Park in NYC, though not all of it is landscaped... we usually go the end where the New Orleans museum and duck ponds are. There's also a kid's playland and a free sculpture garden. These pictures are from a stormy day last month. Click to see 'em bigger!

Spanish Moss, in sepia tone.

The famous Spanish oaks. I've never been able to convey with pictures how big these trees are. The tracks are for the miniature railroad that runs around the park.

Doesn't this look like I took it out in some moody bayou? That's the magic of a cloudy sky, because this tree lives in the City Park duck pond. 

Lots of Alligators

Ok, to make up for our swamp trip having like, .10 of one alligator, here are a bunch of 'em.

 This one is both exceptionally old and exceptionally fat. He only had about half his teeth--he is around 85.

 The white alligators are my favorite! The Audubon zoo has two, and the New Orleans Aquarium has one. Most white zoo alligators are from the same nest, which means if you've seen one in, say, San Francisco or Boston, it's the sibling of these here. They are not albino, but leucistic ("loosistic"), like white tigers. They have blue eyes.

 Did you know gators scratch their itchy heads with their back feet, like puppies? Well, they do. This gator was very interactive and interested in us. The other one just slept.

 You can ride a gator at the carousel, except it was out of order. This is a great carousel, though. If this was a real gator its tail would be half its body length (see above). I think alligators are fascinating--they're like... swamp dragons. They also had some foot-long hatchlings, but I didn't get pictures for some reason. They were cute.

Trip to the Zoo

 This cool Angkor Wat-style building is from the 1920s-- a lot of the buildings are much newer, but there are a few holdovers.

 The carousel was very photogenic. Aren't they always?

 This is an orangutan READING A MAGAZINE. He was totally reading it, like methodically flipping through and looking at everything. I think someone may have tossed it in there.

And a disgruntled pelican. There are a lot of ponds and water birds.

My mom and I went to the Audubon Zoo on a beautiful, sunny day just before Halloween. It's a lovely zoo, one of the best in the country. Alas, it closes at 4, so we didn't quite get to see everything.

Salt Marshes

 Above and Below: At the end of the trail, the swamp opens up into salt marshes. (Swamps have trees, marshes only have grass, according to the rangers.) There's a nice overlook platform here where we hung out for a while. Next time I will bring a picnic lunch.

 Spanish moss at the boundary between swamp and marsh.

Below: These fluffy things were blowing everywhere, which was very lovely. I swallowed one by mistake!

This baby raccoon totally posed for us. Then it ate some grubs from the top of the tree and climbed down. I didn't get any pictures of the water moccasin we almost stepped on, because really, that was careless, but chasing a poisonous snake for  pictures is seriously dumb, and I didn't have a zoom lens. It was beautiful though. Like a rattler, but shiny black.
We went on the 1.5 mile Bayou Coquille trail, but there's a 4-mile trail as well; I'd like to walk that one another day. If you go, bring lots of water, sunscreen, and bug repellent. (Avon Skin-So-Soft bath oil is like super mosquito Kryptonite, so totally I recommend that.) And don't feed the alligators. As the sign at the ranger's station hilariously and accurately says, "Alligators cannot tell the difference between a HANDOUT and a HAND."