Seapinks
humblebea
munieca
terminy
and
SewnNatural
are on the front page.
The previous front page featured Lirola.
I'm sick of fucking seeing the same shit by the same people. Don't buy from these etsy sellers. Avoid them like the plague and advise your friends to avoid them like the plague.
It's pathetic that etsy continues to take home paychecks made from your listing fees but cannot be bothered to do any work promoting most of you.
Now, onto our scheduled editorial from The Guy
(and, yes, it's a little dated)
http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/survey-says-the-results-of-the-blog-reader-survey-are-here-7223/
I read this and nearly spit my cheerios at the screen:
"... I also want to acknowledge many of the sellers who commented that they want to see more diversity in viewpoints, rather than just those of the Admin. We do have partners and Guest Curators and contributors, but I agree that Etsy needs to do more to open up blogging to more folks in the handmade world. The Etsy marketplace is like a rain forest of tastes and styles and interests: there's more diversity of creativity here than anywhere else on the Internet. There's just no way that our small staff can accurately represent everyone while maintaining that authentic, personal voice. I'm looking forward to a day when we editors aren't bottlenecks (many of you have noticed that the pitch form is closed) or are seen as as gatekeepers who don't have the same Favorites as you. My strategic view is that Admin need to be facilitators in connecting our members, while also being the real people behind Etsy.com. There will always be Admin bloggers because of the quote above, but we'd like to develop an efficient system that allows for more content from our members."So, then, your staff are collectively retarded? If so many of the people who responded to your survey indicated that your staff are completely self centered and narrow-minded, then you really don't need another survey to better serve your community. You need to fire your staff.
I believe I already stated that I am a graphic designer. I have projects, I have clients. If someone hires me to make them a brochure, then it shouldn't look like my personal scrapbook, it should be what they asked for, and I should have discerned their desires by asking the right questions the first time around.
For instance: the "keep it weird" posts are all stupid. Collectively, we here at this blog when discussing those posts refer to them not as "keep it weird" but as "keep it stupid". Why? Because it's all stupid shit, to put it as my girlfriend phrased it.
For instance: "Keep it Weird: St. Snakes"
If this was supposed to be about St. Patrick's day, then why not tell us something about the legend of St. Patrick? As the son of the two people who were the products of Irish immigrants I have to wonder how hard it really is to paraphrase the story? It boggles my mind. That and all the references are to ridiculous cliches.
My girlfriend has no Irish in her family, and yet, like most Americans she simply wears something green on St. Patricks Day. Neither she, nor I, nor my parents ever made green bread. How hard would it be to mention relevant cliches?
Moreover, it's an IRISH holiday, how hard would it be to find something on etsy that was actually from IRELAND?
How does linking to a wikipedia page constitute having actually done work? It's one thing to do it on your personal blog, where presumably no one is paying you to type things. It's entirely unprofessional for an employee of a company to do something like such a hack, especially without an adequate paraphrasing of anything relevant about the saint or the holiday.
I'm not interested in personally knowing Michelle. I'd be interested to see her fired. I've already seen enough of her posts to know that her imagination is quite limited and that she comes across as entirely self centered.
But back to that blog reader survey...
Had etsy sent a company message to every user encouraging them to participate in the survey then the results of the survey would be more stable, more accurate, and more meaningful. As I understand it, this is not what happened. Therefore, any statistics gleaned from this survey are relatively meaningless.
97% of the survey takers were female. The seller respondents were largely female, but not as highly skewed as the shoppers. The ladies love Etsy! One of the frequent comments people wrote in was that they wished there were more shopping content for men — and indeed more items for men made by Etsy sellers.In spite of how flawed the data is: this is an alarming number.
So, here's the analogy:
If I own a restaurant, and for shits and giggles I'm going to call it "Snarf" (because I don't think that's a real word, and it also rhymes with... or because I enjoyed Thundercats as a tyke).
So, if I have chefs from all over the place in my kitchen and, technically, we offer just about every food dish on earth on the menu. Then my clientele should be all over the place. All races, colors, creeds, social classes and other cliches mentioned in Martin Luther King speeches should be frequenting the joint.
You know how I could fuck that up?
No, it's not the lighting. No, it's not the plates, or the silverware, or the staff uniforms. I could fuck it all up simply by only putting certain items in the deli counter, in the front of the menu, and in the display window.
If I only have lemongrass and organic fair trade sugar crystals on a stick in the front window, with a giant elaborate display of a montage image composed entirely of the vast array of legumes... you know, if I stock the deli counter with tofu and carrots, and have posters on the wall espousing the greatness of almond milk, then I'm going to end up with a customer base that is largely vegan or the slightly less crazy vegetarians (both of which are still crazy).
It doesn't matter if one of my chefs makes the best baby back ribs this side of Atlanta, if I never put that on display, then no one knows it's there.
Your staff are the drizzling shits as far as product placement and marketing are concerned. They should all be fired and replaced with people who are competent at understanding that 97% of respondents being female is unacceptable in a marketplace that professes to be the place to buy and sell ALL things handmade (whether you took that off the tagline or not).
The reason you don't have any men isn't because they don't exist, it's because you're morons.
How in the fuck does this appeal to me?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40883256
It doesn't. It's not something my girlfriend would wear either; I wouldn't buy it for her.
How in the fuck does this appeal to me?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35948928
It doesn't. It's not something my girlfriend would wear either; I wouldn't buy it for her. Moreover, as my girlfriend notes every time she sees vintage shoes: foot fungas!
How in the fuck does this appeal to me?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=41788713
It doesn't. And I've really tired of seeing this girl's shitty paintings. There are so many people on etsy who paint, with better technique and better substance.
How in the fuck does this appeal to me?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39981103
It doesn't. It's not something my girlfriend would wear either; I wouldn't buy it for her. And, in her own words she said "this is retarded."
Are you shitting me?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=37236306
Oh fuck, I thought this was a lady's shirt. Vintage or not, I would not be caught dead in that, it's ugly.
Am I trying to be an ironic hipster doofus?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42627983
Because I wouldn't be caught cleaning the gutters in this t-shirt.
A yarn hat?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42582548
Fuck. Oh, but it's for women, so what the hell does it matter?
So that your child may contract someone else's athlete's foot
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=41538632
Some sucker bought these
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39691954
but what the fuck do you do with what otherwise look like colored hairballs? Do you enjoy spending time trying to figure out how to meticulously clean the dust off of them?
Women's size 5 doc martins
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40796501
these are so ugly they're almost ironic. And I'm a guy, so they wouldn't fit me. Plus, they're used shoes so the possibility of foot fungus looms!
If a seventies baby blanket could be a hat
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40808868
then I imagine it would look like this, and you would smile at your crazy grandmother as you inwardly considered coming to her house in the middle of the night and bending all her knitting needles in half. This could only be worn for punishment.
I have a penis and testicles, how does this appeal to me?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35058043
Really, an apple cozy? What would I need that for? Am I prone to seizures and there's a fear that I will bash my lunch sack against a wall? I have no use for this other than mockery.
no talent hack
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=28990491
Really, feature a real artist.
do I wear this to the tranny convention?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=41142505
Or is it casual cross-dressing friday at the office? Again, I'm a guy. I wouldn't buy this for my girlfriend.
what did you guys get tired of amberalexander, so you found crap that looks just like hers?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30697498
twice in 24 hours, no less... and still, not something that appeals to me. Diversify, assholes.
Why?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42466961
I'm not into flappers.
no talent hack
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42245685
seriously, there's no ART on etsy actually made by the people selling it?
more lady stuff, this time in "charteuse"
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29285585
Again: penis, testicles, heterosexual, not a tranny.
Fuck, it's time for another round of drinks
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40505111
this + the apple cozy + the yokoo = me the winner of front page bingo!
99% of the items featured on the etsy front page have a consumer target demographic that is female. You have completely removed men from the equation, and when you include them, just as with Michelle's idiot storque paragraphs, the examples are idiotic and insultingly cliche.
Your staff is so fucking dense and retarded that they see nothing wrong with reducing men to the cliches of ties, t-shirts, and knitted hats... oh, and cuff links, how could I possibly forget cuff links. And that's your problem.
It's called moderation.
Mech
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27382070
Going East
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30754499
Chromed Grind Your Gears Mug
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35896968
The Farrago
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40925093
cherry pencil jar
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32420064
grey messenger / laptop bag
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40841628
Cowhorn Hair Comb
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31191308
hand dyed upcycled men's shirt
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38926958
beach bliss
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24331338
touch of wood pen
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39380827
baltimore oriole
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31167946
puzzle coaster
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33176736
You know, there are items that appeal to men that also appeal to women. It's not really that hard to find them. They can easily be incorporated with things intended solely for women, and they aren't entirely cliche. Likely, I could come up with 12 items that are just art.
I don't see why etsy doesn't understand what diversity means. I really don't. I've been a professional graphic designer for years. If I looked over my portfolio, no one would be able to pinpoint my gender in a heartbeat. That's what good design does, it defies immediate classification because it's appeal is broad.
Etsy's appeal isn't broad. If you can't understand that from the results of your survey, then you should be fired. Continuing to have narrow-minded self centered people making the decisions is a horrible idea; and they're doing a horrible job.
