Scandal Alert: $20k Bag of Brooklyn Air Posted to Ebay
Now here’s a true scandal. A bag of air from Brooklyn, NY post to Ebay for $20,000. I’m completely undone. Is this a scandal or sheer brilliance?
Leave it to Williamsburg to cull yet another use for Mason Jars: air. Bidding for “Air from Williamsburg, Brooklyn! HIP COOL BROOKLYN LENA DUNHAM 11211” originally started on July 6th at $39.99 and as of Thursday, July 9, the air was going for $20,100.00.
Excuse me, but the bid is more than some people pay annually to actually live in North Brooklyn.
“What you are bidding on here is a sample of air from the COOLEST neighborhood in the world: Williamsburg, Brooklyn!” the seller, theedgedweller, who has apparently never sold on the online auction site before, writes. “This might be your last chance to afford air from this much coveted zip code (11211),” reads another part of the description. This special, but also incredibly mundane air, can be shipped anywhere in the United States “either in a Ziploc bag or in a mason jar from one of our many, many mason jar specialty shops.” “$20,000 may sound expensive now, but at the rate prices go up in Williamsburg, this bag of air will be one million dollars by the end of the year,” wrote a satirist at Brokelyn.
While I get the joke, eBay put on their party pooper pants and made sure someone wasn’t stupid enough to buy a ziplock bag full of oxygen for a small down payment. They removed the listing since the post didn’t include “physical items or actual services.” While the idea is creative, the execution is what ended up falling short. This winter a Boston man, Kyle Waring, set up a website that sold batches of the record breaking snow for $89 a pop. Maybe “theedgedweller” should’ve gotten into the entrepreneurial spirit and taken matters into his own hands.
As it turns out, thanks to live feeds, maybe the joke is on me (and everyone else) The mysterious man is actually Dan Ozzi, Vice music editor. Maybe he knows of a bridge that he can sell us.
Howard Davidson Arlington MA