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A Space for the Trace

Memorable eBay and Narrative Effect

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

eBay the firm and eBay as a set of everyday cultural practices together arise at a time of material excess combined with an intensified exteriorization of memory processes onto digital media devices. Exchange and use values on eBay are negotiated through elaborate, at times sensational, narrative histories contextualizing the object's past, ambiguous images, and fetishized practices. Individuals may pay a premium for a sense of imagined experience "exchanged" through buyers and sellers and other browsers through these narratives prior to the actual sale of any object. The indexicality of eBay—the sense that one is able somehow to experience a trace of the object or, just as important, its seller through online media—works to suggest that authenticity is transferable, an exchange value available to the highest bidder. The growing belief that Web sites such as eBay constitute the equivalent of material space contributes to this perception.

Key Words: eBay • the trace • virtual space • narrative

Space and Culture, Vol. 9, No. 2, 140-156 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1206331205285860


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