WARNING! This Might Contain Traces of Honesty

THE MARKET EXPERIENCE

WARNING! This blog post doesn’t follow the design blog formula “many pictures, little text, not too much information”. Plus it might contain traces of honesty. Writing this is not recommended by any brand marketing expert. Don’t try this at home. 

Click here for the undemanding version.

After my participation in another market last Saturday I asked myself why it is always so frustrating for me to participate in designer markets. Here’s a guess. 

I am disappointed at people’s lack of interest to take the time to find out what’s behind the clothes, stop and look and actually read what I wrote. I took all the copies of my program back home unread. It would have been better to burn them on the spot. 

I am fed up with the lameness of life nowadays. The political correctness of people, the monotonous "cool" electronic music. The blogging about nothing. It's all surface.

I feel misunderstood when people - especially the ones that should know me better - pity me for not selling things. Selling is not my priority. It would be far more rewarding to have interesting conversations about my work/upcycling/the world/whatever. Money is a necessary evil everyone needs more or less of in this society. But human interaction and spreading ideas does give me something.

It’s also frustrating when people pity me for transporting the stuff with a bicycle wagon. They assume I have to do it because I don’t have a car and they offer to borrow me one. I do not have a car for many reasons and I intend to keep it that way. Transporting stuff by bike is satisfying to me. I don’t add more exhaust to the city, I don’t use gas that people fight in wars over, I only use my physical strength, I stay fit. It’s a challenge and it’s fun. Obviously not many people share that type of fun.

Many people went to that market mainly to quickly find some Christmas presents; because they feel obliged to do so; preferably cheap ones. That's frustrating. Why presents, why Christmas, why material things, why the pressure? 

Yeah, it was a market with small businesses, no mass production, a lot of upcycling, some good stuff to discover. But that seems to be less important to people than the act of buying stuff; and if they do buy from small businesses and/or upcycled products, then how many are actually aware about the impact of their actions, how many do it for idealistic reasons and how many because it’s fashionable? And how many do it without even knowing/being aware or just because the product they like happens to be produced like that?

I became aware that I do expect too much and I am too optimistic. I always think next time will be different; a different type of market, different types of people; my message will be clearer and therefore it will be heard and so on. But essentially it’s always the same thing in a slightly different setting. I have to find better ways to get my message across.