ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A French Quarter small-scale artisan says their beloved online marketplace Etsy is increasingly resembling a high-end version of Temu.
Juanita Bigconé, known in her Betoota community for her hand-crafted mugs adorned with whimsical yet poorly executed depictions of cats, has watched with growing horror as Etsy’s quaint charm is replaced by the dark side of greed and capitalism.
“Etsy used to be a place where you could find that perfect handcrafted item that had some soul,” Juanita told The Advocate from her home studip
“Now, it feels like every time I log on, I’m being bombarded with luxury dog beds and glittery phone cases that cost more than my entire kiln.”
The shift, according to Juanita, began subtly. Before she went on, she offered our reporter a cone from one of her ‘water dispensers’. Our reporter obliged.
“It’s all drop-shipped rubbish,” she said before letting out an earth-shattering cough.
“You just tick the handmade box and away you go. There’s people selling bloody handmade fairy lights and electric Christmas trees for fuck’s sake. Is that even legal to sell your own handmade electronics?”
She shut her eyes and shook her head.
“You don’t see handy people making a selling their own microwaves on eBay or Gumtree, do you?” she continued before pausing to think if what she said was weird.
Our reporter shook their head and said it’s perfectly reasonable, what’s she’s saying that is.
“People buying a hundred wallets at a time then just stamping monograms in and flogging them for a hundred bucks. That’s not what Etsy was all about. Etsy was about creators, now it’s just about making people rich,” she said.
“Sorry, am I making sense.”
Our reporter nodded this time.
More to come.
