A New Commodity?
By Michele Amoroso (02/15/05)
"If the area of my thigh has more square inches than his forehead, shouldn’t it be worth more than the $37,375 he was paid to advertise on his forehead?"
That was my concluding comment in a recent discussion regarding the auctioning off of body parts for ad space on Ebay.
According to the Associated Press, a 20-year old web-page designer, Andrew Fischer, thought he could entice an advertiser to pay him money to display an advertisement on his forehead for one month.
His idea was a windfall. It’s definitely a first: a man objectifying himself for his own end. But do the ends justify the means? It’s still not clear just what the 20-year old had in mind to start this new moneymaking trend.
Mr. Fischer stated that "tasteless or unacceptable" ads would not be allowed to end up on his body. This poses an interesting question: what is the set of criteria for tasteless or unacceptable?
Unlike government-funded projects, for-profit corporations can standardize their own criteria for what is acceptable and tasteful. But should they? Should this question only be limited to that which is tattooed on a person or should it include the body part upon which it is tattooed? And didn’t society previously decide that it's "tasteless or unacceptable" to sell one's body for money?
It's surely a new convoluted form of further destroying human dignity as we know it.
Is this the beginning of the extreme degradation of the human body? Similar to, say, extreme sports? Will advertisers pay more money to advertise on a person's private parts? Will it be tasteless or unacceptable then? Where will it end?
The new commodity, the sale of body parts for advertisers, may never end as long as there’s skin showing. With modesty at an all-time low, society can continue to capitalize on the lack of respect for human dignity for sport and profit.
I believe the irony here is that Ebay removed the sale of human body parts from its website earlier last year.
Perhaps Mr. Fischer was executing a dare or seeking approval. Maybe it was even about pride, or maybe it was just pure greed. Or, could it be his desperate cry for help? Whatever the reason, it’s sure to lack virtue. Big time.
I have to wonder about the company that paid the $37,375 to advertise on his forehead. Didn’t the company realize it wouldn’t get much exposure of its ad from a computer geek who sits in front of a monitor all day? Who will ever see the ad? Of course, thanks to the Internet and the Associated Press, many have already seen the ad amidst news reports.
Perhaps this big pay-off is worth only the one-time novelty of it. But college students who have stood in line to give plasma for money will soon be auctioning off whatever space is left among their other tattoos and piercings.
I’ve been thinking about how I could afford to go back to grad school. Skin ads, you say?
Sorry Charlie, I'm not for sale.
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