Britney Spears, Barry Bonds, and Box Office Blockbusters: eBay Exposes America's Pop Culture Obsessions in 2007.SAN JOSE San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , Calif. -- By snapping up everything from a toothbrush taken from Paris Hilton's trash to an O.J. Simpson rubber Halloween mask, Americans turned pop culture obsessions into commerce this year* on eBay (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :EBAY), where you can find and win practically anything. By examining the volume of items sold relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc pop culture phenomena in categories ranging from celebrity scandals to blockbuster films to tech gadgets, eBay has identified exactly what Americans were most fascinated by in 2007. "What Americans buy and sell every day is one of the best indications of what they're obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. with," says Karen Bard, eBay's pop culture expert. "When someone or something is being written about in tabloids or reported about on CNN CNN or Cable News Network Subsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. , if it revs up the American public, you're bound to discover a bidding frenzy for related listings on eBay." America's Obsessions * Spotlight Starlets: 34,345 Britney Spears-related items sold this year, making her the most sought-after tabloid queen on eBay. She beat out both Paris Hilton  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. , who had 27,377 items sold, and Lindsay Lohan, who
had 8,099 items sold. Fragrances were the most popular items sold for
both Spears and Hilton.
* Infamous Athletes: 145,497 Barry Bonds-related items sold five times more items than those of fellow disgraced athlete Michael Vick. There were 28,732 Vick-related items sold. Interest in O.J. Simpson-related items paled in comparison to those of Bonds and Vick, with just 5,196 O.J. items sold. The most popular O.J.-related items: nonfiction books (20 percent of items sold). * Hot, Hard-to-Get Tech: Despite the iPhone frenzy that swept the nation this year, Apple's iPod remained the number-one gadget on eBay, with 2,781,243 iPod-related items sold. There were 532,390 Nintendo Wii-related items sold, followed by 272,852 Sony PlayStation 3-related items and 158,132 Apple iPhone-related items. Additionally, 96,508 Guitar Hero-related items were sold, 63,851 Microsoft Xbox 360-related items were sold and 50,182 Halo 3-related items were sold. * Cinematic Sensations: "Transformers" bested the Harry Potter franchise, with 442,342 items sold to Harry Potter's 344,825. Action figures comprised 71 percent of "Transformers"-related sales. * Breakout TV Series: In the battle of the TV breakout series, ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" beat out NBC's "Heroes" with 5,107 items sold to "Heroes'" 4,411. "Ugly Betty" (ABC ABC in full American Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. ) trailed behind with 2,697 items sold. The most popular "Grey's Anatomy" items sold were related to the character of Dr. Derek Shepherd, played by Patrick Dempsey. * Fall-Debut TV Series: 4,249 "Bionic Woman"-related items (NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. ) were sold, trumping sales of fellow fall-debut series "Pushing Daises" (ABC), which had 337 items sold. The most popular "Bionic Woman"-related items were action figures, which comprised 28 percent of all items sold. * Presidential Candidates: Americans had grown weary of the old presidential-candidate archetype archetype (är`kĭtīp') [Gr. arch=first, typos=mold], term whose earlier meaning, "original model," or "prototype," has been enlarged by C. G. Jung and by several contemporary literary critics. , as evidenced by their fascination with candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Rodham is an English surname which may refer to a number of persons or places. People Family of Hillary Rodham Clinton
* Best-selling Books: Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" bested J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. ." There were 18,420 "The Secret"-related items
sold compared to 14,481 "Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows"-related items. Additionally, 7,912 items related to Khaled
Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" and 3,631 items related to
Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" were sold.
* The data is based on listings that included the key terms in the listing title across all categories from Jan. 1, 2007, to Nov. 19, 2007. Images contained in this release are not available for use after March 5, 2008. About eBay Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, empowering them to explore new opportunities and innovate together. eBay Inc. does this by providing the Internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications. Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded to include some of the strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, Shopping.com and others. eBay Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, California San Jose (IPA: /ˌsænhoʊˈzeɪ/) is the third-largest city in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Santa Clara County. . |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion