The World's Greatest Informal Economy
Dumb youth, an incoming physician, "art is not art unless it is propaganda"
Welcome to my first post, where I describe a Facebook Marketplace transaction that left me with a fleeting but introspective girl crush. If you enjoy my writing, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. —FLD
I love Facebook Marketplace. I love it for its inclusivity of goods: pediatrician Barbie doll? Ethiopian fire opals? Smeg kettle? All there and So Much More. I love it for its ease of use: create a listing in 90 seconds and connect to dozens of strangers on the premise of a mutual interest. Zuckerberg launched the platform in 2016. Since then, I have sold dozens of my belongings: Italian Cesca chairs in a day, a box of hangers in a half hour. I once sold a Nespresso Vertuo machine out of the trunk of my car on the side of the road like a character in a TV show “going through it right now.”
At more than one billion active monthly users, Facebook Marketplace is the world’s greatest informal economy. There is no strategy or quality control. There is only blind trust and shades of desperation. Conducting low-level business with strangers is not the safest or most productive pastime, but nothing bad has ever happened to me as a result. Recently, I even developed a girl crush.
Clarissa presented all the green flags of a potential buyer. She spoke politely and in complete sentences. She committed to buying in a decisive, not scammy, way. She prompted me to provide the information necessary for a successful transaction: a date and time to meet up, an address, an acceptable payment method. She did not negotiate. She did not tell me she’s under the weather so I should coordinate with her brother-in-law who will swing by after work, she did not ask questions like how long I’ve owned the item or what condition it is in.
I was desperate to sell a set of three posters I purchased with a friend in Hanoi, Vietnam. Later when we became roommates in downtown Los Angeles, we hung each above the couch in a diagonal line. We liked the idea of art with a shared origin: “Thanks! We got them in Vietnam!” Later: “Honestly, we thought the pho was just as good in LA.” When she eventually moved out, I inherited the posters.
Clarissa arrived right on time. As I walked down the steps to street-level, all I saw was a dark head of hair.
“Hi! Clarissa?”
She turned towards me with a smile, like in the movies when the kind and beautiful girl looks back at the nerdy boy, who didn’t mean to mutter her name that loudly from across the hall.
“Oh, these are awesome,” she said after spotting the posters.
The posters had survived a Budget truck move to San Francisco from Los Angeles. They had sat in a closet for a year and a half then in a car trunk with loose dryer sheets and luggage. I had deemed them as undesirable but not quite trash. To hear Clarissa call them “awesome” made me feel guilty and proud. It also made me like her. She saw the good in something I chose not to see at all.
I asked Clarissa if she lived in the city. She said she just moved from Connecticut but that she’s originally from Huntington Beach.
“I’m from Newport,” I said on cue.
“Love that for us!” she said back. “Being from Orange County and having communist propaganda art.”
I laughed robotically. I realized, in that moment, I had never registered what the posters represented. In 2017 I was living in Japan. When my friend came to visit me, we chose Vietnam as an easy travel destination. We wanted to cruise Hạ Long Bay and eat lots of pho. We were 25 and rolling with the punches in every facet of life; developing a culturally rich itinerary was less important that having fun and eating well. (We hit Taipei after Hanoi for an even less cultured experience involving drugs, a white man, and peeing in a plastic bag. But—stinky tofu.)
Clarissa was in SF to start her residency at UCSF. She asked if I liked the city. “It’s different!” I said. She sent me $25, and we parted ways.
From one brief, superficial interaction, I had decided that she was smart, grounded, and had a sense of humor—qualities I look for in anyone. So, I did what any girl who has a crush does next. I stalked her online.
Her green flags piled on. She went to college in San Diego and medical school in New Haven. Her Facebook showed her on the Pacific Crest Trail and in front of the Vessel at Hudson Yards. She is educated and bi-coastal.
In 2019, while a busy student, Clarissa wrote to Connecticut’s judiciary committee in support of HB-7218, a policy requiring all firearms to be safely stored in the home. The six-paragraph letter uses key statistics to appeal to logos. Two months later, Connecticut passed three gun safety bills, including HB-7218. Could Clarissa have played a small role? (“There are no small roles, only small actors.”)
I scanned PubMed studies Clarissa authored about homelessness and treatment outcomes among Black individuals, about opioid use disorder, about elective lumbar spine surgery. Scrolling through Clarissa’s Twitter I found myself in the noble part of the Internet, a digital neighborhood with manicured lawns and public fountains, homeowners and designer dogs. Removed from thirst traps and promo codes and sadist memes is a narrow lane of social media for those “thrilled” by an accomplishment, “honored” by an award, and “grateful” and “humbled” by those who helped along the way. Visiting there is always nice, though it does summon feelings of insecurity. I am older than Clarissa. What have I accomplished? Why am I not a budding doctor? Why didn’t I know the history of my own art?
My conclusion is always the same when I find myself in this thought spiral: I began digging for my pile of accomplishments later than the person I’m comparing myself to. Before 25, I couldn’t dig. I hadn’t identified the right plot of land. I didn’t have a shovel or know where to get one, or that I needed one. Or maybe I dug many sizable mounds but nothing which resembled a hill. It’s a human reaction to seek proximity to greatness. It’s why we have idols and mentors and crushes, people whose piles appear to be taller than ours. But the best thing we can do for ourselves is keep digging, on our own plot with our own tools for our own growing pile.
Before Clarissa arrived, I prepared and packaged each poster. I gently wiped down the surfaces. I made sure the frame backings secure. When she messaged me, “I’m here!” I walked to the street with the Vietnamese propaganda cradled in my arms. I almost didn’t want to let them go. The grass isn’t greener on the other side, it’s greener where you water it, yada yada…
What’s your most treasured Facebook Marketplace find? Have you also felt insecure when in proximity to great people, like Clarissa? Drop a comment below.