Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Craigslist Doesn't Want Atlanta To Have Bread

In the midst of one of the worst ice storms Atlanta has seen, there's a digital war happening on a free ad listing service.

Craigslist is the well-known, go-to online location for virtually anything you can imagine. If you're a Cuban midget with a fetish for hairy amputees, you can connect on Craigslist; if you're in need of a lawnmower and you want to buy it from someone who may or may not murder you when you arrive to pick it up, you can find it on Craigslist; and if you're looking for the season's hottest, most hard-to-find items, go to Craigslist.

Unless the season is winter, and the item is one of the ridiculous things people run to the store to buy when snow sets in. That's right: don't you dare list bread, milk or eggs for sale on Craigslist if you want to try to turn a profit.

One of the basic principles of economics is supply and demand. When supply is high and demand is low, it's a buyer's market. When supply is low and demand is high, sellers set the price. So naturally, when the snow started falling and people started panicking and buying bread, a capitalist with wicked PR sensibilities took to Craigslist and listed a loaf of bread for $65... clearly as a joke.

10 hours and a great many disapproving emails later, the ad was flagged and removed by Craigslist. It's interesting to note, however, that the listing did experience a fair amount of viral sharing. And it's also nice to know that plenty of people saw it for the joke it was.

Here are the original posts:



Broadcast news stories:




Here's some of the fun:


UPDATE:

Various news outlets and blogs are reporting on the $65 bread:









And it's a meme:


Reddit posts:


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm still giggling. I can't wait for someone to contact me about the horrible Atlanta bread scalper.