Title - Story about the literal value of story Tags - story
“In their book, Significant Objects, Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker recount an experiment in which they set out to test this hypothesis:
“Stories are such a powerful driver of emotional value that their effect on any given object’s subjective value can actually be measured objectively.”
First, they went out to thrift stores, flea markets, and yard sales and bought a bunch of “insignificant” objects for an average of $1.25 an object.
Then, they hired a bunch of writers, both famous and not-so-famous, to invent a story “that attributed significance” to each object.
Finally, they listed each object on eBay, using the invented stories as the object’s description, and whatever they had originally paid for the object as the auction’s starting price.
By the end of the experiment, they had sold 3,612.51”
[#kleon2014showyourwork]: Austin Kleon (2014): Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered, Workman Publishing Company.
[#glenn2012significantobjects]: Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker (2012): Significant Objects, Fantagraphics Books.