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Comment by kubb | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one for whom it's unsettling that as soon as someone famous dies, people sell their stuff online for exorbitant prices to make profit, like vultures feeding on their corpse?

It combines callousness with consumerism with greed with celebrity worship in the weirdest way. Maybe it's just my perception.

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The money presumably goes to his heirs, so I don’t know how that is vulture-like. The alternative is that this stuff just gets thrown away or donated to a thrift shop.

More broadly, it’s pretty cool that there are objects out there in the world that have been used by an artist or person you admire. Personally I managed to buy a scarf that Raymond Chandler wore, a few months ago at an online auction. It’s just a scarf, but there is something quite special about the fact that one of my favorite writers wore it. It’s a unique object in a world of manufactured identical goods.

That merely makes it cannibalistic and incestual vulturing.

"The corpse is cooling! Quick, sell his clothes!"

Where else should it all go?

I'm not criticizing the redistribution of goods of the departed. Wills used to state where "my best garment" and "my second-best bed" would go.

I'm pointing out that mercantile opportunism isn't necessarily less repugnant when done by the surviving family.

It's not just you. I won't call it wrong, but does it draw out some of the worst qualities in people? Absolutely.

One good thing you can do now is start unloading some of your own estate so you can enjoy a bit of the cash that comes from it, maybe spending it on a fun activity or experience istead of just buying more stuff. Or, donate useful items to local shelters so that people in need can benefit a bit from your excess, mild as though it may be. We don't have to be wealthy to help someone else out and when we unburden ourselves from our dust-collecting stuff, we also unburden the person who has to deal with it when we die.

I agree with you in the general case, but considering the number of bids above average I'm not sure it's such a burden to be the one who has to deal with it in this case ;)

I don't think David Lynch really needed that 'bit of extra cash' at the end of his life. Most of the items are memorabilia and worth a lot more since he passed away so even if the goal was to donate to charity it would have been wise to hold on to them.

I don't think it's wrong at all. Better than a bunch of junk that you inherited but have no interest in sitting around gathering dust. Just thinking about my very old step-mother and very old father-in-law and all of the shit they've accumulated and how I'm going to have to deal with it after they die...

For example, my step-mother was a grade-school teacher and has a collection of old (some very old) children's books. I have no interest in them - some are even quite racist. But hopefully someone else will find value in them.

Yeah, but you'd sell it on a yard sale for cheap or something like that.

If they were people of note the yard sale would be held at Christie's not in the street in-front of the house.

If the collection of books is of note likewise.

No the point is that a yard sale would accomplish the goal of getting rid of the stuff without maximizing profit. The only reason to hold it at Christie’s is to maximize profit.

A yard sale is maximising the profit - stuff that doesn't sell at a yard sale goes in either the bin or to the charity shop.

What's wrong with maximizing profit anyway?

When a public figure dies, there’s a sudden rupture in their living story. Auctions then act as a collective ritual — a way society processes that rupture by distributing pieces of the narrative. Whether it’s a scarf, a script draft, or a broken camera, the object becomes a proxy for unresolved connection. It’s less about profit (though that exists), and more about anchoring meaning in the aftermath of disappearance.

Surely that could be accomplished better by donating it to a museum, where the public can actually experience the objects.

It’s unclear if that actually means the public will experience the objects. The vast majority of items are kept in storage.

And in Lynch’s case: most of these objects are not really unique enough to be worth including in a museum exhibition.

Adding to that, I believe that Lynch’s more significant work is being put into museums. Here is one specifically for his work: https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7791/artykul/3476309,poland-...

Which museum would take 3 of the same espresso maker and 3 of the same drip coffee maker?

It's not any different from regular estate sales. In the end someone inherited all this (probably his kids), and decided to just sell it away instead of keeping it in storage. Often times it is easiest to sell everything, and then split up the proceeds.

Ferengi famously sell the vacuum-desiccated remains of their dear departed. What do you think inspired their cultural traits?

The prices will rise much more later, so it might be a good investment.

I'm not saying you're wrong (and I didn't downvote you), but it's weird how every single thing today is some sort of potential investment. It's weird how you're probably right.

Pokemon cards. Crypto. NFTS (not anymore though). Something a famous person once touched (this one kind of existed in the past with things like saints and holy figures using something, but now it's transcended religion and it's everything anyone of note used). Something a famous person simply recommended. Meme stocks of companies that have no real product to back them up. Toilet paper. Hand sanitizer. Mugs.

Beanie Babies were mocked for being a clearly worthless thing that gen x went wild over and it all collapsed overnight. Now millennials are turning everything into Beanie Babies, and despite plenty of people thinking the "everything investment" bubble will pop, it just keeps growing forever and expanding into more areas of life.

I've been thinking "the bubble is going to pop" for years (decades?) now. But it seems to have not only not popped, it's accelerating.

Simple - dollar stops fulfilling “store of value” function of money, other things fill that void.

One cannot start a hobby without someone else suggesting you try to monetise it's output.

It brings to mind Marx's labour theory of value. But does the theory describe this psyche; or has the theory itself suggested to us that all our labours must be "valued".

> Now millennials are turning everything into Beanie Babies

A thousand years after the last millennial has died, they will still be blamed for every issue in society. Naturally, by that time we will have passed the year 3000, so there will be the “neo millennials” to continue taking the blame.

Of corse, that assumes humanity will last that long. Millennials will probably kill us all by then, am I right? I’m surprised millennials haven’t been blamed for the wars in the world, the pandemic, and the US sliding into fascism. Avocado toast eating bastards.

Here’s an idea: How about we stop scapegoating and shifting the blame to a nebulous and imaginary generational divide and all together assume the responsibility of making everything better? No no, wouldn’t work, Gen <insert your bias here> would never allow it.

I'm a millennial and every person I know is obsessed with collecting weird shit for future investments. People older and younger than me aren't doing it.

In 1875, there was a sucker born every minute. Now there's 2.7 of them.

"will rise" = false certainty

"might be" = fair statement

"most likely won't" = most likely prediction

I've got an authenticated pair of socks worn by Miles Davis, that I'm willing to let go for just $250.

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