A game of “20 questions” with Sarah Silverman. An hourlong dog walk with Adam Scott. A mural painted in your house by Lena Dunham. These are just some of the quirky experiences being auctioned on eBay in support of crewmembers affected by the current Hollywood strikes. There’s plenty more conventional memorabilia up for grabs, too: signed scripts and posters; props. But it’s the bespoke one-on-one experiences that have understandably grabbed the headlines. It’s a tantalising prospect – a famous person simply strolling off the screen and into your life, like Jeff Daniels in The Purple Rose of Cairo. But is it healthy? I’m not so sure.
Let me be clear: this eBay auction is a fundamentally good thing, in aid of a good and necessary cause. These kinds of paid-for one-to-ones are almost always organised in aid of good causes, of course – typically charities. And there is a difference between going bowling with a fan to raise 10 grand for Unicef and hawking your face on the celebrity message platform Cameo for personal profit. The buyer gets to meet their hero. The celebrity gets to generate a large sum of money for charity without spending any of their own. The charity gets the dosh. Everybody wins. But that doesn’t stop these “celebrity auctions” being deeply, pathologically weird.
