This critical essay about the e-commerce website Etsy is based on a presentation I previously gave in a critical theory seminar at the University of Victoria. It was published in the Warren Undergraduate Review, 'an open concept literary journal publishing the creative works of undergraduates at the University of Victoria'. Every website on the Internet has an agenda when it comes to visitors; each aims for some kind of conversion, whether motivated by sales or some other desired result. Marketing and design attempt to drive site users to take certain actions by appealing to and cultivating certain personas/identities. In Etsy's case, marketing rhetoric paradoxically motivates the capitalist buy-and-sell actions enabled by the website by wrapping this agenda in a myth that downplays if not outright denies this intent of the website in order to make these actions more palatable to the identified user group.
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