Abject traces of prior owners complicate the impersonality of commodity exchange

Evidence

Throughout the video, Allen unboxes things like Adidas jackets, an Ugg robe, Adidas leggings, a Calvin Klein dress, many of these items with tags and each of which is individually wrapped (most likely by the liquidation facility or auction website). But for every fashionable find, Allen discovers and unwraps many, many, destroyed, dirty, or otherwise unusable items. Some of the items smell horrible, some are flecked with body hair, some are wet and moldy. The impersonality of exchange is subtly questioned through abjection. The presence of other items is disgusting, a barrier to the resale and circulation of objects. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 257

Categorization

• CANDY: A light-but-graphically memorable fact: unboxed return lots routinely contain body hair and moldy items, which is vivid elevator material.
• XREF: connects to: Credit money and commodity-backed money stand in structural antagonism — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1658; Manufactured objects encode impersonal directives that strip users of individuality — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 504; Users are not products but abandoned carcasses stripped of surplus — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1199