Guys, remember eBay? Nah, us neither. Ever since we embraced the good news and downloaded Depop, that’s where we’ve spent all our time, endlessly scrolling and liking and begging 14-year-olds to part with their rare merch for colossal sums of money. And while Depop is unarguably the place to be for rare finds and the sustainable alternative to buying brand new fast fashion, the fact it’s populated by, well, just a bunch of young people selling their old clothes, means that when it comes to negotiating sales in the DMs, things can get pretty wild.
Cataloging the funniest, craziest and downright worst conversations that the app has to offer is the anonymous Instagram account @DepopDrama. Highlights include one person cancelling their order because they “threw a shovel at their site manager’s head and got fined £300 for it”, a person promising to cop an item when they get inheritance from their grandmother (who was presumably still alive at the time of writing) and just an absolutely shocking amount of people accidentally sending clothes which contained their lost baggies of drugs. Spearheaded by a secretive young creative based in London, the account currently has over 204,000 followers, and has become “a community in itself”, its creator says.
“My favourite ones are always the weirdest ones,” they say of the deluge of DMs the account receives every day. “Or the ones where they’re super short and simple. I’ve kind of created this narrative with my followers where it’s almost like anything goes, and people can just comment whatever they like. My favourite posts are the most silly ones, like when someone asked to see a photo of a jacket on and the seller took a photo of it with their dog wearing it. Or one of the most recent ones really got me — it was just so simple. Buyer: ‘Thinking of buying this’. Seller: ’BUY IT THEN’!”
Their ultimate fave though? When someone discovered a bag of drugs in a coat pocket they’d bought online. Perhaps not something you expect to be expediting through Royal Mail…
The anonymous nature of Depop, and the familiarity with which you have to up-sell your items (honestly who among us hasn’t DM’d someone “hey saw u liked the jeans are u still interested in purchasing can do a good deal for u hun xx”) has come together to create a strange atmosphere where we’re comfortable enough to treat people as our mates, but also comfortable enough through the medium of a blank screen to ask them some absolutely mad shit in the name of making that sweet sweet resale dollar. “One thing I’ve learnt with seeing all of these submissions is that there are literally no boundaries,” the account’s creator says. “People are ruthless and don’t care.” They’re not wrong. One submission shows a message that reads: “Hiya babe, in the description you said this was worn, I was just wondering who let u wear this out? It’s hideous xxx”
“I think there are a few reasons why people get so frustrated and aggy,” explains @DepopDrama. “I think sometimes people are tied to their personal items so much that they don’t want to let them go for cheap and get annoyed when people try to hustle. But the main reason is that people really take the piss on the app. People tend to be quite unreasonable when it comes to asking for a cheap price and the buyer gets offended. And you’re behind a screen, so you’re never going to meet the person on the other end of the messages. That means almost anything goes!”
But it’s not all bad. The popularity of the account, and the cult favourite it’s become on Instagram, clearly shows how much of a community exists on and around Depop. The owner — although they won’t share the handle — tells me that they even have their own store. So it’s a distinct possibility that some of the crazy messages which appear on their feed are personal. “I think there’s more of a community on Depop and people like to feel involved,” they say. “It’s helped people understand how to interact better, and it’s just an easier way to navigate shopping online. I also think it’s helped the culture for young people too, as it allows us to express ourselves in a different kind of way, if that makes sense.” It does, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be triple checking your pockets for baggies before you take that old puffer jacket to the post office.