I'm reading Llittle Women and just noticed how this description of Laurie's shopping habits looks exactly like someone trying Temu or Aliexpress for the first time. Technology changes, but humans nature stays the same:
"His last whim had been to bring with him
on his weekly visits some new, useful, and ingenious
article for the young housekeeper. Now a bag of
remarkable clothespins, next, a wonderful nutmeg grater
which fell to pieces at the first trial, a knife cleaner that
spoiled all the knives, or a sweeper that picked the nap
neatly off the carpet and left the dirt, labor-saving soap
that took the skin off one’s hands, infallible cements which
stuck firmly to nothing but the fingers of the deluded
buyer, and every kind of tinware, from a toy savings bank
for odd pennies, to a wonderful boiler which would wash
articles in its own steam with every prospect of exploding
in the process.
In vain Meg begged him to stop. John laughed at him,
and Jo called him ‘Mr. Toodles’. He was possessed with a
mania for patronizing Yankee ingenuity, and seeing his
friends fitly furnished forth. So each week beheld some
fresh absurdity."
What similar examples do you know?
by TheLifemakers
3 Comments
I love Jane Austen for this reason – her portrayals of irritating relatives remind me so much of my own annoying extended family members 😂
Mr. Toodles was unboxing and leaving 1-star reviews 150 years before the internet.
The difference is how these items were produced back then.