I’m a man of simple means. I wake up. I go to work. I come home. I sell my pre-loved shoes online. Anything to disrupt this centuries old routine tends to be met with extreme aggression and hostility. Except for this time.
Tuesday night, I emerged from an at-home aromatherapy shower (I am but a simple man with simple wants), struck a match to three candles surrounding my bed and lay across it — limp, willing. As I needled my bare back and ass into the finer points of my acupressure mat (again, simple man begets simple rituals), I drew open those familiar digital drapes to a vibrant marketplace of secondhand spoils: Vinted.
Before I could take my master’s degree for a turn about the market and draft a description for a pair of deeply misjudged Miista boots in three rousing acts, something gave me pause.
I rolled off my acupressure pad, scrambling to make sense of what I was seeing. For just a moment, the candles flickered, burning at half-mast as if a ghostly spectre had charged through the room.
There, in the cradle of my Vinted discovery page was a little blue man. A twink*, to be sure, whose minuscule frame was adorned with a Thriller jacket and pinstripe pants culminating in dangerous fire.
He was so — so —
Reader, I managed to press on with my shoe listings, gathering enough economic steam to flirt with the Eurostar bookings page at a later point in the week, but the image (the Elordi Frankenstein face, the translucent quince jelly hair) of the little blue man stayed close. Too close.
That evening, caught in the twin heat of the residual bodily warmth from the shower, and a shuttered room where the radiator blazed at five (the highest on my dial), something in me softened, and finally, slipped free.
Suddenly, I could scarcely focus on the Maris Piper potato (a simple man) that demanded to be jacketed, nor the book (a 600-page history of the Oscars — a simple man) at my lap without the mind charting course to blue man isle.
With the aid of local oracle Google lens, I learned that the little doll bore a name, and it was Holt.
As my scroll deepened, reams of Holt Hyde presented itself to me. Holt victim. Holt aggressor. Holt ‘Monster High’.
If you’ll have me, I’d like to talk through what I saw.
His palms blueberry, knees creek, arms pappardelle. CK One on his sweater already. He’s ethnically ambiguous, but on the surface, an avatar daddy.
So here’s one of the first listings turned up by Google lens. The rapport was instant.
I’ve been ‘I don’t know anyone at this party’ Holt Hyde at various points of my life (mostly when I was 13 and mum took me to an East Timorese garage party) and I’ll bet you have too.
She is someone we all know.
In this listing (eBay I think) Holt is every inch the aunt who came out later in life. She’s cropped her hair short. She’s testing the waters with some daring fits. She’s nervous, but undeterred.
The legalities of this are front of mind.
Travelling deeper into the Holt hole only brought more questions. It also brought this:
Where are his little doll clothes? Why do the images hone in on the deep chasms between his pelvis and legs?
I feel like I was placed on a cyber police watchlist just by scrolling through these images.
Do I feel compelled to buy a Holt doll? I mean, yeah. Have I already made attempts? Sure. It’s just that two of my eBay offers were instantly declined, and parting with 100 pounds sterling for some cerulean twink smacks of regression — a relapse into the trigger-happy toy buying of my 11th year of life.
*I asked a dear friend (who is, in his words, part of the “Good Homokeeping Institute”) if this was fair and he said yes and also “deoxygenated Ken is packing a surprise.”
A breakout section unrelated to what you just read
going: to work. I started a new job in January and I like it very much
eating: chilli jam (and so is everyone else because I make 7-9 jars a fortnight and distribute) and Pié d’Angloys
reading: a book of Victorian slang
listening: a podcast on Siegfried and Roy with an extremely catchy theme song. also, Arctic Monkeys - Opening Night
watching: LIVE things! I’ve been off the newsletter circuit for months, so, since then, some highlights: Obongjayar in concert, Tim Key’s Loganberry, Natalie Palamides’ WEER
remembering: Desperate Housewives
loving: the green 6x 1970s Luminarc wine glasses I just procured on eBay
saying: “These boys would all be grandpas now.” — my niece upon seeing an an archival class photo from 1865
Thank you for reading this week’s Libido Sewer.
xoxo
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