50 Online Market Listings That People Just Had To Screenshot For Their Absurdity

Some social media platforms seem to be struggling with the younger crowd. For example, only 32% of U.S. teens use Facebook today, down from 71% in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center. And many who are still there choose to stay only because of its resale platform, Marketplace.

Launched in 2016, Facebook Marketplace has grown into one of Meta's biggest success stories and now competes with the likes of eBay and Craigslist.

"Marketplace is the flea market of the internet," said Charles Lindsay, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Buffalo. "There's a massive amount of consumer-to-consumer business."

This is largely because "young people, including students ... , are increasingly drawn to used goods," said Yoo-Kyoung Seock, a professor of textiles, merchandising and interiors at the University of Georgia, who studies consumer behavior among Gen Z and millennials and environmental sustainability in the textile industry.

Meta doesn't talk much about Marketplace as a business — for instance, how its demographics may differ from Facebook overall and whether it has a vision to grow the platform in its annual reports — but unlike, say, Craigslist users, Marketplace has messaging built in on Facebook, making communication really easy.

However, there's still plenty of fraud online. 73% of U.S. adults have experienced some kind of online scam or attack, and 36% say they purchased an item online that never arrived or was counterfeit and it was not refunded.

Interestingly, younger Americans are slightly more likely than their older counterparts to say they have lost money because of an online scam or attack. About a quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds say they’ve lost money in this way, compared to 15% of those 65 and older.

This makes you wonder: how many of these ridiculous listings are actually legit? (Minus the ones that are clearly created as a joke, of course.)

What's worse, fake AI listings are also flooding the internet. According to Dr. Kolina Koltai, who is a senior researcher and trainer at Bellingcat and studies how sociotechnical systems influence our decision-making, major advancements in artificial intelligence in recent years have made it harder to differentiate between what’s real or fake, not just when it comes to photos and videos of people, but also in product listings.

"Many AI-generated images have some sort of 'sheen' or look to them that can set off alarm bells," Koltai explains.

"Take this image of one of the 'crystal coffee mugs.' At first glance, it looks like a beautiful mug. But if you look closer, you might notice defects in the image."

She says many of us often search for the cheapest items online, looking to get the most bang for our buck, but it is also important to be alert to deals that seem too good to be real.

Koltai says that a good habit is to always look beyond the listing and consider who is profiting from the purchase.

Is this a name-brand item, or does it appear to be some mysterious seller that has popped overnight out of nowhere? Does this seller have a website, or do they only exist on Facebook or Amazon? If they sell other items, what do the customer reviews say? Is the seller using an AI-generated image as their profile picture?

While it's funny to see someone trying to get a few thousand dollars for the planet Juniper, there are many more subtle attempts to lure away our money, too.