Wishlisting

by Supergenius

A lot of people have trouble knowing what to give as gifts. This can result in uncomfortable moments as your husband unwraps unwanted cuff links or as little Susie opens up the 2-year old fashion, now sadly out of style. Why not get people what they want? Better still, why not learn about what people want, and use that as an inspiration to get them something they’ll love, but hadn’t thought of? This is the best type of gift: something you love, but something that had never occurred to you.

I believe this is what Amazon Wishlists are for.

I’ve kept a wishlist for some time. It takes some maintenance — you have to update it and tend to it like a young plant. But it’s worthwhile. You learn a lot about yourself when you look at the spectrum of books, movies and music that you find interesting. Better still, you learn a lot about your friends. I commonly visit others’ wishlists, not to buy them anything (of course), but to get ideas about books and culture that I normally wouldn’t consider. Amazon is a great environment for this, because they have such a broad product offering that really anything under the sun can end up in a wish list.

I’m quite proud of my list — it reflects my true geekiness, but it also shows the type of person I’d like to be — well-informed, well-dressed and well-cultured. In a sense, that’s why we shop for these things, and that why we buy gifts for others: an attempt to remake ourselves and our world after our idealized images. Of course, these toys and games don’t have the power, on their own, to transform us, but it’s revelatory nonetheless of who we could be and who we think we are.

32 Comments

  1. I sometimes use my Amazon wishlist as a way to remember what books I want to pick up at the library. Anytime I read an interesting book review I’ll just plug it in there so that I can remember it later.

    Comment by danithew — December 9, 2005 @ 10:36 am

  2. LOL - this is truly an eclectic list. I think I’d rather be Batman than Beavis (or Butthead).

    I’m thinking of putting together a wishlist this year - I’ll see if it works - or if I still end up getting whatever was on the clearance rack at Wal-Mart in my stocking. :(

    Happy Holidays!

    Comment by Elisabeth — December 9, 2005 @ 10:52 am

  3. Yeah, it’s eclectic. And Amazon isn’t necessarily the best place to buy these things — certainly it’s not the cheapest. But it’s a nice centralized resource, at least.

    Comment by Supergenius — December 9, 2005 @ 10:58 am

  4. um, two versions of “Madagascar”? You want them both? Are you some sort of masschistic completist in addition to being a supergenius? Why get anything fullscreen that is meant to be widescreen? Yes I know that for some CGI releases the reposition the scene instead of doing pan & scan, but still…

    Comment by Random John — December 9, 2005 @ 11:09 am

  5. Interesting how Spirited Away is listed as being by Rumi Hiragi. And the Iron Giant by Jennifer Aniston. And Akira by Mitsuo Iwata. Three very auteurist animated films, credited to the lead vocal talent. Come on!

    Comment by Bryce I — December 9, 2005 @ 11:13 am

  6. Steve,

    This is a pathetic way to beg for presents.

    Comment by Greg — December 9, 2005 @ 11:14 am

  7. Greg, guilty as charged.

    rJ, wtf? There’s no Madagascar on there! Hell no!

    Comment by Supergenius — December 9, 2005 @ 11:44 am

  8. I looked up some other prominent ‘Nacle names for wishlists. Some I found:

    Nathan Oman
    Clark Goble
    David Landrith
    Sumer Evans

    Comment by danithew — December 9, 2005 @ 11:45 am

  9. I knew someone once who won some contest where she got the top ten things on her Amazon wishlist, or something like that. But I’m way too lazy to make my own.

    Comment by Susan M — December 9, 2005 @ 11:47 am

  10. Susan, I’m with you. Too lazy. I mean really, who has the time to sit on the internet all day…

    Comment by Rusty — December 9, 2005 @ 12:20 pm

  11. The link must have passed through the Twilight Zone. I clicked it and instead of the wishlist of a certain supergenius I got the Amazon.com topsellers list. Not being a supergenius myself I didn’t notice this and quickly assumed that supergenius has some rather, ummm, interesting taste.

    Comment by Random John — December 9, 2005 @ 1:00 pm

  12. ARJ,
    I think you have to logout (if you are logged in) from Amazon.com or else you pull up other pages.

    Comment by danithew — December 9, 2005 @ 1:23 pm

  13. Thank you for sharing your wishlist!

    I didn’t know the Muppet Show was on DVD in season format - FINALLY!

    I use Amazon all the time for research, so i have either three or four wishlists to track stuff (indexed by product type - why, yes, I work in a library, why do you ask?)

    Comment by Jennifer — December 9, 2005 @ 2:13 pm

  14. You didn’t look up Kaimipono, danithew? For shame!

    Thanks for the reminder to update my badly out of date wishlist, Steve. That almost outweighs the shamelessness of this bleg.

    Comment by Kaimi — December 9, 2005 @ 3:45 pm

  15. Lol. I did look up Kaimipono. It didn’t bring anything up. Still doesn’t. There’s a number of Kaimi’s … but I didn’t see anything that was obviously you.

    Comment by danithew — December 9, 2005 @ 5:33 pm

  16. Steve,

    Your fullscreen edition of “Madagascar” is in the mail, buddy. I hope you enjoy it.

    I had to take food out of my childrens’ mouths to buy it. But hey, if that movie is important to you, pal, then it’s important to me.

    Comment by Kaimi — December 9, 2005 @ 5:34 pm

  17. Weird, danithew. But true. I wonder what’s going on. My list is here, but it doesn’t come up if you search Kaimipono. Must be a bug of some sort.

    Comment by Kaimi — December 9, 2005 @ 5:37 pm

  18. KAIMI!!

    Get Fascinating Womanhood off your wishlist!

    Comment by Julie in Austin — December 9, 2005 @ 6:06 pm

  19. David Sundwall is in there too.

    If a person has a profile in the system, you can add them to your “favorite people” category. Some of the folks I find in the system don’t have a profile.

    Comment by danithew — December 9, 2005 @ 6:24 pm

  20. Ok so someone notices that Kaimi has a horrible book on his list but not “Sex and the City” and many other rated R movies. What has this world come to?

    Comment by mardell — December 9, 2005 @ 9:04 pm

  21. Mardell, this is Kulturblog. aka Babylon. Around here, they would be more worried about me if I _hadn’t_ listed any R-rated movies on my wish list!

    Comment by Kaimi — December 9, 2005 @ 9:53 pm

  22. We’ve made it a requirement in the family for four years now. How else can you buy gifts for short attention spans? The only rule is that no one can check their own list after dec first.

    Comment by chronicler — December 9, 2005 @ 10:47 pm

  23. Yeah Mardell, back off. Is this T&S? I don’t think so. Rated R movies are just fine. This ain’t no honkey whitebread mormon blog.

    Comment by Supergenius — December 9, 2005 @ 11:41 pm

  24. This truly is one of the most voyeuristic, weird, hilarious, yet freaky things I’ve done in awhile. It’s too … personal. Why am I looking at someone’s Amazon wishlist?? And thinking about it?? I do have to say Mr. Supergenius, that your taste is great. The Great Lebowski is outstanding, and we just got the DVD of Smile. (My husband just saw the Smile concert live earlier this year.) What I really enjoyed though, was the juxtaposition of Jon Stewart and David O. McKay.

    Comment by meems & hubby — December 10, 2005 @ 1:02 am

  25. no no no. not hubby. just me.

    Comment by meems — December 10, 2005 @ 1:15 am

  26. I’ve always been tempted to look old friends and buy them something off their list. I think that would be too creepy though, especially if your name appears on the order form.

    I have to keep all my church books on a private list so my parents don’t figure out that I’m an apostate.

    Comment by NFlanders — December 10, 2005 @ 1:01 pm

  27. You can easily display your Amazon wishlist on your blog by going here:

    http://www.junto.co.uk/Amazon/WishListWidget.aspx

    You enter your Amazon Wish List ID and that will then give you a small piece of Javascript code to cut and paste into your blog template. You can use CSS to style it to your blog’s look and feel. Several default styles are also available for free.

    It costs nothing and no registration required. No complicated PHP or server scripts to install.

    :D

    Comment by Ben — December 12, 2005 @ 10:44 am

  28. Interesting. That stuff up on my wish list is *very* old and was more from when I was price comparing Mac’s early this spring.

    I typically don’t put it on my wish list but just in my “to buy” list. I think carefully select it before doing the checkout. I doubt you can see that. So my long list of books to buy isn’t seen.

    Comment by Clark Goble — December 12, 2005 @ 4:24 pm

  29. Ned, that’s funny. I’m actually thinking of putting stuff on my wishlist just to see if anyone buys me something off it! (grin)

    Comment by Clark Goble — December 12, 2005 @ 4:25 pm

  30. And all this time I thought Clark Goble was a pseudonym.

    I tried to work out a list for my pseudonym, but it kept showing my real name along with Ned Flanders. It would certainly confuse my mailman, to say the least.

    Comment by NFlanders — December 12, 2005 @ 4:39 pm

  31. Ned, it obviously is a pseudonym. But I also come from the school of thought that you should never join anything that sends junk mail in your own name. Whenever stores ask for my zip code or my phone number I always give a fake one as well. And I’m paranoid about tearing up all my receipts, even if most of the numbers are blacked out.

    Comment by Clark Goble — December 14, 2005 @ 11:03 pm

  32. [...] Lots of gifts under the tree, some even from my wish list. Yippee! [...]

    Pingback by Kulturblog » Christmas Wrap-Up — December 27, 2005 @ 6:47 pm