favoritism

I love Etsy.

I really do.

However, what I don't love is the following.

Above is a huge bee I took a photo of on the day that happened to be my second wedding anniversary.

I favorite bees.

There are what are called 'teams' on Etsy, which are groups of like-minded and/or like-merchandise-selling vendors.  I'm a member of a bunch of vintage stuff-related teams.

Similar to the above, but not really, if you can follow that in any way.

Some of the teams insist that you 'favorite' your fellow team members' stuff.  I think it has something to do with exposure, but...   

I LOVE Grant Wood's landscapes.  If he was alive and on Etsy today, I'd favorite all his stuff.

the exposure I'm getting is just among other people in the team.  What this exposure leads to is not sales, but tons and tons of favorites in my feed.  

When this first started happening, I thought, 'Ooh, people like my stuff.'  Then I started to recognize user names, and even though DipsyDan favorited every single thing I posted, he was not forthcoming with purchases.  Nor were ChrissieandAshley who seemed to be similarly awed with my stuff.  Fast forward to now, and I'm familiar with dozens of user names, all favoriting stuff they've barely even looked at, let alone gone to the listing of.

If I sincerely like something, think it's interesting, whatever, I favorite it.  Otherwise, I don't.  Nothing personal.

I'd love to post "If you're not interested enough in one of my items to actually look at the listing, please don't favorite it.  Otherwise, all you're doing is clumping up my feed."

I realize most of you have no idea what I'm talking about, but maybe some Etsy-er will see this, and get what I'm saying.