Craigslist Personals

Craigslist is an interesting phenomenon that attracts probably the more diverse group of people you'll ever see. The casualness of the website really lends itself to attracting that type of audience, I think. But the most interesting part of the website has to the be the personal section where every woman seems to get pictures of penises and every guy can get an easy lay.

Photographer Mark Andrew had an insight about the how the personal ads were both anonymous, yet intensely personal. He solicited the people in the ads to shoot them in their homes, creating beautiful photos that add an interesting context to their original ads. A lot of personals offer to trade photos, so you don't see the person in their ads. Needless to say, that leaves a lot to the imagination depending on how cynical/optimistic you are. I wouldn't say that these photos make the ads any more attractive or the people any more desirable. But I think it makes the insecurities that we see in those ads much more surprising.

Check out Andrew's work here.