Recently, I got an offer to buy one of the Instagram handles I have. I have a handful because they are themed on my different hobbies, with my obsession to keep my world organized, rather than having one Instagram with “everything” in it and no way to sort it. I don’t know if the offer was serious or not, but it led me to think about an interesting question. How much would I want for this Ode To Toy Instagram handle, given the history and attachment I have with it? Go through the consequences with me and think about your Instagram account, or if you had one, and see what answer you come up with for your situation!

Selling this Instagram handle, and its content, isn’t so much about the handle as it is about an online portfolio, of sorts. It’s all the memories, and some of the photos not backed up. It’d be about putting them all back up again, or most of them, even if I had them backed up, under some likely less cool name. Or it’d be about just putting something behind for good should I not wish to have any of this past any more, in exchange for a little money. This loss consideration is worthy to me because if someone hacked this account and stole it to me tomorrow, I’d be a bit sad and upset, but really, only a tiny bit. I’d probably just shrug and move on, maybe with a few shakes of the head and a little grimace of a frown. Yet, potentially give me money for it, and it becomes valuable to me, all of a sudden. Not so much valuable monetarily, but emotionally.

The account was originally created to show some creativity with action figure photos. I didn’t have a lot, just two really, Beethoven and a modern rendition of a G1 Transformer named Thundercracker, but where was I going to find a real Beethoven and Thundercracker for photography? As well, I can show the world from a different perspective, on the scale of these action figures and maybe smaller, combining everyday life with fantasy.

 

It was through the Beethoven action figure from where I got the handle, Ode to Toy, from his famous Ode to Joy.

 

I had won my Beethoven through a contest with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about 25 years prior. All that time, my poor Beethoven was bored out of his mind. But as with many things in my life, they eventually find their value, if not immediately.

With this account in hand, I sought out a few more action figures, with a “prize” find being a bunch of 2″ high Avengers action figures being on sale at Wal-mart one Boxing Week. With those, a sort of macrophotography came into play as I posed them with all kinds of things, including a dead squirrel I found one day, for photos with symbolic meanings or questions.

 

I also got my origami involved, including a favourite picture of a giant origami X-wing fighter, made from a 3′ x 3′ piece of plotter paper someone gave me! It was like the perfect life size for my Avengers!

 

At the opposite end of the origami spectrum was a tiny origami crane from a 1 cm x 1 cm square, done to see if I could pass the Japanese medical exam requirement of their students. I’d have faith in surgeons who were able to do this. I don’t know what they do in North America to test for this dexterity, but I would feel better if they did this. I posed this crane with Ultron, among my other Avengers related figures.

 

Then I got my robot dog, k8 (i.e. Kate the K-9), for a cameo from another Instagram, against a Decepticon in Motor Master. Robot vs robot, if you will.

 

Then came the insight to do car photography with Hot Wheels dinkies. In another year, Wal-mart had some incomplete sets of these on sale for really cheap, like 50 cents Canadian apiece, so I bought what I could and did a car show sort of Instagram to show off the beautiful designs and paint jobs on these toys that few people pay enough attention to. I’m sure some people from Mattel appreciated somebody appreciated their work, though.

 

Then I added backdrops that were the packaging which I thought was also nice.

 

I haven’t been too active on the Instagram of late with my other hobbies, but some recent ideas included my origami in some of my trademark styles, like being folded out of cellophane so you could see the inside of them as well as the outside!

 

So those are some of the many memories.

Another big consideration would be the handle. Is it catchy? Can I think of something else I would like somewhat as much if I gave it up? Definitely catchy and brandable. Can I think of something else? I’m sure I could. I pride myself on my creativity, after all. Liking whatever else as much? Probably, but it would take time as I’ve grown to liking this handle and talking about it over the years.

And who is the party wanting to buy it, for being able to judge what kind of ball part I’d be looking at for an offer? Just a person would be different from a corporation like Mattel, say. For me, though, that’d be a small consideration for money, because money-wise, it would be how much money do I need in life that would influence how much I’d let go of the handle for. If I were needing money, I might be desperate enough to give it away for small price, or maybe hold out for something big. If I didn’t need money, there’d be no need to be selling it for a small price, which is the case for me, fortunately.

 

At least $5,000 please

After all that consideration, I settled on at least $10,000. It’s not a value I consider the handle to be worth on the market, but it’s what the handle is worth to me. I’d like to have all those photos in my life to show like that, under one name or another. It would take a lot of time to put it back up, though I’ll be honest, if I sold the handle, I’d just leave the chapter behind in life, or most of it. I don’t need money in life, which is why I can walk away if someone were to offer me a few thousand dollars for it. I don’t think they even will, though, seeing the interested party seeming to be an “average” citizen. At this point in my life, roughly $5,000 is what it’d take to make me notice something in terms of money being offered to me. It’s about 5 cents for what I spend, lol. So that’s going to be my asking price.

 

What about you and your Instagram handle, or if you had one to sell? What would be your asking price?

 

 

1148 words