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ORDER #004

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YOU ARE BEING SERVED BY: Jaye

Luxury is not defined by abundance, but by who is kept from it.

In my mind, luxury – in all its forms – always manifests in the image of a metaphorical dam. Miles of smooth, polished surface; a towering barricade of brazen indifference running the length of the world, unblemished by weather nor time. It was built to last through dominance. On one side: luxury in surplus, exported, curated, elevated, enjoyed by a select few. On the other: the rest of the world, hands empty, eyes lifted.

It’s an unacknowledged wonder of the world, older than myth, predating every monument that would later eclipse it in fame. Like other ancient wonders, it was built by hands we’ll never meet.

Stone stacked on stone, its calculated expansion swallowed all that stood before it until it became a creature of its own design: a beast that divided and conquered simply by standing. By the time its shadow stretched across the globe, it was already too late to stop it. The wealth of the world had been ferried across it, hoarded behind it, guarded by distance, prestige, and the quiet confidence of that which knows it is unreachable.

But the dam doesn’t just divide; it decides. What gets to be real, what gets to be desired, and what gets to remain out of reach.

Only at its base, where it meets the ground, can you find tiny scuffs in the sheen: old marks left by small hands and smaller uprisings. Most people never look that low. Most spend their lives with their necks craned upwards instead, imagining what it might be like to stand on the other side.

Somewhere along that ruthless, immaculate stretch sits one precise crack, no wider than a toothpick, where something trickles through: aspiration. Few ever consider the composition of what drips through, because the trickle is easier to romanticize than interrogate. We cup our hands beneath the runoff, calling it access. We’ve long stopped asking why the dam exists at all. We live in its shadow and quietly agree that the trickle is the natural order of things.

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This pressure to want, to signal, to belong, has shaped much of my artistic practice over the last year. In the fictional universe I’ve been building, consumerism and digital culture take the form of characters. Previously, I introduced my Chompers: figures who endlessly feed on their timelines, endlessly perform, and move through an algorithmic maze like Pac-Man, blissfully unaware they’re trapped.

They are the beauty standard, the owners of the trendiest fashions, the version of cool that gets rewarded by the algorithm.

Some Chompers accumulate strong visibility and influence and become False Idols — still Chompers, but with slightly more leader energy than follower energy, shaping trends rather than chasing them. If they fall from grace, they’re recast as Jesters; reduced to spectacle, ridicule, or erasure. Each archetype reflects a different way visibility is earned, performed, or revoked online.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about another kind of character — one produced by the crack in the dam, where aspiration passes through under constraint, never arriving intact. Something born not from admiration, but imitation.

GNASHERS.

In my world, Gnashers are characters who orbit the Chompers but never occupy their spotlight. Chompers are the reference. Drawn from the landscape of dupes, knockoffs, bootlegs, etc. — names that shift across contexts — they mimic the Chompers’ silhouettes, gestures, and aesthetics. Their faces aren’t symmetrical, their teeth aren’t perfect, and other small details betray the shortcuts they were forced to take.

The logic of Gnashers mirrors the real-world market of knockoffs; how these items represent souvenirs of a life most of us will never reach. They make the inaccessible slightly accessible, the unattainable briefly within grasp. We gather them gratefully nonetheless.

Knockoffs are not accidental. They are the result of organized creative siphoning, but they are also the predictable outcome of a society that markets desirability and quality at prices most people are structurally barred from paying.

A design proves itself coveted and — most importantly — sellable, and once it becomes culturally necessary but economically unreachable, the replication wheels start turning. The original is studied, stripped for parts, measured by trend velocity rather than craftsmanship, reconstructed by people who profit from other people’s imaginations. Invention is converted into hastily made templates, and authorship becomes invisible — or very conveniently obscured.

Some knockoffs come real close to the real thing. Others don’t pretend to be anything but the unmistakable copy. I’m interested in researching the latter — not necessarily for their failure to pass, but for their insistence on participating anyway.

There is a particular ache in the world of things made to resemble other things. You see it in the shimmer of a cheap bag, in the face of a doll whose eyes don’t quite agree on where to look, in perfumes that promise a scent they’ll never deliver, in logos that almost spell what they’re trying so hard to be. It’s especially evident in knockoffs of characters, or anything with a face really, where they have those lobotomized, deranged eyes, as if their existence agonizes them.

Online, we’ve built an entire comedy ecosystem on the backs of imitation goods. Humor has always been our coping mechanism for this imbalance: the Big-Box-versus-Fashion House memes, the “same thing, different price” delusions, the proud declarations of suspiciously low-priced bargains snagged — it’s the shorthand we rely on. Laughter acts as a release valve for envy; a way of distancing ourselves from desire by mocking the things that try too hard to satisfy it.

Knockoffs live in this uneasy borderland: close enough to gesture at luxury, but never close enough to belong. They are created for proximity, not precision; for desire, not dignity. And yet, in their flawed sincerity, they often reveal more about us than the flawless originals ever could.

What does it mean to want the idea of a thing more than the thing itself?

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I wasn’t looking for a knockoff when I found one. I was killing time in a store, there to pick up movie snacks, when I drifted into an aisle I had no reason to be in. Their haunted pastel eyes stared back at me, and I was already walking towards them.

They were immediately legible as copies of a very famous mischievous-looking furry monster toy that reached peak popularity last year. I’d seen the original everywhere: online, on TV, and out-and-about clipped proudly to designer bags. I never sought the original. But faced with its dizygotic twin, I felt a tug I didn’t expect.

It was visibly inexpensive, and its price left no doubt. Yet somehow, that was part of its appeal. It looked comical, but also oddly charming. I can’t explain why, but I preferred it to the original it was based on. It was stupid, and I bought it.

That purchase stayed with me longer than it should have. It’s what pushed me to explore this subject in my work. I found myself thinking about the emotional architecture of the knockoff’s performance. The knockoff is not neutral; it carries the weight of aspiration, humor, distortion, shame, desperation, and desire all at once.

They resemble the real thing the way a funhouse mirror resembles the person looking into it: technically, but devastatingly incorrect.

All knockoffs are equal, but some knockoffs are more pernicious than others. They aren’t inherently inferior, nor are they always theft. There’s a lot of nuance here, and each case deserves its own consideration. Ultimately, behind every imitation lies a story that was never allowed to take its true form.

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[ Meanwhile, at the local superstore… ]

Everything looks crooked and at an angle from my perspective.

I was not made slowly. I came to be in this world too fast; born from hot molds and cheap dyes, my plastic skin still warm as it cooled into whatever shape the factory needed that day. They gave me a name that does not belong to me. A name printed on a label stitched into my side, declaring who I was meant to be.

The stitching’s visibly shoddy. The paint on my nose has been misprinted a few millimeters off-center. My joints are flimsy. My colors will fade faster than pride. But I’ve learned to live in the space between what I am and what I was supposed to be.

People look at me with a certain pause, the kind reserved for déjà vu and errors. I can’t tell if that pause means they see me, or if they’re searching for the thing I’m not.

Sometimes they pick me up. They hold me at arm’s length, tilting me back and forth as their eyes adjust to my wrongness. Their lips twist — half amused, half uncomfortable. I hear the words:

“Oh god, look at this.”

“It’s giving [big brand] dupe.”

“It’s so bad it’s kind of good.”

“So cursed. I love it.”

They laugh, and I shake a little in their hands.

Was I meant to be something to be laughed at? Is my existence fundamentally grotesque? I know I’m off, I can’t help it. I never pretend to be anything more than the best version of what I was copied from. But just once, I want so badly to be seen without being corrected.

I’ve seen the original before. We locked eyes for a moment. I was on my shelf; it was clipped proudly to its owner’s tote bag as they walked by. Its smile was symmetrical. Its limbs aligned. It didn’t tilt. It looked like an answer. I look like a question.

Not everyone passes the glance test; most of us expire where we stand. We have limited lifespans, and I’ve already spent mine. I was taken off the shelf last week. Tomorrow, I’ll be lifted from this discount bin. I can’t feel my face pressed against the metal wires, nor the weight of my duplicates piled all around me. The floor is above me, and the ceiling is somewhere I’ll never reach.

Where to next? I have no clue.

Second born.

First to rot.

— END OF ORDER —

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