Pinny Lane
Life immediately following college graduation is vague. Your bag of tricks isn't really filled with tricks, rather quasi-skills like spreadsheets, Powerpoint, and justifying Wikipedia as a legitimate research source. Questions of what to do or who to become constantly loom. Grads often toil with plunging directly into the workplace versus taking time off to figure it all out. Maybe I’ll teach English in Armenia. But what if you attempted enlistment into desk life and were denied, straight up rejected?
After job offers at thinktanks in DC fell through, Noah Czarney and Aaron Cohen came to Beijing to trade pins. Each armed with political science and government degrees from Brandeis University, along with about 800 pins, they hopped a plane to Beijing. Instead of sitting on a board of directors, they sat on a street corner.
"The job thing didn't really work out the first time around," said Czarney, 21, from Milford, CT. “So, we decided to take up [Cohen's] sister's husband's step dad's offer to send us to Beijing on this pin-trading mission,” he said.
Little did they know, they were about to plunge into an expansive Olympic subculture. Of the 30 or so pin pushers on the corner outside the MPC, Aaron and Noah were the sole rookies. Many pin traffickers' Olympic appearances exceed double digits. This globally diverse group, each with hundreds if not thousands of pins on display, acted like best friends tailgating a football game on Sunday morning.
"It's great because you get to meet all these random people from all over, just trading pins," said Cohen, 22, from Columbus, OH.
Pins representing corporations, media groups, and national delegations are traded, never sold, based on potential value. As pins continue to change hands throughout the games, some become rare and are appraised higher value. A Rwandan Olympic Delegation pin had become highly sought-after this particular morning.
I traded a China Radio International (CRI) pin to a Russian lady for an art deco, 1980 Moscow pin. “And for my special friend from Chicago…” she sounded like Malkovich in Rounders as she pinned a teddy bear, the Moscow Games’ mascot, on the necklace of my credential.
The pin-peddling underworld of the Olympic games epitomizes their spirit, at least, the spirit they were founded upon: People from all over the world gathering to share a mutual passion just for sport. These people aren’t seeking financial gain, or else they would’ve cashed out Ebay and saved themselves the money and the hassle. They seem to genuinely enjoy the festivities, the camaraderie, and of course, the pins. It’s refreshing to see people with hobbies unrelated to the Internet or a joystick. It's just old fashion trading, like the kind I used to do with basketball cards and POGS (all you indoor kids remember Magic Cards, right?) Despite that the items trading hands were born from corporate sponsors as tokens of appreciation and friendship, a sense of purity still lingers around the tradition. The pins represent the Games and the city they took place in. They represent all the people whose credentials they've previously added flare to.
Noah Czarney and Aaron Cohen are sold on it.
“Regardless of the job situation, you’ll see us in winter coats, beanies, and gloves trading in Vancouver,” said Cohen.
Life immediately following college graduation is vague. Your bag of tricks isn't really filled with tricks, rather quasi-skills like spreadsheets, Powerpoint, and justifying Wikipedia as a legitimate research source. Questions of what to do or who to become constantly loom. Grads often toil with plunging directly into the workplace versus taking time off to figure it all out. Maybe I’ll teach English in Armenia. But what if you attempted enlistment into desk life and were denied, straight up rejected?
After job offers at thinktanks in DC fell through, Noah Czarney and Aaron Cohen came to Beijing to trade pins. Each armed with political science and government degrees from Brandeis University, along with about 800 pins, they hopped a plane to Beijing. Instead of sitting on a board of directors, they sat on a street corner.
"The job thing didn't really work out the first time around," said Czarney, 21, from Milford, CT. “So, we decided to take up [Cohen's] sister's husband's step dad's offer to send us to Beijing on this pin-trading mission,” he said.
Little did they know, they were about to plunge into an expansive Olympic subculture. Of the 30 or so pin pushers on the corner outside the MPC, Aaron and Noah were the sole rookies. Many pin traffickers' Olympic appearances exceed double digits. This globally diverse group, each with hundreds if not thousands of pins on display, acted like best friends tailgating a football game on Sunday morning.
"It's great because you get to meet all these random people from all over, just trading pins," said Cohen, 22, from Columbus, OH.
Pins representing corporations, media groups, and national delegations are traded, never sold, based on potential value. As pins continue to change hands throughout the games, some become rare and are appraised higher value. A Rwandan Olympic Delegation pin had become highly sought-after this particular morning.
I traded a China Radio International (CRI) pin to a Russian lady for an art deco, 1980 Moscow pin. “And for my special friend from Chicago…” she sounded like Malkovich in Rounders as she pinned a teddy bear, the Moscow Games’ mascot, on the necklace of my credential.
The pin-peddling underworld of the Olympic games epitomizes their spirit, at least, the spirit they were founded upon: People from all over the world gathering to share a mutual passion just for sport. These people aren’t seeking financial gain, or else they would’ve cashed out Ebay and saved themselves the money and the hassle. They seem to genuinely enjoy the festivities, the camaraderie, and of course, the pins. It’s refreshing to see people with hobbies unrelated to the Internet or a joystick. It's just old fashion trading, like the kind I used to do with basketball cards and POGS (all you indoor kids remember Magic Cards, right?) Despite that the items trading hands were born from corporate sponsors as tokens of appreciation and friendship, a sense of purity still lingers around the tradition. The pins represent the Games and the city they took place in. They represent all the people whose credentials they've previously added flare to.
Noah Czarney and Aaron Cohen are sold on it.
“Regardless of the job situation, you’ll see us in winter coats, beanies, and gloves trading in Vancouver,” said Cohen.
posted by Barry Lird at
11:23 PM
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