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Image by Tina Tiller
Image by Tina Tiller

SocietyJuly 15, 2022

The weirdest reflections in mirrors for sale on Trade Me, ranked

Image by Tina Tiller
Image by Tina Tiller

Alex Casey unearths some truly chilling reflections of modern day Aotearoa.

Looking for endless scrolling but don’t want to put up with the existential dread of TikTok, the never ending discourse of Twitter or the self-esteem hoover of Instagram? Try Trade Me. Honestly. These days, what gets my dopamine pumping is not the Mad Butcher’s breakfast sausage or even Rawdon Christie dressed as a hot dog – it’s an amazingly weird Trade Me find. 

Take, for example, this German Shepherd wearing a Friends T-shirt who is maybe at the airport? 

Or this man who photobombed the Pink vintage 60s linen top photoshoot while trying to get another beer: 

I asked Dan Taipua, another fellow Trademephile who has been documenting his finds for years in various Facebook albums, about why the Trade Me hunt is so appealing: “With the exception of Facebook and Instagram (though it predates both), Trade Me functions as the largest ever repository of New Zealand photography,” he explained. “Amateur though it may be, it has a direct connection to the lives and environments of everyday New Zealanders.” 

Mirrors have a particularly special role, both literally and figuratively reflecting the lives of New Zealanders across the country. “Mirrors have a recurrent mythic value,” mused Taipua. “From the divine bronzed mirrors of Japan’s ancient sun worship to Jacques Lacan’s modern theory psychological personhood developed through the Mirror Stage.” Basically, if you ever need to gauge the mood of the nation, head straight to Home and Living > Home decor > Mirrors. 

Because it is Friday, and the internet was basically built on listicles about people taking funny mirror photos, please allow me to add my contribution to the canon. These are the most bizarre things I have ever seen reflected in mirrors for sale on Trade Me. 

10) Michael… Jackson?

I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him how much is the vase? 

9) Dogs in a state of existential crisis

“Ha ha”, you might think, “dog got into the shot”. But look closer. 


A breathtaking insight into the fragile nature of existence. A+

8) Couples clearly having an argument

Throughout this longitudinal study, I have gleaned that most mirror listings seem to happen when people are moving house or renovating, based on the proliferation of moving boxes, drop cloths and empty rooms in the background. According to this equally sound research done by a local moving company, moving house results in relationship problems for 75% of people. It makes sense, then, that the occasional mirror shot would capture a moment of pointed-finger tension.

7) People in witness protection

Tfw you are about to go into witness protection but you still have to sell your Beautiful Vintage Queen Anne Style Dresser and Bevelled Mirror. 

6) Big bear

Is this what people are talking about when they talk about The Bear? I am going to go ahead and assume… yes.

5) IDGAF fingers

‘Tis rare to encounter a reflection of interest in a humble wing mirror listing, but the passion and aplomb demonstrated by this gregarious seller takes it straight into the top five.

4) Inflatable unicorn

Yeah sure why not.

3) Dead animals

Thanks for the easy trade, nrman_bates2022.

2) Haunted doll and haunted baby

I know this is a terrible way to find out, but if you have looked at this photo you are probably going to die in seven days. I don’t make the rules – she makes the rules.

1) Extremely chaotic Fall Out Boy poster

Fall Out Boy? More like Wall Doubt Ploy – because this is a deceptive, deceptive piece of photographic bamboozlement. At first glance, one might assume the poster is upside down on the wall and the mirror is resting against some sort of velour chaise lounge, based on what one might assume to be scrunched up blinds in the right hand corner.

Wrong! I made the mistake of posting it in our work Slack, seeking confirmation from my peers that the poster was in fact upside down, and let’s just say things started going down swinging. 

This ain’t a scene, it’s a goddamn disgrace. The Fall Out Boy poster is stuck to the CEILING so the trader can stare at Wentz, Stump et al as they sleep and presumably engage in other nefarious nocturnal activities. Move over Yanny and sayonara to Laurel, this is the ultimate internet mindfuck. 

Thnks fr the mmrs Trade Me, A++++. 

‘Like a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, each member is vital to the whole picture. Join today.’
Calum Henderson
— Production editor
Keep going!
Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

OPINIONSocietyJuly 14, 2022

What’s wrong with rodeos?

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

With the legality of rodeos once again challenged in court, anti-rodeo campaigner Lynn Charlton explains the impacts of these events on the animals involved.

I filmed my first rodeos, solo, in 2013.

The events were held on beautiful sunny days, with country music playing, relaxed crowds and announcers cracking jokes. I sat up on the bank while kids ran about, hot chips were eaten and people chatted and laughed. Stop right there, and this was no different to many other family-oriented outdoor events. That is, until the animals began “performing”.

Despite their clear distress as they tried to get rid of the predator on their backs, the animals’ behaviour was anthropomorphised by the announcers. “That bull wants to get even with the cowboy for showing him up last time” or “that horse loves to play to the crowd”. When a disoriented bull couldn’t work out how to exit the arena: “He loves all the attention and doesn’t want to leave.” The crowd laughed along.

Sometimes the commentary was slightly amusing, and listening to the laughter, I could feel the pull to go along with it. I’m sure this is what happens for most people. I’d heard animals loved rodeos, had great lives as performers and were saved from slaughter. It’s an image cultivated to distract from the violence committed against them in the name of entertainment, as became blatantly clear when I moved down to the arena fence with my camera.

Panicked, riderless horses galloped and bucked a metre or so in front of me, stirrups flapping and hitting their sides. Their mouths were open and tongues visible, which stunned me. I had not noticed this from the bank. Racing alongside the fence, trying to get away from pick-up riders attempting to unbuckle the bucking strap to slow them down (straps send animals into a panic), their power and terror was scary to stand so close to.

I’d ridden horses in my teens and had never seen anything like it.

Calf roping, a common rodeo event (Photo: Getty Images)

I was right opposite the chute that held the calves, and the steers for wrestling. When released, they came towards me, were sent airborne at the end of a rope, somersaulting. Others had their horns grabbed and necks twisted 180 degrees. Other steers wore fake horns and had their back legs pulled out from under them, while someone pulled their head in the opposite direction. One of the disoriented bulls had thick blood coming from his mouth.

Since then, public criticism of rodeos has increased, following media stories and complaints to the Ministry for Primary Industries about rodeos failing to abide by the minimum standards in the rodeo code of welfare. The New Zealand Animal Law Association (NZALA) issued a 2018 report stating rodeos were illegal as they breached the Animal Welfare Act 1999.

The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) then convened an expert panel to look into the impact of rodeo events on animals. It found those impacts were moderate to severe in all events bar one.

In 2018 NAWAC released a new rodeo code of welfare that essentially made no change to the 2014 code – which rodeo clubs repeatedly failed to uphold anyway – thereby ignoring the expert panel’s findings. These codes in no way protect animals.

Meanwhile, rodeo continued. Deaths and injuries of animals occur every year at rodeos, the most notable being one season where three horses and a bull died. Two bulls were euthanised due to catastrophic injury during the 2019/20 season and another bull euthanised in 2020/21. (The number of deaths during training is not recorded.)

Following a successful legal challenge to the use of pig farrowing crates in 2019, NZALA and Safe filed further court proceedings against the minister for agriculture and NAWAC in 2021 for allowing rodeos to breach Animal Welfare Act obligations to handle animals in a way that minimises the likelihood of unnecessary or unreasonable pain or distress.

They aren’t seeking a ban on rodeo, but want a review into how rodeo as a sport operates against the Animal Welfare Act. A judicial review was heard this week at the High Court in Wellington. It was accepted in the court that due process in the issuing of the 2018 code was not followed and lawyers for the government and NAWAC admitted “blunders” had been made.

Protesters at a rodeo event in Martinborough in 2019 (Photo: Karoline Tuckey/RNZ)

Teams of animal advocates have filmed and photographed at rodeos up and down the country over the last few years (mostly pre-Covid.) People often ask what it’s like, how we do it. Our team – sometimes two middle-aged women, other times four or five people – set up our chairs, tripods and cameras in the open.

Over the years rodeos realised who we were, so there was no point in trying to be discreet like we did the early days.

Once the events start, we’re focused, moving the cameras along the chutes, watching for signs of animal panic and distress. There are typically six or eight chutes holding horses or bulls, and we’re scanning the whole time.

When something happens, our focus is on capturing it – keeping the scene in the shot, being alert for what might happen in the next-door chute or another chute further along. We can see when an animal is in distress, thrashing around trying to escape, using hooves against the handlers, or has gone down in the chute.

We don’t see details. We don’t see that their eyes are shut, or open extra wide, or that their mouths are gaping. We don’t see the grisly details of the neck twist, or how the mouths of horses and bulls are wrenched open in horror, how their limbs and backs are positioned as they buck and thrash. We don’t see the details of the falls or crashes into fences or hear them crying out or bellowing.

All that comes later, when we’re going through the footage and photographs.

That’s also when we see the tail twisting, the pinching, punching, shoving of calves, the hitting of horses in the face, the sneaky use of electric shocks, the animals that went to ground. Seeing fear and panic in animals is particularly upsetting. We don’t usually see the injuries, the bruising, the strained ligaments, the sore muscles, the paralysis that quickly sets in once bulls that have broken their backs exit the arena.

We didn’t see the hoof torn half off a horse, or the horse that exited the arena in distress and smashed into a post, breaking its neck. There have been several examples of the public witnessing bulls break their legs, a couple of horses break their necks, calves unable to put a leg on the ground or lie stunned and unwilling to move.

Some of those injuries are obvious, but most injuries are the unseen ones that will be felt by these sentient beings over the coming days and weeks, and the unseen injury of terror. Animal advocates have documented the experience of animals used in rodeos to show what happens to them and how they respond.

They’ve told their story now, and the whole country has heard them.

Now we wait to see whether the law hears them too.

But wait there's more!