Salon.com > Susan Moran http://www.salon.com Wed, 30 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Pez mania http://www.salon.com/1999/04/19/pez/ http://www.salon.com/1999/04/19/pez/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 1999 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/1999/04/19/pez Avid collectors of all sorts of items -- from antique cuckoo clocks to Roman coins -- have always formed communities of like mind and gathered periodically in person to trade and schmooze. But the Internet has kicked this process into overdrive.

Need evidence? Just ponder the Pezheads. Pez-dispenser devotees have not only built communities online -- their obsession has inspired the founding of billion-dollar companies, and even brought couples together.

Mary Thronson and Brian Gochal are two Pez devotees who recently attended a Pez collectors convention in Los Angeles. Initially, they were embarrassed to talk about how their romance began over the "Pezheads" e-mail list and then hit full bloom when they met at another Pez convention in 1996. But the blush on their faces vanished once they asked me if I wanted to check out their tattoos. On Gochal's leg stretched a four-inch design of a "Mr. Ugly" Pez, its wrinkly green face resting on a lighter-shaped neck; Thronson's calf featured a brown-faced "Bullwinkle" head with a yellow dispenser.

Continue Reading...

]]> http://www.salon.com/1999/04/19/pez/feed/ 0