Walmart hates fun.

"We offer what we think our customers want to buy. That just makes good business sense."

And we don't have any interest in expanding our customer base... That makes excellent business sense.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060760508.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

But hey. Four AA batteries only cost 88 cents.

But that's just talk. FUck walmart, I aint shoppin there.

Thank you for taking the time to bring your concerns to our attention. The "Bodega" store being built in San Juan Teotihuacán has been properly certified by officials at all levels, including an archaeologist with the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). We are not building "next to" the pyramids at Teotihuacán, but miles away. We have been awarded construction permits by federal, state and local agencies, and our project has the unanimous approval of the town council, the town mayor and neighborhood representatives chosen by the community. Construction is under the ongoing supervision of Veronica Ortega Cabrera, chief of the Technical and Legal Protection Department of Teotihuacán, located at the Teotihuacán archaeological site. Our construction is in an area designated for commercial buildings and residences, and hundreds are currently located there. The only opposition to our store has come from a small group of merchants who find competition unwelcome and are seeking to misrepresent our plans for their own interests.

The letter goes on to say, "Their interests include not being put out of business and having to work at fucking Wal-Mart. Seriously... can you believe these assholes?"

Or else they're figuring that their online customers would send in more complaints than their meatspace customers if the book wasn't available.

http://www.kaleo.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/10/20/417608ab20afe

They also dug up ancient graves for their Honolulu store.

the remains of the Native Hawaiians were found and now sit in cardboard boxes under the on-ramp.

Have you no decency, Wal-Mart?

That's what I meant, actually. (Tortured syntax, ahoy!)

I mean, yeah, Wal-Mart will be open about having books you guys might get sick over in stock, but damn, the last time I was at Wal-Mart I spotted the John Edwards autobiography and Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country? prominently displayed along with the other "current affairs" books it has toward the front of its store, next to the cash registers, so there's more political balance there than you guys are willing to acknowledge.

(Sorry -- that was an xpost. Eisbär, I have no clue.)

If "unapologetic, Union-busting, ball-breaking, wage-slaving, highly discriminatory capitalism" equals political balance, then OK.

That's just not true. And even if it were, Nike preys on slave labor abroad, while Wal-Mart creates its own slave labor by economically devastating the communities it moves into, so it's quite a bit more predatory than most.

Yeah, you're right. Low prices are not going to budge me off this point, and I'm not sure they should influence you as much as they seem to, either.

Why don't we save this term for actual slave labor.

It's co-produced by the prettiest girl who went to my high school, she was the nicest girl who went to my high school too. I think the first time I saw her I was eating Subway and she walked in and I just froze mid bite, Slick Rick "down south BBQ ribs fly out a nigga mouth" style. Pure grace - not surprised she doing the right thing these days.

Anyway, once corporate started hanging around and making us do the walmart cheer at meetings I quit. MOst of the engineering department was russian, they were not amused at the cheers. As my manager said, "I lived in Soviet Union. For me cheers mean something else."

What, the Sam's Choice or whatever brand eveningwear isn't good enough for you? Elitist.

Also, the CBS Evening News might as well flat out admit that it is the Walmart Evening News.

Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs

"We are investing in our benefits that will take even better care of our associates," she said. "Our benefit plan is known today as being generous."

Target is bad. They were the ones who refused to fill prescriptions for morning-after contraception recently.

http://www.detnews.com/2004/business/0412/23/C01-40677.htm
This says don't go to Kroger, but it doesn't give much detail.

Okay, Kroger is bad.

Also, I can tell you there were high fives all over my office when we found out WM were dropping their brick & mortar sales of the America book. I felt like a parent whose child has won a scholarship, since reprints of that title were my babies. Not that it hurt sales any.

everyone should move to wny and shop at wegmans! they are the #1 company to work for, and their prices are generally not more than target or walmart, sometimes less. i buy as much as i can there rather than going to walmart because it's easier/closer and i don't feel dirty afterwards.

Do you live on Martha's Vineyard by chance and is that the relatively new Wal-Mart near the Falmouth mall?

What always hit me as being ironic was how MV always kept big businesses out for fear of them taking over the Island and killing competitors. The irony of two A&P grocery stores being the beneficiaries of such protectionist regulations (biggest retail store in American history with 16K stores at one point) seemed lost on everybody. Wal-Mart is currently looking at building 3-5K if I remember correctly. The two stores A&P have recently become Stop and Shops I hear btw.

also i have a question about target. i know about the recent birth control thing, but was that an isolated incident or something that happens at a lot of targets? because i think walmart has an eye on never selling contraception, ever. (more babies = more business, maybe!) but i've always felt weird about thinking, i don't shop at walmart, i'll just go to target, but you never hear about target's practices. i wonder if that means they're that much better about labor/economic/political stuff, or if walmart is just so bad that it overshadows all competitors? if this is incoherent, i just woke up sorry. (also maybe i could just look it up)

As for Target, they make political contributions to BOTH parties, which I have never gotten. Hedging their bets, I guess.
This from the BuyBlue page: "The national headquarters of Target has not responded to three PPFA (Planned Parenthood) attempts to clarify its policy on pharmacist refusals"

What's up with "Wegman's cruelty?" Not that we have a Wegmans here.

OH NO!!!@!@@! NOT LIKE WAY WORSE SHIT ISNT GOING ON EVERYWHERE ELSE!

xpost

I know, I know. I wonder whether unions have anything to do with company donations, though. The unions have traditionally been Dem.

Jon, would you prioritize the world's evils for me please? I need to know who to protest, who to support and in what order. I'll need your report on my desk by 9 a.m. tomorrow, thanks.

Me: fuck. I need bananas... and toilet paper! FUCK!

*goes out to local hippie co-op just blocks away from appt. and buys organic bananas, since i have no choice to get the chemically treated pesticide covered ones, and gets Earth First! toilet paper substitute -- you know, so I don't get overwhelmed with tree guilt when I'm wiping my ass -- and i realize how lame it is that I'm probably losing FAR more money that way than buying the Ancestry size kegs of black pepper or Cargo Pack of Little Debbie's Fingercakes for 49 cents at Costco or Sam's Club instead.. since I'll obviously be needing pepper and fingercakes for the next 216 years*

...tho CostCo is usually a safe bet if you gotta go big.

Say, does anybody know about some Index out there where the progressive stances of a company are tracked? Ralph Nader talked about it when I saw him speak about 7 years ago. Some sorta list for investors so that you knew your money was going to the right place, but I can't remember the name of the. Domingue Index? D-something?

that would make you a right wing nutjob anyway!

yeah, but people in Idaho are very Republican, too!

(xpost.. oh poopie)

fuck eating factory chicken anyway, maaaaan. FREE RANGE, dude.

Walmart loves demographics:

The Dearborn Wal-Mart is part of a two-year-old corporate effort to help sales by tailoring stores to local demographics, said spokeswoman Amy Wyatt-Moore at Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. It targeted six groups: Hispanics, blacks, empty-nesters/boomers, affluent, suburban and rural shoppers.

Dearborn's store is designed to reflect its neighborhood, not serve as a national template for Arab-American shoppers, she said.

"We realize there are more than those six broad demographic groups around the country. In some places the result will be a unique store," Wyatt-Moore said.

Wal-Mart worker dies after shoppers knock him down
The Associated Press

9:39 AM PST, November 28, 2008

NEW YORK — A worker died after being trampled by a throng of unruly shoppers when a suburban Wal-Mart opened for the holiday sales rush today, authorities said.

At least three other people were injured.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., in Bentonville, Ark., would not confirm the reports of a stampede but said a "medical emergency" had caused the company to close the store, which is in Valley Stream on Long Island.

Nassau County police said the 34-year-old worker was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., an hour after the store opened. The cause of death was not immediately known.

A police statement said shortly after 5 a.m., a throng of shoppers "physically broke down the doors, knocking (the worker) to the ground." Police also said a 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries and were also taken to hospitals.

The dead worker's name was not released.

"Local authorities are looking into the situation," said Wal-Mart representative Dan Fogleman. But he said it would be "inappropriate for me to share any additional information" until authorities investigate further.

Shoppers around the country lined up early outside stores in the annual bargain hunting ritual known as Black Friday. Many stores open early and stay open late. The Valley Stream Wal-Mart usually opens at 9 a.m.

it was on the news this mroing

the paradox of buy nothing day

"An oblivious Arthur Carlson told reporters, 'Boy I had a lot of fun this morning!'"

http://www.thebaboonbellows.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/carlson_socks.jpg

Um, yeah. Thanks for explaining the joke to everyone.

This is what I am here for.

You may now click the suggest ban button to your right.

aint that Amurrica

I'm not participating in Black Friday until they start offering bottom-rate 3d holographic TVs. So I guess in 2010...

i grew up on LI and i'm tellin ya i am not shocked.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling `I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."

They - just - kept - shopping.

Here's what I don't understand. And please correct me because I'm probably WAY WAY WAY off somewhere.

People on other boards and blogs and shit are all like "Oh Americapaws, full of selfish consumers who will trample poor greeter dude to save $30 on a new flat screen TV"

But isn't the point of Black Friday is that these people are buying gifts for OTHER PEOPLE? For Xmas? These people were super amped to get deals on PRESENTS. They're wating outside for 24 hours... to buy presents. Like, I understand that everyone is broke right now, but everyone knows that and won't friends and fam understand if we just buy cheaper gifts? Does that make ME the selfish one and these WalMart customers the SELFLESS RABID GIFTGIVERS since I generally find buying Xmas gifts to be a huge, huge pain in the ass?

I'm def wrong in the logic somewhere, but I can't tell where.

I'm not sure if that's the point or not, honestly, I know people who shop on Black Friday to find gifts and people who just go because they want to save $30 on the new TV or whatever. (My family has always looked on it as a horror to be avoided, so it's all hearsay to me.)

Cyber monday is where all the axshun is nowadays ppls.

I find your new identity intriguing.

Plenty of people shop for themselves on black friday, I would assume. And there's probably a lot of "giving" your wife a TV, etc. It's a pretty common marketing truism that people end up buying a lot for themselves during the holiday season, and the whole gift giving thing is a quid pro quo, amirite? Many people give with the expectation of getting - so it's basically a big justification for everyone spending irresponsible amounts of money on generally unnecessary purchases.

Besides, it's an orgy of consumerism, even if the purchases will be given to others. It supports the linear model of consumption and leads to the plunder of the Earth for goods that will be soon discarded and become waste.

as I step off my soapbox and go play with my iPod Touch.

whiney, (first of all, are you from the US? because as much as no one would like to admit the holidays are kinda "go thru the motions/buy presents because it's convention" etc.) while it's true that people are shopping for others, the point of interest here is which day they're shopping. they're shopping on black friday because the prices are low, and they are thus saving themselves money.

the italics really make your point there

http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/imageswalmart-20bingo-thumb.jpg

"isle"

As a person who doesn't shop at Wal-Mart and who used to work there (inventory control specialist lol), that's really elitist and insulting. And if you're going to mock people who shop and work at Wal-Mart as filthy trash, at least spell check your stupid bingo card (not directed @ you redmond).

That said, I wouldn't mind playing Neiman Marcus bingo sometime.

i love wal-mart! but some of those things are otm. i also love walgreens. they always have really fun halloween costumes haha

from the time I was 15 to 18, after 10pm fun in my town was "walk around the Wal-Mart." I still feel kind of comfortable when I am inside of one.

that's cute

did you play Wal-Mart bingo? We had an enormous mall for friday night walks - all the lights/noise/people give me headaches now.

fuck i wanna go to the mall

i went the other day and went to claire's? really made me wanna go to hot topic

Libcrypt OTM.

I'm sorry but this whole story just makes my blood boil for several different reasons. Fuck these goddamn fuckers. Fuck Wall Mart ("Mall Wart: Your Source For Cheap Plastic Crap"). I don't care how poor you are. There is no excuse for the kind of capitalistic stupidity that caused this incident. Just fuck off and go live somewhere else. I don't want to be an American anymore. And by the way can you please shove Christmas up your religious ass and get one brain? Thanks.

I would like to quote something I found on some site or other today:

jesus was black
god's an idea
hell's a city in michigan

"But Jesus wanted me to trample living beings to death so I could get good gifts for my friends and family!"

FUCK THE HELL OFF

Never forget the Cabbage Patch Riots of 1983

couldn't we just change all the squares on wal-mart bingo to "I hate this kind of poor people" - that way, more chances to win

still, I dug the "FREE" spot

ALL RIGHT NOW
BABY IT'S ALL RIGHT NOW

from the time I was 15 to 18, after 10pm fun in my town was "walk around the Wal-Mart." I still feel kind of comfortable when I am inside of one.

Haha YES. Wal-mart and Denny's, in either order. This may have continued on breaks from college when I was home, because...bars? What bars?

In church this morning, the pastor brought up the Wal-mart story (although she said "I'm not going to say what happened fully because we have children here")...the sermon was partially anti-materialist, partially "go help people who need something you have to give, and don't just do that at Christmas!" And yeah, I'm sure most of the congregation is going to go buy their families Christmas presents, but so are most nonreligious Americans, so I don't think Black Friday is fueled by people's religious convictions....

It isn't enough to identify the crime here we have to look at the motive, we have to ask why do "poor people"* so badly want these things? It's because of the way we portray success in mass culture, it imprints the idea that if you own a flat screen plasma TV and a shiny SUV, you are more successful than your neighbor, even if it's put your family into debt for the next 30 years.

*When seen in the larger context of national/international wealth, "poor people" is a much more populated category than most realize. In 2004, the wealthiest 25% of US households owned 87% ($43.6 trillion) of the country’s wealth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States).

Also many many many middle class families shop at Walmart. Also if you stereotype people based on where they shop you have bought into the system and are a massive tool.

Anyone who thinks only poor people shop at Wal-Mart never lived a day in a town with a Wal-Mart

Fuck, I certainly wish "the city that never sleeps" would have some place where I could but normal shit after 9 o'clock.

I shop in Walmart and I'm not poor. Walmart is the best place to buy a lot of different stuff in one go.

I would fully support a Wal-Mart in New York City if it were only open from 10pm to 5am

i only shop at wal-mart - shit is so inexpensive

it does make me depressed sometimes - always see lots of single moms and sad looking families which is why i try and go after 11 pm when no one is there

When I lived in Saytown me and bros would hit the Wal Mart down the street at all hours. I felt slightly guilty about it (worker mistreatment etc) but justified it by saying "hey I'm a broke as fuck college student just like the dude that's scanning my lime chips here, we're in the same lane."

There aren't any within 20 minutes of my apartment in Austin. I'm pretty much OK with that.

Anyone who thinks only poor people shop at Wal-Mart never lived a day in a town with a Wal-Mart

Good thing nobody said that only poor people shopped there, then, but rather that there's a really grotesque self-willed classism in the way people want to dismiss "Wal-mart shoppers"

couldn't we just change all the squares on wal-mart bingo to "I hate this kind of poor people" - that way, more chances to win

― J0hn D., Sunday, November 30, 2008 5:30 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

uh

he was calling out the dude that made the bingo card, you tard

paperthinreadingcomprehensionskills

.com

i know he's calling him out, i'm saying i thought JD was calling me out for using the phrase "poor people" like I'm strawmanning someone for saying that when he was actually the first to say it.

I feel a little uncomfortable overall with the idea of mega-cheap whitegoods, electronics and clothes. There's obviously a demand for it but the fact it exists means there are people out there somewhere working 15 hours a day in a pooly ventilated factory for fuckall money in Taiwan or China so we can buy a dress for $5 and then throw it away after a season, or a DVD player in a sale for $30 and chuck it on the hard rubbish as soon as it stops working.

stereotypes in card = poor-uneducated-ppl stereotypes

nobody here said only poor people shop at wal-mart so if you were just pilin' on the grotesque assumptions that're on bingo card, my bad w

But isn't the point of Black Friday is that these people are buying gifts for OTHER PEOPLE?

fwiw, every single time someone's dragged me to some black friday family "holiday shopping" excursion, not a single gift was purchased besides of the afterthought "oh hey do you like those jeans? let ME buy them, as an early xmas gift!" variety.

I feel a little uncomfortable overall with the idea of mega-cheap whitegoods, electronics and clothes. There's obviously a demand for it but the fact it exists means there are people out there somewhere working 15 hours a day in a pooly ventilated factory for fuckall money in Taiwan or China so we can buy a dress for $5 and then throw it away after a season, or a DVD player in a sale for $30 and chuck it on the hard rubbish as soon as it stops working.

I agree. Not a good thing at all.

Y'all know how God talks to poor people?

Attention Wal-Mart shoppers!

I went to Target and bought a ton of sweaters today.

Yeah, here's the Target bingo card:

http://www.catbirdseat.org/catbirdseat/bingo.jpg

"that 70s ski vest" makes me lol

Anyone who thinks only hipsters shop at Target has never lived a day in a town with a Target

I feel a little uncomfortable overall with the idea of mega-cheap whitegoods, electronics and clothes. There's obviously a demand for it but the fact it exists means there are people out there somewhere working 15 hours a day in a pooly ventilated factory for fuckall money in Taiwan or China so we can buy a dress for $5 and then throw it away after a season, or a DVD player in a sale for $30 and chuck it on the hard rubbish as soon as it stops working.

I agree. Not a good thing at all.

― Super Cub, Sunday, November 30, 2008 9:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

But what are you gonna do, make all your own clothes? And what else are you supposed to do when the DVD player stops working?

1. yes

Walmart is the Jesus of capitalism.

when did target start catering to hipster fashion

i first noticed it a couple years ago

Never got any beer and ammo from Jesus...

I'm offended at the agressive stereotyping of Target shoppers.

But what are you gonna do, make all your own clothes? And what else are you supposed to do when the DVD player stops working?

I try and buy vintage or from op-shops so at least the money's going to charity and the clothes are usually better made anyway. I cant sew so thats my only recourse rly.

I buy better-made electronics, and whatever happened to getting things fixed when they break???

Anyway thats not rly germane to this thread, but yeah.

who breaks a DVD player?

I don't think I've ever seen PBR in a Target
although to be honest I still have not visited either the williamsburg or columbia heights locations

Target here isnt fancypants at all, all the clothes are cheapo made in china shit. Is it diff in US? (I know its not the same company rly)

the target in hollywood is a piece of shit, almost as bad as k-mart

oh i'm not saying it's well (or fairly) manufactured stuff, i'm saying they seemed to have helped in the mainstreaming of the beardo look. simulacra vintage & skinny jeans etc.

xpost

I don't think the point is that people shouldn't buy things, ever, but rather that the price of products should reflect their true cost. If the price reflected the true cost of bringing that product to the consumer, then consumers would be more likely to honestly evaluate if they needed the product. And if they did purchase the product, they would be less likely to trash it.

Walmart's low prices are only possible through the exploitation of various groups of people along the resource extraction, manufacturing, and sales journey.

Or something like that.

The Targets here all have tshirts with fake punk stuff on them with sparkly bits for the tweenies. I actually saw an off the rack sparkly "punk" shirt with Siouxsies head on it. I should have taken a photo, Alex in NYC would have had apoplexy.

Agreed, SC. If you think about it too, the people buying cheap shit are only entrenching their own lack of jobs, because to get things that cheap, you gotta offshore all the labor and manufacturing costs. So no jobs in the US, so the ppl remain poor, and so on the cycle goes, turtles all the way down.

you guessed it...

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/31/stuff-white-people-like-bought-by-target/

Blog founders Christian Lander and Myles Valentin will be retained as consultants.

“I’m really happy to be working with Target,” says Lander. “I think this is a great partnership and a true step forward in the future of advertising.”

“White people love Target!” joked Valentin. “But in all seriousness, we could not have selected a better corporate partner. I think Target’s new organic line will really change the way that people eat and shop.”

Regular readers of the site will be offered free shipping on their next order at Target.com with the code “STUFFWHITEPEOPLELIKE.”

also let's not kid ourselves that there's much more than cosmetic differences betw Wal-Mart and Target

kind of like bud light and pabst blue ribbon

target is for hip poor people while walmart is for regular poor people.

indeed.

That hipster bingo card is partly inaccurate for real hipsters, but it nails Target clothes dead-on. Converse + shirts of guitars, skulls, boomboxes, or 60s-80s music icons + sweaters + military hats + tight jeans.

that pic of mick jagger's from like '63

also let's not kid ourselves that there's much more than cosmetic differences betw Wal-Mart and Target

I want to dispute this! I think there's a lot of difference, tho I don't know much about Target's business models specifically. I think Target makes more $$ off having deals with housewares & clothing designers who make exclusive lines of stuff -- the prices are low-ish but not the lowest possible cost for that item; it seems reasonable that customers are willing to pay a bit more for melamine dishes styled by Cynthia Rowley or a cotton jacket by Isaac Mizrahi, rather than Target squeezing the life out of those designer's manufacturing procedures to undercut the other guy by $.25. That approach is v different from Wal-Mart's.

Also I think that while you can get "family-sized" versions of things at Target, it's still kind of a medium version of "family" -- whereas at Wal-Mart you can, rather famously, find containers of food that are bigger than a normal family could possibly consume before they spoiled.

there is no target in williamsburg

also, laurel otm, vis-a-vis more than cosmetic differences within the contents of the stores. plus, wal-mart owners much more famous for having batshit fundie beliefs which spill over into what is sold in the stores, how employees are handled, etc. i don't shop at target very often but i won't shop in a wal-mart. no judgment against those who do, the price is a pretty compelling argument obviously.

at Wal-Mart you can, rather famously, find containers of food that are bigger than a normal family could possibly consume before they spoiled.

Am thinking specifically of a jar of pickles that I saw on a tv special abt Wal-Mart (I think?). WM went to the pickle manufacturer and said, "Make us a jar bigger than your biggest existing jar, make it enormous and we will sell it." And the pickle company was like wtf? No one is ever going to actually USE all these pickles! But they had to do it to keep WM as a customer.

OH HAI there's a whole thing about it online, apparently.

"Vlasic Pickles was roped into a contract with Wal-Mart, in which Wal-Mart sold a 3 gallon jar of whole pickles for $2.97. Wal-Mart sold 240,000 gallons of pickles per week. But the price of the 3 gallon jar was so low, that it vastly undercut Vlasic's sales of 8 ounce and 16 ounce jars of cut pickles; further, Vlasic only made a few pennies per 3 gallon jar. With its profits tumbling, Vlasic asked Wal-Mart for the right to raise the price per 3 gallon jar to $3.49, and according to a Vlasic executive, Wal-Mart threatened that if Vlasic tried to back out of this feature of the contract, Wal-Mart would cease carrying any Vlasic product. Eventually, a Wal-Mart executive said, "Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it"—meaning it had wiped out competitor products. Finally, it allowed Vlasic to raise prices; but in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy."

You guys should just be glad I bought anything. I'm still mostly rocking Minutemen T-shirts and shit I got freshman year of lollege

On the other hand, Wal-Mart deserves some of the credit for making bottles of laundry detergent smaller, reducing plastic and waste.

Also, they're making milk jugs that look like this:

http://www.sustainableisgood.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/06/30/square_milk.jpg

Oh just wait until Walmart discovers vinyl.

pfft, wait until steve jobs discovers wal-mart

Every Target sporting goods section I've ever seen is really just half an aisle between barbie dolls and yoga mats. You can buy boat anchors at Walmart.

Anyone who thinks only hipsters shop at Target has never lived a day in a town with a Target

― velko, Sunday, November 30, 2008 9:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, the main demographic I associate with "Target shoppers" is middle-class Hispanic families.

Oh just wait until Walmart discovers vinyl.

― Gino-Vanellyville (Mackro Mackro), Monday, December 1, 2008 10:20 AM (5 minutes ago)

pfft, wait until steve jobs discovers wal-mart

― El Tomboto, Monday, December 1, 2008 10:22 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Transitively ---> iVINYL

Anyone who thinks only hipsters shop at Target has never lived a day in a town with a Target

― velko, Sunday, November 30, 2008 9:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, the main demographic I associate with "Target shoppers" is middle-class Hispanic families.

― jaymc, Monday, 1 December 2008 18:26 (3 hours ago)

Hahaha basically my family, which loves Target. I do admire their Method line of biodegradable shit, though. Besides the non-toxic soaps and stuff they actually use bamboo fibers in place of wood or synthetic fibers, which in my mind is a lot more helpful than just a little bit of soap.

THIS IS A GREAT IDEA WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

I thought they already sold lotto tickets, honestly.

It is the only big-chain dept store that sells smokes.

target doesn't own method

the whole "target = hipster" thing is crazytalk

although I like the idea of ol' mall/retail standbys adapting to hipsters, like Foot Locker selling "ironic" sneakers or something.

But what are you gonna do, make all your own clothes? And what else are you supposed to do when the DVD player stops working?

I try and buy vintage or from op-shops so at least the money's going to charity and the clothes are usually better made anyway. I cant sew so thats my only recourse rly.

I buy better-made electronics, and whatever happened to getting things fixed when they break???

― Trayce, Sunday, November 30, 2008 11:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest

True, true. I havent bought first-hand clothes in nearly a decade, if you don't count socks and underwear you can get from dollar stores. I especially cringe when I see people paying top dollar for stuff made to look like it's 2nd hand when they could've gone the authentic route and just went to a thrift shop and saved a crapton of money. But I've never heard of a DVD player-repair shop, and I can't imagine getting one fixed would be cheaper than buying a new one these days...

I agree with you 100% on there being better ways to use your money than buying new stuff all the time at Walmart, but I think if people are going to gripe about Walmart they shouldn't stop there, they should think about the issues behind capitalism at large. This is what I mean about Walmart being the Jesus of capitalism. Every time some child labor/sweatshop/biohazard/consumer products issue comes up it seems like people crucify Walmart and then continue to shop at, say, Target, thinking "Oh they're OK, at least it isn't Walmart". Once Walmart dies for capitalism's sins these problems become less of a concern.

But that could just by my misreading..

Why would StuffWhitePeopleLike (started by a dude in Toronto, right?) partner with an American firm we white Canadians can't even shop from? Balls.

Every time some child labor/sweatshop/biohazard/consumer products issue comes up it seems like people crucify Walmart and then continue to shop at, say, Target, thinking "Oh they're OK, at least it isn't Walmart".

i don't see this at all -- if anything, the stores themselves are rarely crucified and the person/supplier/brand associated the closest with the issue is vilified instead. people seem to be unwilling to acknowledge that there will just be another cheap-ass celeb or whatever endorsed line that is made the exact same way because of the behemoth stores and their cheap cheap cheap agenda. it's disingenuous either way its done but i think your way is less common...?

people who're trying to say "wal-mart, target, what's the difference" should really read the story linked by Laurel - or the New Yorker story from a year or two ago - to think more about the nature of wal-mart's business practices and their effects on 1) american businesses, and by extension the economy and 2) the quality of merchandise generally available to the consumer. Target sells crap like anybody else. But to the best of my knowledge they haven't driven anybody out of business by demanding that they reduce their profits to points so low that they can no longer afford to do business in the US. Wal-Mart's whole business model contributes to a lesser standard of quality for American-made goods and to a lesser quantity of American-made goods, i.e., fewer American jobs. Unless the jobs created by new Wal-Marts can be said to offset the losses of American factories, which I don't think they do. One big reason that Levi's suck now, when they didn't used to, is that Wal-Mart got Levi's to think like Wal-Mart. That counts as a loss to me. Levi's were pretty cool once.

tl;dr "Wal-Mart is just a serious bummer"

to be fair wal mart is pretty bad-ass

well yeah but so is napalm

totally

although I like the idea of ol' mall/retail standbys adapting to hipsters, like Foot Locker selling "ironic" sneakers or something.

― Gino-Vanellyville (Mackro Mackro), Tuesday, December 2, 2008 12:03 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah this is basically what i'm talking about: i think it's happening.

The variety of products of all levels of quality generally available to the consumer has never been greater. Just because Walmart has made a ton of stuff cheaper than ever doesn't mean you have to shop there. For every product they carry, there's something better at another store in all but the smallest towns.

http://i39.tinypic.com/21eqcud.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PZLJbRJ.png

Life Is Crap