Some say that the People of Walmart blog makes fun of misfits. And they're right. But if you ignore the unkind captions, the blog is interesting, like a kind of modern Secret Museum of Mankind. I'm marveling at these photos of human beings in all their diverse splendor. Here's a CNN piece about the site.
People of Walmart
Some say that the People of Walmart blog makes fun of misfits. And they're right. But if you ignore the unkind captions, the blog is interesting, like a kind of modern Secret Museum of Mankind. I'm marveling at these photos of human beings in all their diverse splendor. Here's a CNN piece about the site.
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That kind of blew my mind. Human beings truly are one freaky-ass species.
I think you broke their site, BB.
"Error establishing a database connection"
When I first looked at this site a few days ago, I thought that, without the captions, the pictures and concept could be considered "fine art," however, as it is, by impressing a fairly substandard narrative on the viewer, it reduces it to "snarky weblog."
It's not unlike a museum exhibit where the placards spend too much time explaining (apologising for?) the art, rather than just providing context and letting you experience it.
oh, and uh, one of the pics has a youtube link on the back of a jacket. http://www.youtube.com/rickytic3
I'm not clicking the link. Wal*mart just seriously weirds me out too much. I can't shop there.
Might as well link to this too...
http://ian.macky.net/secretmuseum/front_cover.html
Americans just see typical customers of Walmart. Everyone else in the world just sees Americans...
Some of these seem quite humorous, but I was surprised at how many were just mean spirited.
Yes, the people who run the website are unable to appreciate oddballs. It's their loss.
If you go out in shorts hanging around your knees prepared to be critiqued.
I appreciate this quote from the article:
"If you make a bad decision on what you're going to be out in public wearing, that's what we're looking for," he said. "If you're 400 pounds, you shouldn't be wearing nothing but a pink tube top. Even if you shop at Goodwill, wherever you go, the shirts they sell have sleeves and they have your size."
I think that's fair.
Because Wal-Mart shoppers in general are like that, amirite?
Seems to still just be redirecting to their twitter page.
Classism has never been so hilarious!
Classism is the new racism.
Yes, the people who run the website are unable to appreciate oddballs.
Honestly, to me, most of these people don't even look like oddballs. They just look like people. I'm sure we've all seen candid, unposed shots of ourselves that we've cringed at and deleted.
You know what would be really funny? If picture submission form on the website somehow hijacked the submitter's web cam and snapped a candid picture of them as they uploaded. Then, at some point it turned into "The People Making Fun of The People of Walmart" website, linking the walmart pictures with candid, uninvited pictures of the photographers.
It wouldn't be right, but it would be hilarious.
@seminal: Or is it the old racism? maybe they're two sides of the same coin.
This kind of narrative about walmart makes me want nothing to do with the anti-walmart crowd. But then i remember all the /actually/ fucked up shit walmart is responsible for, and i realize that hating walmart for dumb, prejudiced reasons is better than not hating them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biB_b8a0wnU
Zikzak 18: But this kind of hate isn't directed at Walmart; it's directed at Walmart customers. And I bet it doesn't keep anyone out of the store. After all, all these haters must shop at Walmart. How else did they get the pictures?
Just one-to-three degrees removed from Burners. "People, we're funny!"
"You know what would be really funny? If picture submission form on the website somehow hijacked the submitter's web cam and snapped a candid picture of them as they uploaded."
I doubt the photo submitters have the same sartorial panache as the WalMart shoppers in the photos, though.
It's all context. Put those people at Burning Man, and it's OK.
I can chuckle at someone's wardrobe choices without making a value judgment on that person, to a point.
Some of the more esoteric clothing choices on display I have to appreciate as reflecting a unique sense of style, if whimsical.
Whereas some choices clearly denote someone who is a slave to fashion without regard to pragmatism (I'm thinking of all the wannabe tough guys walking around with their pants around their knees), and for that I do reserve a small amount of actual scorn.
@ZIKZAK & Me
Pretty much. I kind of meant that comment as a parody of the meme "X is the new Y", but also because it's open ended and vague that people can have different interpretations.
I sometimes misread my own motivations. In the past I've had thoughts that made me think OMG I'm a racist, but looking back, my thoughts weren't racially motivated - I would have had the same reactions and thoughts even if these other people were the same race as me. But if I heard those thoughts out of someone else's mouth (like an overweight white middle-aged man with a southern accent - profiling?)I might have chalked it up to racism depending on who was doing the talking. Note: Sometimes I wish I had a flowchart - You could call it a "blowchart" if it's on a blogging site.
As you can see I've run out of my ritalin - but I don't care - If you're still reading this I commend(?) you. I don't have the energy to edit my thoughts now :-(
@SEMINAL
or would blowchart be just be a bad idea that's been flowcharted?
#22: The sad thing is that those people couldn't AFFORD to go to Burning Man.
shit, neither can I.
Several years ago I was at an out of town (for most of the guests) wedding, and a member of the wedding party commented with bemused condescension that you find the same sorts of people in Wal-Mart no matter where you are.
She wasn't bright enough to understand when I pointed out that being in a position to notice that meant that she, too, was the sort of person you find in Wal-Mart.
I suspect the people who run that blog share the same deficiency.
Walmart = Burning Man for the Everyman
Often what we mock in other people is what we hate in ourselves.
@ Mark #21: I doubt the photo submitters have the same sartorial panache as the WalMart shoppers in the photos, though.
Doubtless true. I imagine a repetitive series of stained t-shirts, glassy eyes, and beer guts.
Still, they'd probably be just as lulz-worthy as the commenters on the PoW comment threads seem to find the Walmart shoppers. I bet Coldspell is right: This site feeds on a certain amount of self-loathing.
On a brighter note, I like how the commenters defend the photographed lady in this post: http://peopleofwalmart.com/?p=34
Hey, I got an idea! Let's go to peopleofwalmart.com and pick on the poor and less fortunate! Awesome! Can we make asinine, reductive comments about the pictures, too?!?!?! SURE THING.
It takes all kinds of vegetables to make a vegetable soup!
Yes the people comments make me quite ill, but the glorious cars! Bat-beetle, guerrilla repairs, and brand new pickup-limo FTW!
-GimpWii
I grew up in a small rural town, and am not surprised or impressed by any of these pictures. (ok, maybe the older gentleman with the ginormous breasts was a shocker)
I won't repeat the general consensus of the comments, but suffice to say I find the website reprehensible. @Trainrider #31 pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.
But, what is up with making fun of fat people? I'm of the opinion that this is not acceptable. Racially related jokes are terribly un-pc, so why do we still feel like it's OK to make fun of fatness when it revolves so much around physical appearance?
From the CNN article:
"People [who send e-mails wanting to take pictures] say, 'I haven't been to Wal-Mart in years, but now I have a reason to go,' "
Haven't been to a WalMart in years? I call bullshit on whatever yuppie said this.
If you haven't been to a WalMart in years it is high time you reconnect to the real fucking world. It would be nice if we could all shop at Whole Foods and Bed/Bath&Beyond, but most of the population just can't afford it.
If you don't know ONE person who works a blue collar job, owns more than 10 chickens (insert livestock of choice here), drives a very big truck and owns a four wheeler (or tractor) then I challenge you to make a new friend.
I promise that you will enjoy the fishing trips, weekend grilling, cheap beer, bonfires and education on how the rest of the population lives.
Haven't been to a WalMart in years? I call bullshit on whatever yuppie said this. If you haven't been to a WalMart in years it is high time you reconnect to the real fucking world.
I've never been in a Walmart. I don't watch television. And I've never eaten fast food. I'm pretty sure that I live in the real world and most everybody else lives in hell. So...thanks for the invite, but I'm just going to have to say no on that one.
C'mon Antonious. No Walmart, no TV, no fast food... What do you do when your hair shirt gets a hole? Who'da thunk boingboing was moderated by an ascetic?
No Walmart, no TV, no fast food...
But I think of those as punishments.
i think the captions are only "unkind" because they're "accurate."
...like the woman in the red swastika hoodie, i mean, really? it's 2009; we're 40 years past landing on the moon, but not blatant bigotry?
"If you haven't been to a WalMart in years it is high time you reconnect to the real fucking world."
Interesting. Reminds me of Sarah Palin's baffling assertions that the minority of Americans living in culturally homogeneous rural areas are the "Real America." While I live in New York City, which of course has nothing to do with America (except, you know, for everything). We don't have Walmarts, though.
The sanctimony is getting pretty thick. OK, so Antonius has never been to Walmart. Not partaking in TV or fast food is also thrown out there, despite having no relevance to the post, presumably as some kind of cultural signaling to the world, no mixing with the hoi polloi. Your head would explode if you saw who walked into the 99¢ Store.
I think #29 has it closer than he/she may think. FWIW, Walmart in Reno makes a shitload of money from Burners this time of year.
My wife used to work at JC Penney's for years. Had she kept a camera with her during those years, she could have easily have taken pictures like this.
The people at the bottom of the economic heap aren't always there by chance. Sometimes it's for good reasons. This snarky bit of nonsense is kind of like being dressed in the finery befitting a member of a posh country club and laughing at all the little people.
Now that you've laughed your asses off, go get some brain bleach and think about what you're doing.
Most of those photos were pretty darned funny. The captions were not all nearly as mean as they could have been. I won't call BS on anyone who claims never to have set foot in Walmart. It's avoidable if you live in suburbia or a big city.
I nearly started on a rant about how not everyone has the great fortune of being born into a family that values education and achievement. That should go without saying. It's disheartening to see bourgeois attitudes are so pervasive among Boingers. I guess it's easier to feel compassion for a fluffy little male chick than to show a little empathy for a course, mulleted, blue-collar American.
"I've never been in a Walmart. I don't watch television. And I've never eaten fast food. I'm pretty sure that I live in the real world and most everybody else lives in hell."
But if you haven't even tried these things, how do you know? It's good to try different things. Life is too short to remain insulated.
But if you haven't even tried these things, how do you know? It's good to try different things. Life is too short to remain insulated.
I don't need to contract syphilis to know that I don't want it. There's not much point in having a frontal lobe if you don't use it.
This has kind of made me want to make a "People of Gap or Banana Republic" blog. It'd probably be just as revealing.
Wal-mart, fast food, and what they pipe out the prime-time airwaves are such hallmarks of our culture that you must be an elitist yuppie if you don't wallow in them like the rest red-state America. Wow.
I live in Texas, one of the reddest of the red-states. Though I am one of the first to decry the bashing of my home state, I have to say that there is a certain amount of willful ignorance and cultural backwash that deserves to be called out for what it is here in the Nascar nation. When you point out mulleted folks with a tattered scrap of what formerly may have been a t-shirt passing for clothing in a public place, it is funny. It's not bigoted or bourgeois. It is simply culture shock. If it is Jeff Fox-worthy, then why can't it be blogable and boingable?
Anon@~47: Yeah, and while you're at it, capture those wacky folks over at Abercrombie & Fitch and other similar mall crawlers. Each cultural niche is worth a good laugh in my book. ;D
@Antinous and Moriarty
I live in New Orleans, and have a severe dislike for Sarah Palin. Pointing out the positive qualities in the rural community does not equal conservative psycho. Lines are not that thickly drawn, for goodness sake.
In many small rural towns, WalMart is often the only option when it comes to groceries and necessities. It's the only option because it's the only store in the town, and it's the only thing some folks can afford.
When I refer to the "real world," I am referring to the wide gulf of disconnect between the rural underclass and the upper-middle bourgeois. I find it laughable that the upper middle is trying to "reconnect" with their food supply through urban farming, eating organic, ect. But still love to laugh at the rural folk who have been living on farms, eating wild game, and killing their own chickens since forever. It doesn't stop at food, this is just one example.
It's not about WalMart. It's about these jerks who chose WalMart as a stomping ground to laugh at the rural underclass. The problem is that we are always laughing at the backcountry folks instead of trying to understand them. I mean, how many of us could live in a house boat with no electricity, only a vegetable garden and a shotgun?
As an aside @Antinous, after your comment, I will always imagine you sitting in a similar houseboat, on the river, with a shotgun leaning up against the wall, diligently moderating BB. :)
Anonimouse: I don't see any of these folks (some of whom are in my extended family) trying to understand anyone else, so your comment is full of the same bias.
@51
When the WalMart people put up a site laughing at "people who shop at Whole Foods" we can discuss that. It just seems to me that those from the top of the ladder tend to reserve their derision for those who live on the bottom.
I am very open to bridging the gap that I mention. In fact, that's exactly what I'm trying to convey (however poorly).
I give you...
the greatest nation in the world.
http://peopleofwalmart.com/?p=183
Walmart is beneath me so I shop at K-Mart (across the ally from the homeless shelter) if I don't want to go the extra 5 miles to Target. Please take my picture there. Thank you.
Everyone makes fun of a hilbilly till their car breaks drown...
Makes me NOT want to go there....
In many small rural towns, WalMart is often the only option when it comes to groceries and necessities. It's the only option because it's the only store in the town, and it's the only thing some folks can afford.
That is because Walmart ran all the other business out of town.
Alright, for all of those who say that we only laugh at those "on the bottom", you've obviously never seen magazines making fun of celebrities for wearing the wrong dress or for having "let themselves go". And who all gained a bit of sardonic pleasure from the Britney Spears shaved head and missing panties debacles?
This isn't a matter of making fun of the less fortunate. It's a matter of making fun of people who don't care enough to make sure their mini skirts covers their butts. And you won't find a "Creatures of Whole Foods" site simply because most people who pay higher prices for organic food typically would be incredibly embarrassed to be seen in public in their underwear.
Another thing- I doubt most of these folks in the pictures value growing their own vegetables or "living off the land." I can't imagine trying to dig a garden in banana-colored heels.
These people are not odballs. They have literally made a choice to go out in public that way. I do not care to see anyone's fat rolls hanging out the back of there bikini top while I am trying to pick out my meals for the weak. Oddball=Howard Hughes, Freaks=People of Wal-Mart
people are too touchy. i think all the pictures were funny and the comments were funny also. what is life if you cant laugh at things. i am shure that people have laughed at me before and i still ok and still a very productive member of society. lighten up and have fun people.