If you are like me, you have had your share of Walmart shopping encounters that you wish you could have avoided or unseen. You wonder in your mind, who are these people, what are these people or who was their mother. I say that because the socialization process starts with the mother.
Back in the day, the social classes of people were as divided vertically as they are today. I would argue that the middle class has shrunk considerably and that can be blamed on unfair corporate global take over of nations and communities.
I shopped with my mother at K-mart and people who shopped there went to get the best deals on the basic necessities. I don't recall seeing anyone who was obviously on skid row, drunk, delusional or gender confused. Not that there couldn't have been. If there were... they were so few they went unnoticed.
Going unnoticed is not a good thing. And, one can criticize those who look the other way but the fact is that the decent majority in society, those that fit the social norm, contribute positively and have some feeling of satisfaction in their lives, will usually look the other way when encountering those who look unwell, smell unwell, and act unwell.
That remains part of the problem when it comes to those who go unnoticed but also the greater concern and or problem today seems to be that the majority of decent people in society has grown small and the misfits have mushroomed. Now, we need to ask why.
And, that is the hardest thing to do even for the sociologist... find out why. Why? Because, the ruling elite don't want you to know since they do know why because they are the cause. Not that they ignore this problem because they are rich and don't care about helping those who are down and out... its because those poor in spirit and health were created in part by them and they know it. But, this is 'new' news or is it?
There is nothing new under the sun in that regard... divisions between the haves and have nots. Its because this problem, which they caused, is now used by them as leverage. It pays better to do that than to pay for correcting mistakes of the past and present.
Now, some people think its fun to go to Walmart and people watch. One might even speculate that this has caught on so much so that some people are actually dressing up, as if its Halloween, just to get the LOOK, have their vulgar photo go viral! Could be...
Back in 2009, two brothers and their friend started "People of Walmart (PoW)" Its is an entertainment website featuring user-submitted photos of Walmart customers considered to be socially awkward or undesirable by users of the site. PoW has been promoted largely on sites like Digg and Funny or Die, and linked on Facebook and Twitter. Again, People of Walmart was founded in 2009 by brothers Andrew and Adam Kipple, and their friend Luke Wherry.
The brothers and friend did this after they saw some folks at a Walmart who just seemed out of place and or wacky. One was a woman who looked like a stripper to them in a T-shirt that read "go f*** yourself" with a two-year-old in a harness and a man with a beard reminiscent of those worn by ZZ Top.
They created the website to share what they find truly remarkable,and or indescribable... ignoring more stereotypical "rednecks" or mullets. While they created the site for their own social circle, it immediately went viral, enabling Wherry and Adam Kipple to leave their prior jobs. Walmart has not commented.
In addition to avoiding the ordinary, the trio refuse to post photos of people who are disabled or working Walmart employees.
Commentary: What can I say... a picture is worth a thousand words. I will say this though, its anybody's guess if Walmart people are really the result of corporate take overs whose main goal is the undermining of the American middle class... since studies like this never get funding and or published or in the news. Few research institutes or universities want to truly understand why society is confused, unfairly tiered or just simply cognitively dissonant.
If you are like me, you have probably driven by a really grungy trailer park and wondered why or how anyone could live there and or be like that. Is it by choice, purposely choosing to be lazy and vagrant, is it the only choice they had or the result of a multitude of bad life choices? What I do know is this, Max Weber said its not how much money you have but how you spend it.
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