Shoplifting in reverse

January 14, 2008 5:02 PM

What is shopdropping? Is it art, stealth marketing, or consumer activism? Yes. (previously)
posted by desjardins (31 comments total)

I thought it was called "making some other poor bastard's life more difficult for my own benefit / amusement".

Also known as "being an arsehole".

(Not that there aren't good and justifiable reasons for being an arsehole sometimes.)
posted by Pinback at 5:22 PM on January 14, 2008

Also known as "hipster self-wankery" (given, a somewhat redundant term).
posted by Brocktoon at 5:24 PM on January 14, 2008

Also known as "home-brew distribution for artists who don't have access to traditional distribution models due to lack of economic incentive." Or you can keep patting yourselves on the back for your innate superiority. Either way.

Related: The Droplift Project. I am inordinately proud of the copy of the DLP I found in my local used record store. Somebody had to go to the trouble to droplift it, then somebody else found it, brought it home, then sold it back to the record store.

A personal favorite.
posted by lekvar at 5:26 PM on January 14, 2008

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Disney.
posted by hal9k at 5:31 PM on January 14, 2008

Etymology
posted by grateful at 5:33 PM on January 14, 2008

In related news, "as known as"-dropping has reached a peak tonight on Metafilter.
posted by clevershark at 5:34 PM on January 14, 2008

"as known as", also known as "also known as".

Sorry.

On topic, I'd like to report a fault with the internet - I found this topic interesting, but failed to immediately develop an opinion about it.
posted by WPW at 5:36 PM on January 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

i believe that grateful's etymology is incorrect. there's a story the shopdropper by alan nelson published in fantasy and science fiction january, 1955.
posted by bruce at 5:39 PM on January 14, 2008

Fuck a shirt with Karl Marx on it...where's my Immanuel Kant shirt? I might actually give a damn then.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 5:51 PM on January 14, 2008

Or you can keep patting yourselves on the back for your innate superiority.

Not at all. I just think that deliberately going out of your way to do things that make life difficult for other people, for no better reason than "because it suits / amuses me to", puts one squarely in the "arsehole" category.

Which I guess explains I why I never liked Allen Funt.
posted by Pinback at 6:04 PM on January 14, 2008

Kinda like when Banksy thought he was "punking" paris hilton but was really just being a self-absorbed, attention seeking jerk just like her? In the name of art, though.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:14 PM on January 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Perhaps I'm being dense, but I fail to see how this in any way makes things more difficult for people. Are you referring to the .5 seconds that it will take a store employee to remove the item from the shelves? 'Cause in the instances I've personally encountered, no-one even noticed the dropped product until I had it in my hand at the cash register and was asking how much it cost.
posted by lekvar at 6:14 PM on January 14, 2008

The all-time best
posted by exogenous at 6:26 PM on January 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

There's something tepidly arrogant about repurposing private property for tiny shrines to yourself. At least advertising people have the good grace to quell their own egos long enough to convey a message not soaked in their own self-love.
posted by Ictus at 6:27 PM on January 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

This CD is in stores. The only way I could get my last CD into a store was to take one in there and leave it.

"Sir, you forgot this!"

"No, I did not. That is for sale. Please alphabetize it."
posted by wemayfreeze at 6:53 PM on January 14, 2008

So it's kind of like this?
posted by scottreynen at 7:07 PM on January 14, 2008

Putting your own labels on cans to befuddle and then videotape those people already stuck in low-wage, thankless, robotic jobs (Megamart cashier, Supermarket shelver, store manager) = being an asshole.*

Doing it to get your music/art out there (Droplift) = priceless.

For everything else, there's MasterCard.

*unless it does bring a smile to them for interrupting the mundanity** of their tasks. Working in retail generally (not totally) sucks. The "Disruptive v. gift giving?" argument lies all in what mood you're in, the level of disruption, etc. ("And now I have to haul all these cans to Aisle 13 now? Fuuuuuck." vs. "Ha, ha, ha, I don't know what the hell these cans are, but I like the way they look.")

**is too a word, you clbaghth
posted by not_on_display at 7:17 PM on January 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

There's something tepidly arrogant about repurposing private property for tiny shrines to yourself.

Hahaha, oh god, well said! I can't stand this shit. It's possible for things like this to be interesting, but when you give it a name like "culture jamming" and do it with a straight face I just have to laugh and laugh.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 7:56 PM on January 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

At least advertising people have the good grace to quell their own egos long enough to convey a message not soaked in their own self-love.

You've never met anyone in advertising have you?
posted by Mick at 8:39 PM on January 14, 2008

Is it art, stealth marketing, or consumer activism?

Littering?

At least advertising people have the good grace to quell their own egos long enough to convey a message not soaked in their own self-love.

That isn't "grace," my dear, it's called a "paycheck."
posted by octobersurprise at 8:41 PM on January 14, 2008 [2 favorites]

Are the products barcoded? I don't think many retailers would mind selling things they got for free. Unless it was 'anti-family', of course.
posted by twirlypen at 8:43 PM on January 14, 2008

There's something tepidly arrogant about repurposing private property for tiny shrines to yourself.

But, there is something scorchingly arrogant about repurposing public property for tiny shrines to products.
posted by Chuckles at 8:44 PM on January 14, 2008 [5 favorites]

Kinda like when Banksy thought he was "punking" paris hilton but was really just being a self-absorbed, attention seeking jerk just like her? In the name of art, though.


Leave Paris ALONE!
posted by ElmerFishpaw at 8:53 PM on January 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

What artists say and what they do are often completely different things. So what if this is called some buzzword like "culturejamming" or "stealth marketing"? Regardless of whatever ridiculous ideology is claimed to be its underlying motivation, this makes the world a more interesting place, and for that I support it.
posted by Pyry at 10:35 PM on January 14, 2008 [2 favorites]

From a leaner, meaner, keener boingboing, a tale of cement teddy bears
posted by davemee at 5:15 AM on January 15, 2008

The arrogance and authoritarianism implicit in this boggles the mind.
Almost as bad as graffiti.
posted by signal at 6:51 AM on January 15, 2008

Perhaps I'm being dense but I fail to see how this in any way makes things more difficult for people. Are you referring to the .5 seconds that it will take a store employee to remove the item from the shelves?

As a former grocery employee, I implore you not to do this shit nor to think in this fashion. It's not 'edgy' or 'oh wow man heavy', it's shit we have to clean up.

This is like those people who leave their extra coupons on the corresponding items, in hopes other people might use them. Don't. It's shit we have to clean up. At least the coupon-leavers are well meaning, this pretentious 'shopdrop' bullshit is the 'too much time and money on your hands art snot jerkbag' version of kids who draw dicks on a bathroom stall, or think posting the goatse guy onto forums; it's every bit as congratulatory, but nowhere near as effective (that's right, I just said your artisitic expression is beneath the goatse guy, and I mean it. No one but you cares.)

Furthermore, when you have 10+ pallets of product that have to be broken down, sorted and run by you and maybe 2 other people, where your dick manager wants it done 5 minutes ago, not to mention the time allotted to cleaning up messes and dealing with braindead customers that can't crane their neck a precious 10 degrees up to the giant signs listing the contents of every aisle, that .5 seconds is typically .5 seconds we don't have. (furthermore, .5 seconds? What do you think they do with it after they take it off the shelves, eat it?)

You are not dense, but yes, it is that much of a pain in the ass.

unless it does bring a smile to them for interrupting the mundanity** of their tasks.

"I work in back, I see no smiles."
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:30 AM on January 15, 2008 [2 favorites]

i believe that grateful's etymology is incorrect. there's a story the shopdropper by alan nelson published in fantasy and science fiction january, 1955.

Yeah, Quinion addressed this on Monday, but hasn't updated his site yet:

"SHOPDROPPER Gerald Etkind pointed out an earlier use of this word, featured last week. It was the title of a tale by Alan Nelson that appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in January 1955, about a psychiatrist who accidentally puts on some invisible gloves, left by a patient, which force him to leave his possessions behind in stores and private homes."

posted by grateful at 11:33 AM on January 15, 2008

As a former grocery employee, I'm in favour of this kind of thing. It's bad art, but has good timewasting potential for the disgruntled employee.

When I worked in a supermarket, some local prankster would regularly fill up a trolley to the very brim with small items - pots of herbs, chilli peppers, aspirin - and then abandon it in-store. This seemed like weird, assholish behaviour to many, but I welcomed the chance to replace the items on the shelves - it meant an evening roaming the store, doing novel work which no one knew how long it should take to complete so I could take as long as I liked. This beat the standard be-in-one-place-for-8-hours-moving-the-left-arm-then-the-right. Similarly, I knew some people who worked in a Gap store, and one day some well-meaning middle-class people staged an in-store protest, and later on there was an article in the paper scorning those guys for needlessly tormenting my low-wage Gap chums. But, the fact is, everyone I knew in Gap much preferred the novelty of some shitty protest & not having to do much work to the routine of shitty Gap work. You know, I'm in favour of well-meaning middle-class idiots sometimes, like the one in the first post.
posted by cincinnatus c at 3:15 PM on January 15, 2008

I want a cement teddy bear.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 4:41 PM on January 15, 2008

I would so buy an anarchist action figure for my kids.
posted by streetdreams at 5:59 PM on January 15, 2008