People of WalMart

[Alex]

See, for me it isn't just the making fun of them for being different that I find bothersome but rather the assumption that they must either be very unhappy the way they are and unable/unwilling to change or too stupid/inbred to be aware they should be unhappy that I find bothersome.

It doesn't matter at all why these people look the way they do. Yes, with more money they might buy nicer clothes but it very well might be a more expensive baseball cap with a more expensive timber wolf t-shirt to go with their work boots and old jeans. They might actually like scruffy mustaches and mullets. The core is still pointing at someone and laughing at them for not conforming to the way we think they should. I know extremely wealthy people who use their money to buy only the finest in sports jerseys as their daily sartorial selection. I'd never do that (and yes, I'm not a saint, I've made fun of it) but I don't make broad socioeconomic assumptions about people who do.

It grates on me similarly to when people assume saying "axe" instead of "ask" is a sign of ignorance.

And that's pretty rude (especially when they're put on display on the internet while those laughing at them get to be anonymous) regardless of the socioeconomic reasons they look different. Seems little different to me than if I were to start posting pictures of the Indians in my neighborhood and making snide comments about those wacky saris and all the jewelry the men wear.


(All of this said, again, with the caveat that I haven't actually seen any -- but one -- of the pictures posted to the WalMart web site. This is more a response to this thread and the genre of Web site in general.)