People of WalMart

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by 3894

I feel guilty about talking about this stuff on this board. It's not swanky.

Don't. It's important that we think outside of our little ethnocentric bubble.

We truly are a very lucky group. Despite job loss, recession, cut hours, blah blah, bad economy we haven't had anyone lose their home, be threatened with homelessness or have to make significant changes to their lifestyle.

We need to remember that not everyone is as fortunate as us.

[Strangler Lewis]

I guess we need to nail down what exactly we're doing here.

1) I don't think the fun makers are making of poverty. To an extent, however, making fun of destiny. No one here would have trouble making fun of Paris Hilton, the Kardashian girls, the spoiled girls on Sweet 16, etc., even though it could be said just as easily about them as about the Wal-Mart folks that it would have been hard for them to have been otherwise.

2) Are our jaws dropping because behavior crosses some broadly defined line into grotesquerie and extremism? Yes. We do that all the time here with photos of one sort or another. As a practical matter, whether it's in our social relationships or our legal ones, there is only so much room for case specific understanding before bright lines get drawn, and we say, "I'm sorry, that's f*cked up."

[3894]

I wanted to show the photos to the hubbo but they've gone missing.

[katiesue]

I'll throw on a wrinkled pair of sweats and a old t-shirt to go to the store etc. And I fully expect other shoppers to have a what the hell thought bubble over their heads, like in cartoons, if they glance my way. And that doesn't bother me. I figure I do the same when I see some of them. Like ISM I don't go beyond that into thinking what their economic background is - I just think wow - that is some getup.

And my Dad was the king of getups. Hats with inappropriate slogans. Striped suspenders with opposite striped shirts. Generally a visable butt crack. Socks in random neon colors. He'd do it on purpose to embarass us.

[Stan4dSteph]

Sorry, I'll shut up now. I'll stick to making fun of celebrities who dress poorly.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Alex has a good point, too. But humor is always an exception with me. I make fun of oddly-dressed or appearing people at Disneyland, for instance, but I don't extrapolate to assume anything about their lives. It may be lowbrow humor, but it's humor. I live by the Roger Rabbit philosophy. So sue me.

I do too. Like I said, I'm no saint.

But, to me, there is a leap between elbowing your friend while walking down the street and saying "doesn't sheek look quite the skank?" or "isn't that the stupidest haircut you've ever seen" and much hilarity ensuing and creating a web site where you post the pictures for the world to ridicule based on your criteria.

A more concrete example. Back in high school a group of friends and I were hanging out in a park and this woman walked by. No bra and the saggiest boobs I've ever seen. I swear, she was kicking them when she walked. Much hilarity ensued throughout the rest of the day within the circle of us. Sure, on one level that was mean and I feel kind of bad about it, but not too bad. She may have been perfectly happy with her appearance, she may have been mentally deficient, she may have been too poor to afford a good bra, she may have just been mugged and her bra stolen. The reason by which she'd come to that state where irrelevant.

If we'd taken a picture of her and posted it on the internet and started a web site called "World's Saggiest Boobs" then I think a line would have been crossed. And sites where teh people being mocked are unknowing participants (you go to a Don Rickles performance and he makes fun of your toupee - funny. You're walking down the street and Don Rickles runs up and starts making fun of your toupee - not funny to me).

My version of what JWBear said (and I agree with him) is that "white trash is a state of mind not a household income." I've known white trash (and they're not necessarily white either) all up and down the economic scale. I carry some of it with me still and economically I'm probably in the top 5% for the country. Growing up the old lady next door was living only a single social security check and you'd think she was the Queen of England for how regal and proper and clean everything about her was.

[Not Afraid]

I'm sorry, but rich or poor, you have no excuse for dressing like some of the people in these photos. It has nothing to do with economic standards and everything to do with taste. But, I think the photos and the location where they are taken have an awfully lot to say about the fu<ked up consumerism in this society where MORE is the goal and MORE for CHEAP is the mantra.

I can't feel sorry for people - empathy for their situation, yes, but most are not "victims", they voluntarily went there.

[Strangler Lewis]

From NA's post, we have the obvious lesson that your appearance affects how people view you.

However, I wouldn't just clean these people up. I'd take the gold off the black kids in the inner city, and I'd put everyone at the gay parade and the Folsom Street Fair in dockers and polo shirts.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

It has nothing to do with economic standards and everything to do with taste.

And having different taste is sufficient reason for having your picture anonymously posted to the internet for the general amusement of others? If you saw these people in real life would you go up to them and tell them how tasteless you find their existence? If not, why would you on the internet (slobby poor people do get online when they're not on the run from g-men after their moonshine).

It seems odd from this group of people to hear the idea that taste is an absolute. And by many standards the membership of this board is heavily involved in its own form of ****ed up consumerism and quest for more, more, more (the overflowing Disneyana).

[Strangler Lewis]

Different circumstances, to be sure, but I believe one of the founders of this board had his picture anonymously posted to the internet for the general amusement of others and was proud of it.