Joe Ellis arranged for Santa to deliver an iPod to his daughter for Christmas. Santa instead left an anti-capitalist rant. The iPod purchased from a Maryland Walmart contained a note written in ransom-letter caps reading:
RECLAIM YOUR MIND FROM THE MEDIA SHACKLES. READ A BOOK AND RESURRECT YOURSELF.TO CLAIM YOUR CAPITALISTIC GARBAGE GO TO YOUR NEAREST APPLE STORE.
Hold on. What about those faux-RIAA reminders that downloading music is communism? If the content is communism and the player is capitalist garbage, wouldn’t the combination even out? Besides, the iPods themselves don’t support any particular ideology—what stops you from subscribing to the Marx-Engels Proletariat Podcast? Right, nothing. These shopdroppers need to reconsider their message.
The little girl who expected a Christmas iPod was undoubtedly confused. Her father returned the iPod to the Germantown Walmart, where he learned that “another customer returned an iPod with a similar issue.” MyFoxKC doesn’t mention whether Walmart exchanged the political rant for a real iPod. You know those pesky capitalists, always so distrustful.
Girl Gets Bizarre Surprise Instead of iPod [MyFoxKC]
PREVIOUSLY: Shopdropping: The Anti-Shoplifting
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I find it interesting that if a Christian evangelical comes over and tells you about his beliefs, that’s terrible and wrong, but if an anti-consumerist actively defrauds you to tell you about his beliefs, that’s right and fine.
Shop dropping is retarded first of, because, like most activism it has a opposite effect. More attention has just been drawn to walmart and ipods, and not really in a negative way either. No one is going to listen to the message and no ones lives has been changed because of this note, rather walmart and apple just got some more media exposure, therefore its intent was useless. Also, If anything, this stunt has brought upon Negative outlook upon the shop dropping in general. Lastly, this really isn’t what shop dropping really is, shop dropping isn’t supposed to REPLACE items with other surprise items in the box… for shop dropping you either A. Put items that the store doesn’t really carry onto the sales racks or B. Put “extras” in existing goods… replacing one item with another is rocks in the bocks and nothing more.
I took a whole class on vandalism and shop dropping so go ahead and say that this is shop dropping and that im stupid and wrong…
“I find it interesting that if a Christian evangelical comes over and tells you about his beliefs, that’s terrible and wrong, but if an anti-consumerist actively defrauds you to tell you about his beliefs, that’s right and fine.”
If Christian evangelicals did shop dropping, it would just as outrageously stupid. As far as I know only adbuster type a-holes do it, so let’s not give ideas to other brands of a-holes.
@Hambriq: That would be a waste of money, though Tom Clancy seems to be writing better then he has in a long time. Support your local public library and you even get to give them back.
I rely on a capitalistic system since I’m self-employed. But reading a book is the best thing ever for the mind and the imagination do the best special effects.
@cde: who are you trying to fool? they fucking stole it.
@bitfactory: I read consumerist’s article. They said “The iPod purchased from a Maryland Walmart contained a note written in ransom-letter caps reading:”
What IPod? They didn’t *get* an Ipod! They opened *the box* and got a note. Hence, misleading article.
@ZekeSulastin: Sorry, please explain how that is fraud on the part of someone who left a box behind with a note in it?
Fraud on the part of the store selling it, maybe. But if these people shopdropped, as the article’s title implies they did, then they didn’t return the boxes, they just left them sitting there. In which case, the shoppdroppers didn’t commit fraud.
@mthrndr: So they not only took the time to remove an ipod, a highly watched item, but also to leave a note? Right, I bet they were wearing a huuugge bullseye on their back.
Besides, who are you trying to kid? You’re not fucking psychic.
If I were that Dad, I would love to find these people to drop a fraud lawsuit on their broke communist asses.
Nothing says “too much time on your hands” louder than engaging in mental jerkoffs like this.
what would have actually been clever is if someone had left the ipod, and filled it with underground or independent music and a note.
@madanthony: See, that would have been cool. Why don’t we ever hear stories like that?
Fraud on the part of the store selling it, maybe.
@coren: So this person leaves an empty iPod box on a store shelf and it’s the store that committed fraud? How? It’s not like they knew the box was empty and unless it was an employee that did it I don’t see how this would be different than Apple sending iPod boxes that were empty.