I hope she goes to the bookstore and buys a copy of The DaVinci Code and the latest Tom Clancy novel.

Isnt there a fraud charge in here somewhere?

Yes, because if there's one thing that shouts 'EVIL MATERIALIST' it is wanting to listen to lots of music.

What, no porn????

DWAYNE: Read the note backwards ;-)

Poor girl. Now her faith in the capitalist consumer society has been shaken. Will she ever recover??? Let's hope so, since the poor bourgeois need all the purchasers they need to stay fat!

I support the shopdroppers, the AdBusters, and the rest of the folks doing this. The media has so tightened the clamps on even the slightest criticism that these more radical messages are the ultimate result. So, this is the fruit of their own efforts.

What, you can't advertise "Don't Buy Day" on public airwaves? You can't advertise about national debt during the Super Bowl? What a bunch of crap that is.

So the anti-capitalist is now enjoying the iPod?

Where is there evidence that "the media" is turning away ad dollars from anyone?

I never understood those people who boycotted Christmas and whined about the degradation of society because we want cool stuff.

It always seems like they're the most brash and unlikable people you've ever encountered. It's no wonder they yearn for a time where people started caring about them, rather than blowing off a dinner date to play Ratchet and Clank.

If they had left the rant and the iPod, maybe I'd believe that this was some attempt to shake the roots of capitalism.

But since the "shopdroppers" walked off with at least two iPods, it's not shopdropping, it's shoplifting,covered with a crunchy anticapitalist shell.

I used to read Adbusters. But, I found as I developed a world view the magazine exposed itself to being pretentious, myopic, and down right condescending. There's a point where even the noblest caused get consumed by the blind hatred for corporations.

Pssh. This is some 12 year old who read a copy of Adbusters and now thinks his theiving is "culture-jamming".

Actual shopdropping causes shoppers to stop and rethink over-consumption. It can also be artistic.
[www.shopdropping.net]

@shopdroppers
"TO CLAIM YOUR CAPITALISTIC GARBAGE GO TO YOUR NEAREST APPLE STORE."

How about I come to your house and get the one I paid for, you thieving assholes?

@macinjosh:
@madanthony:

They didn't have to have stolen the ipods, or returned an empty box for the money. They could have bought the ipods, filled the box, then drop the empty box back in the store, or they could have gotten the ipod boxes from someone else and done the same thing.

Don't automatically jump to "they stole'ed it"

Kinda cool and creepy at the same time. Ya gotta love it

i think shopdropping is possibly the most awesome thing i have heard of this year, but this is... missing the point. i'm pretty anti-capitalist, but ipods aren't just naturally evil. i have one, but only because i need (yes, need) and mp3 player and i like the design, not because of media brainwashing (as far as i know). i think whoever did this is missing the point and causing more problems for the consumer than the company that they are protesting.

@suffolkhouse: Do you also support committing fraud against the store, and the store committing fraud against the buyer who buys an empty box?

Shopdropping can be a huge way to wake people up. Doing it wrong is going to get it labeled as the same as shoplifting or tampering with products like the Tylenol problem in the 80's.

I don't think their message on the Ipods was very effective. If they had focused on the blind brand following of the product it would have made more sense. MP3 and video players are a tool and can be used for all sorts of mind expanding content. There are other similar products on the market that can do the job and cost far less. Buying a brand image is the stupid part of the equation.

@bohemian: Do you really think anyone has ever been "Woken up" but a stupid stunt? Im sure my little cousin was impressed by the note in her new Barbie that called her a whore for wanting to follow a poor image.

I think Ive become more conservative over the years as a reaction to the idiotic things people do to stick it to the man.

damnit nibbles..

@suffolkhouse: So you support making someone spending a couple hundred dollars and just getting a piece of paper? I mean, shopdropping can be funny when it's silly products the store doesn't sell, but this is just creating hassle for some poor shmuck and potentially ruining his and his daughter's Christmas. Way to go shopdroppers, you ruined a kid's Christmas. Go you. *rolls eyes*

@Hambriq: Awesome.

This isnt shopdropping.... its theft! Now if there had been a note inside WITH the ipod... then THAT would have been closer to shopdropping.

Btw... i dont support shopdropping.... I think its foolish & pointless. If I want to buy something... some stupid sticker on the front (or note inside)sure as hell wouldnt change my mind. I'd see it for what it was.... a lame attempt by some little anarchist misfit to make himself feel important.

@bohemian: "Shopdropping can be a huge way to wake people up.
You sir are a fool. There is nothing to be learned from some childish idiot. But I have decided something just today.

I'm gonna start shop dropping stuff myself. See, I;m gonna go to the places you faux-communists shop and drop capitalist propaganda telling you to be successful, buy more Microsoft stuff and invest in Halliburton.

@bohemian:

A huge way to wake people up? More like a huge way to piss people off. You think some stupid prank is actually going to change people's minds? Wise up.

@bohemian: There's a way to bring your cause to attention that will win support, but if you do it the wrong way, it'll just piss people off. This is the wrong way. I have the same issue with organizations like Greenpeace and PETA vandalizing ships and breaking into animal labs. I don't disagree with the message, but the end doesn't justify the means.

The best bit of Shopdropping I've seen was the Artist Banksy buying up Paris Hilton Cds, defacing the liner photos with captions like "Every CD you buy puts me further out of your league" and putting them back on shelves. It was a work of artistic protest. And oddly enough, the cds started selling on Ebay for hundreds of pounds.

@cde

possible, maybe, but unlikely. I don't frequent wal-mart, but I know at Target the iPods are kept in a locked glass case, which means it would be much more likely that someone bought it and returned it than that someone somehow snuck it into a locked glass case. I'd say it could be an employee, but I can't imagine an employee would go through the trouble.

what would have actually been clever is if someone had left the ipod, and filled it with underground or independent music and a note.

This is just beautiful.

People bitching about out of control consumerism whilst typing on their Dell laptops sending data with their Cisco routers over AT&T networks at the same type drinking their Starbucks coffee and drinking their Fiji water.

Yeah corporate greed is bad. I hate materialism.

To all the self-loathing commies out there: If you want to go live in the sticks, hunting and gathering, be my guest. But don't judge me because I live with profit motive and actually am a student of history.

Go read a book, indeed, why not start with "Atlas Shrugged." Numbskulls.

It is nothing but a stupid, childish act of hopelessness. Anyone who would do such a thing has waaay too much time on their hands and should get off their daddy's dole and get a real job.

@SUFFOLKHOUSE AT 11:20 AM
"The media has so tightened the clamps on even the slightest criticism that these more radical messages are the ultimate result."

oh, puh-lease. The media is not tightening any clamps. Is that why the Chevy Tahoe ads were left online? Is that why you can go to just about any website and rate products, review restaurants or talk about how crappy an airline is?

There is far more consumer generated criticism today than ever in this country.

Further, how many news stories are there every year about "buy nothing" day? There's no point really in saying much more than that it's coming, because there isn't really any "news" to it, but every year, it gets covered. Further, there are plenty of stories on a regular basis about people simplifying their lives, eating local, using craig's list, free-cycling...yada yada yada. Some of those stories are even in the corporate bible (*gasp!*) The Wall Street Journal.

People who believe in media conspiracies are the *least* informed folks around. Unfortunately, they are also the most smug.

@ KRAKBUSTE
Hah! Well said.

@madanthony: Every Wal-Mart I've been to has had the iPods behind a glass case, as well. I think they even keep them behind the counter at the Apple Store!

"Shopdropping can be a huge way to wake people up." - I personally LOVE IT when random people I have never met assume that I need to be "woken up". Really, I value a stranger's opinion of me that is only based on my shopping habits much more than I value the opinions I, myself, have built throughout the years.

When shopdropping is done with a sense of humor, I find it kind of funny. When it's done with condescension, I tend to not only block out the message, but hate the messenger, too.

@Hambriq: I lol'ed at that!

@Me: "VOTE RON PAUL"

Hmmmmmm.....

What a load of crap. When you run off with someone else's iPod, that's when you cross the line from legitimate free speech to grade-A asshattery.

Who wants to bet that these iPods wound up on eBay, making a healthy bag of free cash for this twit?

This is theft disguising itself as faux-anti-capitalist horseshit.

Sorry, what these dipshits need is right good ass kicking.

@Buran: @forgottenpassword:

It's not necessarily theft. Buy an IPod, take out the Ipod, put in the note, leave box in store. What fraud did you just commit? What theft? At worst, littering is the crime you committed.

Also, misleading article consumerist. The Ipod didn't contain this note, there was no Ipod. The box contained a note.

@Sockatume: My bet is he purchased it to begin with, netting him no free cash. Selling it on eBay would cost him money and he wouldn't get the same price that he bought it for.

@coren: next time read the story. The girls father bought the iPod, but there was only this dumbass note in the box.

Next time RTFA.

And yes, this is theft.

@coren: MyFoxDC had a misleading article also. "Returned the iPod" came directly from the other article, when, from my understanding, there was no iPod to return.

@krakbuste: People bitching about out of control consumerism whilst typing on their Dell laptops sending data with their Cisco routers over AT&T networks at the same type drinking their Starbucks coffee and drinking their Fiji water.

Correction: I have a Macbook. Wouldn't be caught dead with a Dell laptop, that sorry excuse for a computer that are only favored by the less fortunate among us.

At least you got the Starbucks part right.

From now on, whenever I hear that someone is a "shopdropper", I can safely assume that that person is a total idiot. From this point on, I think we can all agree that all shopdroppers deserve scorn, and probably a hard punch in the throat too.

Okay, maybe not the punch in the throat - that may be a bit much - but the name "shopdropper" shall from now on mean "thief" in my book.

Holy hell, I live in Germantown! So let me shed a little light on this story. Our Walmart is atrocious beyond description. Imagine being at the DMV, and they're selling you things for low low prices! Anyone shopping for an ipod there would have to be a complete idiot. It does not one miniscule bit surprise me that someone at said Walmart stole something, though it does surprise me that they have enough literacy skills to type.

I hate that Walmart.

Jesus Christ I hate that Walmart.

Did I mention I hate that Walmart?

What if she wanted to listen to anti-capitalist podcasts? Or read the Davinci code (as one commenter pointed out).

Overgeneralizations are always idiotic.

;)