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.
Have you heard about shopdropping? It’s the big new fad among burgeoning anarchists who, instead of stealing, spread havoc by smuggling unwelcome items into stores. Think Che shirts in Target’s clothing department, or unwanted bunnies roaming the pet store after Easter. It’s all very badass and has several stores in a tizzy.
At Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., religious groups have been hitting the magazines in the science section with fliers featuring Christian cartoons, while their adversaries have been moving Bibles from the religion section to the fantasy/science-fiction section.
One NY group is holding workshops to teach “shopdropping,” which they explain is “the opposite of shoplifting.” Basically, they want you to print out their “improved” labels and place them in retail locations. The organization also provides PDFs of the labels they’ve made so you can cut out and tape them to the appropriate products with ease. An interesting idea, but we wonder if it makes any difference? Does printing out someone else’s labels and affixing them to still another person’s merchandise really mean anything? Does shopdropping have “biting back” potential, or is it just a waste of time?—MEGHANN MARCO
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