So much hate for this article almost makes me have higher expectations than usual. There's a certain type of internet commenter who just don't seem to "get" any analysis that goes beyond the surface level, no matter what about. What's so wrong with writing a few paragraphs about how being in a Walmart actually makes you feel? By what exact mechanism does this cause offense and invite low-effort ridicule? Is it the perceived idea that the reader should now feel the same way as the author? (in that case you can easily get more enjoyment out of the article by letting that assumption go..). Is it simply the ostensible inflation of something simple by using an over-complicated style? (I find TFA no more grating than your average Paul Graham or Scott Alexander essay). Is it simply that the author signals in so many ways that they are on the other side of some big cultural divide? (sad, but possible..)
Sure, the article is overwrought, up its own butt, but I also find Walmart unsettling.
The unruly, flea-market setup in the aisles vs the prison-like, industrial checkouts. Harsh lighting. Overly ordered + overly chaotic at the same time. It doesn't feel like a place for people.
It's straight-up depressing. Lotto machines staring you in the face when you go in (admittedly, I've only seen this in some). The weirdly sick lighting and color choices—I don't think they used to be like this, and IDK when they changed, or why, but I don't know of any other chains with this problem. The too-narrow-everything. The dirtiness of the floor and shelves. The disorder and clutter. The slow-moving beaten-looking workers. The patrons who, to a degree far greater than anywhere else, seem not to know how to exist in a public space without constantly being in the way.
I'd shop there often, because the prices are great, but I hate being in Wal Mart so much that I rarely go. (I've tried the pick-up order service, twice—nearly an hour to get my damn "ready" order, both times, never again)
As far as I am aware that is what low prices get you.
"prison lighting" is the lowest maintenance, lowest cost option. Too-narrow everything saves on floor space, which has real costs in air-con and lighting. Clean and tidy is a cost with a negligible benefit. Happy employees require money and R&R, not something you have a lot of at their margins.
You're not the target market. People who want (require) the absolute lowest prices don't mind. Meanwhile you probably are the "Target" market, which seems to be a slightly more curated container-from-china with more upscale lighting, colors and maintenance.
I think costco is the "gated community" version of these stores, requiring a membership to enter. A price-barrier to entry, or a commitment.
Aldi, Costco, three different local grocery stores depending on what I'm getting and how big a hurry I'm in, and Target if I only need a couple non-food things (that I'd otherwise get at Costco), yeah.
Basically everywhere except Wal Mart.
[EDIT] Hell I even go to Dollar General or Big Lots sometimes (used to go a lot when I had less money, LOL) and even those don't make me feel like my soul is being drained, like Wal Mart does. I actually kinda like them.
It's very hard to take this essay seriously. Mostly because it so completely dances around the obvious purpose of a "superstore" that it is hard to connect this described experience much at all to what people actually do in such a store.
This essay kind of describes this sort of store as one would describe a walk through the woods. But the purpose of a walk in the woods is so distinct from the purpose of shopping that no comparison can be made.
The essay is not about the purpose, it's about the effect.
I see where you're coming from, living in a big busy city and shopping regularly in such stores you get desensitized, but your comparison to a walk in the woods is perfect.
A walk in the forest can teach you a different way to see, and so can reading a book. A more systems-minded person might see an entirely different world of hidden machinations than Annie Ernaux if they walk their local megamart like they would in the woods, but it would be equally fascinating to read.
It has the same essence as the hacker's posture of curiosity and play.
I think they're giving us the benefit of the doubt that we know what a store is for and have already sufficiently considered what can be accomplished in one.
Two different posts have called out that specific part, and I don't get why. It fits just fine, in context. The overall tone of the article, I get criticizing, but that part seems entirely fine to me.
(the context is that the author's parents seem to have disliked the store, and ran a press that published a book that was sharply critical of Wal Mart, with the result that the author went many years without visiting one—this context is presented right before that entirely reasonable and appropriate use of "transgressive")
It's a continental philosophy thing. The moment I saw Paris Review in the title I knew there would be "transgressive", a few shots at capitalism, and inevitable dog-whistles to race and gender.
And sure enough, coulda won bingo with those assumptions.
Usually some sort of tie back to "the Real", in either the Lacan / Zizek sense, or the Baudrillard sense. Didn't get any of those, though; kinda disappointed.
> The moment I saw Paris Review in the title I knew there would be "transgressive", a few shots at capitalism, and inevitable dog-whistles to race and gender.
Lol. Boy Howdy, you nailed it and I love your Bingo card. In my weak defense, I hoped that, since it had been vetted by the good denizens of Hacker News, it would’ve been a bit better than average.
To be fair, even the most remote Carrefour in rural France would be considered an opulent food palace for the top 5% in the United States. Some forms of capitalism seem to produce more aesthetically pleasing results than others.
> I hadn’t stepped in a Walmart for nearly a decade, and it had acquired this transgressive power—the very act of crossing the threshold was as shameful as it was thrilling.
I managed to choke down the whole article. Hard pass for me, thanks.
