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What is a Whirl-Mart?
The action is comprised of a group of anti-shoppers ranging in size from 1 to 50 members. The ritual consists of activists/actors arriving at a Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us or another chain superstore at 12-noon on the first Saturday or Sunday of the month and proceeding to push empty shopping carts slowly and silently through the aisles. Eventually, all of the participants locate one another and form a single-file chain of anti-shoppers which weaves, wanders, and whirls throughout the store for about an hour. It is a collective reclamation of space that is otherwise only used for buying and selling. It is a symbolic display of the will to resist the capitalist ideology.
'Whirl-Mart' is an experiment that can be approached from several different angles. As a work of art, it examines and blurs the boundaries that have been established between performance art, protest, living sculpture, and direct action. As an action of resistance, it utilizes the power of silence in occupying private consumer-dominated space with a symbolic spectacle. As a ceremony, it is a counter-ritual to shopping that transforms the super-store and its wall-to-wall array of products into a surreal and colorful cathedral. And what the heck-- it's just darned fun!
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Whirl-Mart Ritual Resistance International Whirl-Mart HQ World Changing Models, Tools, and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future Critical Mass Critical Mass is not an organization, it's an unorganized
coincidence. It's a movement ... of bicycles, in the streets. Rev Billy's Church of Stop Shopping Lots of great scripts from/for performance interventions
with a heavy focus on Starbucks. Commerce
Jamming Commerce Jamming source page. AdBusters A global network of those who want to advance the new social
activist movement of the information age. Commercial Alert wants to keep commercial culture within
its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and
democracy. No Media Kings Jim Munroe's guide to doin' it for yourself Booksense.com Internet book search that sends your order to your nearest
independent bookstore. Starbucks Delocator Search that helps you locate locally owned alternatives to Starbucks
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PLUS the News Dissector's Weblog. CorpWatch.org counters corporate-led globalization through education,
network-building and activism.
Why did diamonds get to be the love and marriage thing? Why do
couples — everywhere — who wish to declare their love go out and pay
big bucks for diamonds?
One reason I was given is that diamonds are so scarce.
But Donna Bergenstock, a marketing professor at Muhlenberg College,
points out their scarcity is a myth, one created long ago by DeBeers,
the South African company that's dug up most of the world's diamonds.
"There are … billions of dollars of diamonds sitting in vaults — in
London, in South Africa — that DeBeers specifically keeps off the
market in order to artificially raise the price of diamonds," she says.
The supply is so vast that if DeBeers hadn't controlled the world market for decades, diamonds would be much cheaper.
So why is this rock a symbol of love? Because DeBeers told us it was.
Since 1940, DeBeers' brilliant ad campaign has been convincing Americans that diamonds mean love.
According to Bob Garfield of Advertising Age magazine, the DeBeers
campaign is one of the most effective ad campaigns of all time. Years
of listening to this propaganda has convinced us that giving diamonds
is an age-old tradition.
This is just a sales pitch. In the 1930s, when my parents were married, it wasn't customary for men to give women diamond rings.
Is it really just a sales pitch, or is there really something special about diamonds, a sparkle that makes them unique?
We tested that idea. We went to Grand Central Station in New York with
two rings. One was a piece of cubic zirconia, worth about a dollar. The
other was a $10,000 diamond.
I asked people which they liked more.
Most people could not tell the difference. Of dozens of people we asked, nearly half picked the cubic zirconia.
Yet women told us, even if they had preferred the look of the
imitation, they'd still rather be given the diamond. "It just makes you
feel like you're special," said one woman. "I know what I want on my
finger, and it has to be the real thing."
We'll spend more for a rock because a South African cartel has run a great ad campaign? Apparently we will.
MediaChannel.org
