Retail Theater
Tom Scocca’s Andy Rooney impression newsletters are gold mines for people with planner brains, for the same reason Andy Rooney’s original rants were indicative of a larger issue as it were. The newsletters point to a glitch in the system, or a way that failsafe triggers have overwhelmed the larger point of the object, or some other inherent utility graveyard that society just whistles past.
In the most recent case, that’s retail security measures:
“So now there are more and more barriers, with more and more locks on them. The anti-shoplifting technology has become anti-shopping technology: if you see something you need on the shelf, you have to find the nearest buzzer and ring it, to summon a store worker to unlock the case for you. If you see something else you might need, locked away on a different shelf, you ignore it and just get out with that one thing you already have, because enough is enough.”
For me, it’s an issue I’ve seen ramp up at the same time as my kid grows. So those “oh crap, I’m out of sunscreen” moments, where I think I can just duck into a CVS with the kid, ends up being a weirdly indeterminate wait with an antsy toddler. The alternative, I guess, is to simply order two of everything online and make sure my backpack is always stocked. Which, sure, the alternative is always to be a perfect parent, but also, who has the mental energy to have their very own convenience store of their own design at home?
So people who are trying to shop experience what Scocca wonderfully calls “anti-shopping technology”, or what Willy Staley pointed out is an unbreakable Spam container container:
These anti-theft technologies, along with the digital cooler screen, lead towards something that is essentially retail theater. This is where the potential consumer has an experience that is similar to the convenience of shopping, but is actually pushing them towards purchases they do not want rather than the purchases they do.
And these shoppers are the lucky ones! The theft protection measures are put in place to stop people from taking Spam without paying. But as has been pointed out, routinely, people who are stealing Spam, or infant formula, or medicine, are not really thefts of choice. It’s theft of desperation. And addressing the theft, without addressing the desperation, is not really addressing anything at all.
The decision on the part of stores to make retail more unpleasant for everyone involved simply pushes people to non-retail consumption: buying stuff online. Which, eh, fair enough and guilty as charged. One could argue that this also leads to the increase of package theft. Which is a true bummer, because shoplifting is a minor crime but mail theft is a federal dang felony. The whole phenomenon turns retail, which is theoretically a democratic procedure where anyone with $3 can buy a couple of candy bars, into another cleavage between haves and have-nots.
Which, so what actual problem is being solved here? Anti theft devices cost a little bit of money, add a lot to the tasks of already-overwhelmed labor (drug store employees), are an inconvenience to the shoppers themselves, all in the name of further immiserating the most miserable participants in the drug store experience: desperate potential shoplifters. It makes everyone more unhappy, except for the company itself - since they presumably save a bit of stock that was potentially shoplifted.
The obvious solution here - “just put up with some stolen merch, you weirdos!” - is clearly not going to happen. I do kind of wonder if there’s a planning/policy solution here: like, a theft protector ban a la plastic bag ban in the name of sustainability. Or, to go back to one of my old talking points, a city-run (or USPS-run) local logistics program for small-scale deliveries that can actually pay folks so they don’t have to steal.
I suppose the more theoretical side of this would be understanding theft - like homelessness, child care, or wellness generally - as a social issue and not one of personal failure. Which, again, yes, I’m sure we’ll get right on that, as a society. But until we do start thinking about these Andy Rooney-isms - these goofy glitches - in terms of societal change, we are stuck doing this play-acting as society instead of actually being a lived-in society. There’s the theater of making purchases (which we really do online) instead of making purchases. It’s exhausting and no way to live, especially if you’re on the prosecuted end of it.