Whirl-Mart

Whirl-Mart is a culture jamming ritual aimed at retail superstores and described by participants as "art and action".

An event consists of a group of supposed shoppers who congregate at a large superstore (usually a Wal-Mart, Toys "R" Us, Asda, or Sainsbury's) and slowly push empty shopping carts silently through store aisles. Participants will not purchase anything and seek to form a lengthy chain of non-shoppers, continually weaving and "whirling" through a maze of store aisles for up to an hour at a time. Participants describe their actions as "a collective reclamation of space that is otherwise only used for buying and selling". Whirl-Marters seek to mimic and mock what they perceive as the absurdity of the shopping process.

The activity was founded by the group "Breathing Planet Troupe" at a Wal-Mart store in Troy, New York, USA on April 1, 2001. The group was seeking to respond to an article from AdBusters magazine that called for foolish activities in conjunction with April Fool's Day. Since that time, Whirl-Mart activities have spread to many other communities around the world, including Texas, Iowa, Arizona, and Pennsylvania in the USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It is often "celebrated" at noon on the first Saturday or Sunday of the month. Whirl-Marters are often very loosely organized, describing themselves as open to anyone wishing to show up and participate.

In addition to being "just darned fun," the activity provides a legal outlet for would-be protesters to address "cathedral(s) of consumption" like Wal-Mart. Consequently, experienced Whirl-Marters (when confronted by security or store management) do not admit to being protestors and instead maintain that they are engaged in a peaceful "consumption awareness ritual." Whirl-Marters do not aim to block store aisles or interfere with legitimate shoppers, and typically will not speak unless addressed. Their aim is to create a non-disruptive, peaceful demonstration of how ridiculous they see Western consumerism to be. Participants are non-confrontational in seeking to make themselves silent examples rather than active propagandists. Some variations of the Whirl-Mart protest involve filling carts but then simply abandoning them or, when checking out, claiming to have forgotten the money to purchase the items in the overflowing cart, leaving said cart for the employees to clean up.

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Wikipedia