Whirl-Mart: Encyclopedia II - Whirl-Mart - Origins

Whirl-Mart - Origins

The activity was founded by the group "Breathing Planet Troupe" at a Wal-Mart store in Troy, New York 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, Pennsylvania, 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 protestors to address "cathedral(s) of consumption" like Wal-Mart (which does not allow in-store free speech access to protestors in the United States). Consequently, experienced Whirl-Marters (when confronted by security or store management) do not admit to being protestors and instead maintain 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.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Origins", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki