We Really Can't Shoplift Anymore, Can We?

I have started seeing suggested posts that showcase pictures of shoplifters. Sometimes they blur their faces; asking the shoplifter to come forward so they won’t press charges. Other times their faces are out in public, something like what you would see on a poster on a street corner by a federal agent for a reward. But these posts are done by individuals, not by law enforcement. We have become part of the surveillance system–we not only uphold it, but we also make it into content. It seems as common as posting about what the business actually produces to post about which bitch stole from them and asking people to identify them like it’s some kind of (weird) game. Like somehow this isn’t an actual person we are talking about on our phones.

I feel like we are playing social media cops and obsessed with gamifying the punishment or humiliation of strangers. Again this is a blog post so these are my opinions & thoughts <333 This post is too long for email, so please open on the Substack app or in your browser!

I hate meeting people‘s husbands. It’s not that I hate all men, but most of the time I hate all husbands. If I wasn’t friends with your husband before, I probably would not be friends with him now 9.5/10 times. Husbands disappoint: it’s not even that they just disappoint, but I go in to meeting them already thinking I won’t like them until they prove me otherwise because of their nature. To be a husband to me is like being a Christian in 2026: I’m going to need you to prove to me that you’re not a MAGA-thumping zionist maniac who is excited for the rapture aka WWIII to meet Jesus Christ in Heaven. Because I’m going to assume that you do until you prove me otherwise, which gladly please prove away because I love making friends! I don’t think I’m alone in any of these statements.

“If your husband was at (this) bar in South Minneapolis at (this certain time) listen up” a TikTok video begins. I listen because I live in Minneapolis and I love the local tea. The creator goes on to explain that there was a group of men in the bar–with detailed descriptions, including the tattoos of these men in the video—who were in deep conversation about how to cheat on their wives. The “ring leader” of cheating advice got the mostdetail, with the goal of outing him to his wife. This is why I fucking hate husbands. I was reminded of the time I had about a year ago at a brewery in the same city, that maybe I should have posted about too.

There was a group of over 10 men at a table next to mine. I was with my husband and my young daughter, waiting for a few more friends to arrive while playing cards. I am not someone to listen to other people‘s conversations, but this conversation was so loud it consumed even me. The husbands were discussing how their wives didn’t know that they voted for Trump, how some of their wives were feminists, and how they would never tell their wives that they hated feminism. It made me feel like I was back in any of the many red states I have lived in—not shocking, but shocking for the mini-Portland I currently am in.

This was really disgusting to hear obviously, so I waited until we were leaving to go over to their table and tell them something along the lines of their dicks obviously can’t satisfy their wives. A few laughed at me, a few stared, and then I left and haven’t thought of that moment until this Tiktok video.

I feel bad for whoever married these fucking idiots, and I wondered for a moment if I should’ve posted about it online. In my mind, though, yelling at them in public was enough. I didn’t need to go track down and find their wives, maybe their wives already fucking hate them or like so many women trapped in a relationship that they are trying to get out of? Probably, that’s why the men are talking like this, they know their wives hate them and they probably hate themselves.

But like with a lot of things, I wonder if I start posting about interactions in public and taking photos of people detailing who they are—when would I stop? What line would I draw? Obviously, both of these situations are disgusting, but really whose husband isn’t tbh, am I supposed to be a fucking cop? Even if it’s for the “right” reasons?

I want to talk about something even a little more morally grey: the trend of making content about shoplifters, even as a small business. It’s not that I’m pro shoplifting, but it’s getting increasingly harder to get away with just about anything and I always feel like we will regret how much we watch each other.

Putting my shirt over five layers of push-up bras and 10 layers of thongs from Charlotte Russe in the dressing room with a plethora of my overly promiscuous middle school friends was my weekend routine when I was 13. Like a poorer and trashier Missouri Bling Ring, my group of friends would scour the mall for over-worked retail employees who would look away from our obvious shoplifting. We would stuff 4 to 6 girls in one dressing room, rinse and repeat until someone’s parents picked us up from the mall in a minivan hours later. I think shoplifting is a rite of passage in the suburbs of rural areas: there is little to nothing to do, you need a risk to know you are alive and an angsty confused teenager.

Or because you are hungry and you and your boyfriend have nowhere to live. I had two friends that would shoplift handfuls of donuts and potato chips up their shirts daily. Neither families accepted that they were gay; I was a sophomore in high school, helping two friends that essentially lived out of their cars shoplift food and essentials to live. They would steal things from Walmart and then return them for cash. One worked at Abercrombie and Fitch and would shoplift while working to resell at Plato’s Closet.

Another middle school friend of mine hosted a sleepover one night. I remember it was confusing how she had no snacks for us and how her room was in a basement that looked unfinished. Her entire wardrobe was made up of the things that we stole. We asked where the rest of her stuff was, and she said she didn’t have anything else.

I don’t know how teenagers go through their shoplifting phase anymore because you’re being watched at every major retailer you go to. Target will come for you once they determine you have stolen enough shit from them that they have a case. Most other stores are like that as well. Physical retailers are becoming sparse. Self checkout has made it worse. I think of how these teens who are shoplifting to survive get by now… they probably go to a small business without all (not none) the intensive cameras as a Target. Or maybe there will be workers who don’t bat an eye.

Much like I have a major fucking issue with everyone taking pictures of anyone in public and filming them for content without their approval–even when someone does something that might be deemed wrong but it’s not endangering anyone. As a small business owner you don’t have the resources a big corporation has. Trust me, I’ve been there with things stolen from vintage markets, etc. When you focus this much on shoplifting, you are signaling you value certain social harm more than others. You want moral codes that exist in some alternate form outside of corporations. If you want to know how I feel about reselling vintage, you should read this series here because I talk about that the same.

I want to talk about something that you might not really question as much as you might question content about idiotic husbands or people shoplifting: filming minimum wage employees for content. Retail is one of the jobs right now that is still hiring, and it pays like shit and the work is awful. And yet, there are countless videos of blurred faces or non-blurred faces of employees at retail jobs “fucking up”, “being rude”, etc. no one is exempt from becoming viral content, even in your own place of work.

Although many of us claim that we want to be analog, we have created our own surveillance system that is free.

Of course, we can be angry that someone would shoplift, and also we can be angry if we have a horrible experience at a store with an employee. It’s hard for me to recall times where I have had great customer service regularly at average stores. But I’m also not stupid: employees at Walmart do not know where things are because it’s not part of their job, retail workers are severely underpaid and overworked, and so on. Besides Trader Joes, which is notorious for not letting their employees unionize, rarely am I greeted with a happy face and anything that goes beyond the surface level of scanning an item or possibly asking if they have something in stock.

During Covid, we realized that essential employees included workers at McDonald’s, yet McDonald’s employees are exploited, not only by their employer, but by the average ass person with a phone hoping to go viral. These types of events can cause people to lose their jobs. Even if an experience is horrible, why are we all policing each other? Would you really want this person to be without a job? What if this was you? Please don’t say I would never do these things people get filmed for, because I’m sure that you have had a rough day and have done something that you wish you didn’t do. But I’m sure you weren’t recorded and turned into viral content. Or maybe you were because this happens all the time apparently!!

Anyway, this is a fashion blog.

I find complete repulsion in this. It reminds me of the girl who went viral for talking about another girl at the Silver Lake Flea Market, who didn’t share where her boots were from. Viewers tried to locate the boot girl and tag her, the boots were found out to be from Urban Outfitters, and the brand even had a viral moment from the viral video. While all of that does feel dystopian, it wasn’t what disturbed me the most.

In the comments people suggested the creator should have taken a picture of the boots and image searched them, like they always do whenever they see something cute someone is wearing. I gasped, wait people do this shit tf? People suggested that they should have outed this person and filmed them. People said that they took pictures regularly of other people‘s clothes to identify where they got them from. Am I not the only one that finds this fucking disturbing on so many levels? How many times have I been photographed in public without knowing? I wear cute outfits with bold patterns—who the fuck is taking pictures of me an image searching the items that I wear without my permission?

We are being watched, but we’re not just being watched by evil tech overlords, we are being watched by each other!!! Sure there is some people that shoplift from small businesses that probably fucking shouldn’t!! But there are people that are just living their lives that are recorded. There are people that become content without even wanting to be content. I find it very dystopian to live right now sometimes.

We are all cops. We are all little piggies looking for a way to make it, even by the means of exploiting others that we don’t even know who are not endangering us. We are also little piggies to the rich, betting on wars like it’s sports and keeping tabs on everyone like they are disposable numbers.

Everything has been gamified down to wars and finding people that inconvenience them. Can you find this person? You might even get a reward if you find this person! Can you identify this Target employee who was slightly rude? Where is this person’s vest from that I never asked for permission to film– whoever locates it first, I’ll buy you one? We have taken matters into our own hands, which on a surface level could make sense because our police force is useless and corrupt, but if this is the past forward, I don’t think it’s a good one. On top of that, everything seems like it’s a game. Who can make viral content out of something, and who can be the one in the comments who has the top comment.

In Rochester, Minnesota, there was a racist woman, shouting horrible things at a child. This person was filmed, which they should’ve been filming for documentation to hopefully have her ass reprimanded, but unfortunately also resulted in far right groups raising her a shit ton of money. These people were an actual harm, this person was dangerous, and this person was endangering a child. The person filming was brave because this crazy racist bitch could have had a gun for all they knew? You’re a hero for standing up for a child!

I don’t need to do a list category of what I deem heroic and what I deem social media cop play, but one could ask themselves “am I or someone around me in danger?” ok film, like the situation above. OR are you just annoyed? Maybe not film then.

People make mistakes, but we aren’t allowed to make mistakes like we used to. Not only is it almost harder to rent an apartment, where renting used to be one of the simplest things you could do, you also can’t really fuck up and try better again tomorrow. Because tomorrow you could be viral content: everywhere online, your employer sees it, your friends see it, your parents see it, and everyone in the comment section has an opinion about you. When in the past, maybe you would just answer to one or two people, or maybe you would actually get in trouble with the police, now you answer to the entire algorithm. Things move quickly, so people will move on from what you’ve done, but maybe they won’t. Things aren’t erased: there are no fresh starts like in the past.

Imagine being 13: shoplifting thongs at fast fashion retail stores at the mall with your group of friends, a phase you will probably grow out of in a year or two. A middle-aged mom in suburbia with a phone and an appetite for growing on social media notices what you are doing because it’s pretty fucking obvious. She records all of you, may or may not blur the faces because you are all minors, and shares it on Facebook. She shares it on Instagram, and it takes off and goes viral. Everyone’s talking about how horrible teenagers are today, how these girls are dressed way older than their age, and where are their parents? The comment section discusses even more than that: now the police are involved and all of the parents know. The school principal knows, the teachers know, the whole entire community knows, and it becomes a new story about teenagers and their lack of parenting.

If the suburban mom wanted to be the upstanding citizen that she framed her content as, she would’ve just alerted all security or a retail worker. That is their job, while it is all underpaid, they will typically do something with that information. I believe that people should take matters into their own hands. If you see wrong, if you see something that is endangering, someone, confront it.

I don’t believe playing a social media cop is really confronting very much, and if this is now how you address things… well I still hope you have the ability to address something in real life. Since I also talk about politics here, the most important work is done off-line. I think we can relate this whole situation to that.

Not only do we have to pay for friendship through apps, everyone feels isolated, and we spend most of their time on our phones vs IRL interactions, we also don’t really know how to confront anyone!! I don’t think my phone is evil, I like my phone. But I don’t want my phone to turn me into a cop. There is still a real world out there where you can address something when you see it. Not everything needs to be made into content, especially not when we are becoming the surveillance state to each other.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, you might enjoy these too <333

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