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Anthropology Free-For-All

There Was An Attempt To Buy Instant Coffee

September 14, 2025 133 Comments

Specifically, in a London branch of Sainsbury’s:

Coffee in case in Sainsburys store in London

( saphling ) pic.twitter.com/rEEE1LpEpH

— London & UK Street News (@CrimeLdn) September 13, 2025

It does, I think, capture the absurdity of where we are.

For those blissfully unfamiliar with the phenomenon above and how it came to be, broader context can be found here. Along with some telling contortions from our progressive betters.

And from which, this:

And so, the preferred, progressive trajectory, as implied above, entails a more demoralised, more dangerous, low-trust society. In which pretty much anything one might wish to buy will be out of reach or shuttered away, and in which every customer will by default be treated as suspicious. Because apparently, we mustn’t acknowledge a difference between the criminal and the law-abiding. Except, that is, to imagine them as more vulnerable than we are.

We will lock up the product, but not the thief. And utopia will surely follow.

Ms [Martha] Gill is not alone, of course. According to her Guardian colleague Owen Jones, expecting persistent shoplifters to face consequences for their actions is now among “the worst instincts of the electorate.” Because shoplifters are “traumatised,” apparently. The real victims of the drama.

At which point, a thought occurs. If repeated thieving is so high-minded and so easily excused, perhaps Ms Gill and Mr Jones would be good enough to publish their home addresses, the whereabouts of any valuables, and the times at which they’re likely to be out, or at least preoccupied or unconscious.

Or do our betters only disdain other people’s property?

See also, the Progressive Retail Experience series, a recurring feature of Fridays here, and whose entries currently number 666.

Update, via the comments:

Jen quotes this, from the post linked above,

Ms Gill is not alone, of course. According to her Guardian colleague Owen Jones, expecting persistent shoplifters to face consequences for their actions is now among “the worst instincts of the electorate.” Because shoplifters are “traumatised,” apparently. The real victims of the drama.

She adds, drily,

“The Guardian: wrong about everything, all the time.”

Well, it’s quite the feat to construe brazen and habitual thieves who merrily degrade the lives of those around them – the ones sexually assaulting retail staff and brandishing machetes – as somehow being the victims of the drama, the ones deserving of our empathy and indulgence, the ones who shouldn’t be punished.

While blaming the law-abiding, on whom they prey.

And while pretending not to know that the kinds of people who thieve and loot repeatedly, dozens or hundreds of times, often while visibly exulting in a sense of power, an ability to menace others, are quite likely to behave in other vividly anti-social ways. And while somehow ignoring the damning statistics of her own chosen sources.

I mean, even by the standards of the Guardian and Observer, that’s some pretty solid perversity. One might, for instance, contrast Ms Gill’s article, or that of Mr Jones, with all available statistical data, with the accounts of the victims, and with actual footage of the crimes in question – I’ve shared 666 examples to date – and then behold the utterly jarring dissonance.

As I said in an earlier thread,

Progressive wrongness is, it seems to me, often of a particular type. It isn’t just unrealistic or factually incorrect or logically or morally incoherent. There’s very often a sense of contrivance and perversity, of wrongness via effort, suggesting a psychology one might find worthy of study.

And Ms Gill’s Observer article is littered with quite glaring factual and logical errors – things that a professional journalist should know and which are easily found out. And yet she somehow doesn’t know, or pretends not to know, and makes no effort whatsoever to check. Because moral perversity is, among her peers, much more statusful.

Again, a psychology worthy of study.

Consider this an open thread. Pick a subject, any subject.

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Reading time: 3 min
Written by: David
Anthropology Dating Decisions

It’s A Laugh-A-Minute Lifestyle

September 4, 2025 51 Comments

Theirs is a “non-hierarchical” relationship, so the whole cancer thing didn’t count when there’s third-party shagging to be had:

Readers may recall the numerous polyamory ‘cope’ videos we’ve seen here over the years, in which clearly neurotic and unhappy people try to convince themselves, and us, that they’re totally cool with their chosen lifestyle miseries. Often while on the verge on tears.

we’re reaching levels of polyamory cope that shouldn’t even be possible pic.twitter.com/Cc3fdxxhwn

— pagliacci the hated 🌝 (@Slatzism) August 8, 2023

“Imagine them there, embracing you.” Instead of that other slag.

every video I see from this polyamorous woman sounds like she’s on the verge of tears and trying to convince herself that everything’s okay pic.twitter.com/ksO9coMzk2

— pagliacci the hated 🌝 (@Slatzism) February 8, 2024

You know, I don’t think her expression quite matches her words.

And then there was the time the Guardian’s lifestyle section brought us assurances of the “really positive energy” of polyamory, despite an unfolding catalogue of unhappy complications, displays of selfishness and insecurity, and despite recurring use of the words jealousy, resentment and anger.

And we mustn’t forget the tale, via New York magazine, of the Brooklynite comedian and podcaster named Billy, his girlfriend Megan, and his girlfriend Megan’s other boyfriend Kyle. An exhaustingly self-consciousness three-way entanglement resulting in a series of grimly farcical situations that were framed, rather coyly, as “relationship difficulties.”

The above, I should add, was one of several attempts by New York magazine to portray unfaithfulness and cuckoldry, and the consequent anxieties, as the very zenith of a progressive lifestyle.

As when a betrayed husband, Michael Sonmore, boasted, unconvincingly, that he “finally became a feminist” thanks to his wife’s nocturnal sexual adventures with a chap named Paulo. A wife who was “embracing herself” and becoming empowered, we were told, while her children, aged six and three, wondered where their Mommy was.

Update:

Oh, and needless to say, further complications sometimes arise:

I’m more concerned with the dead teeth. pic.twitter.com/SlBT9hsbg4

— Liberacrat™️ (@Liberacrat) September 4, 2025

So, if the rota systems, pecking orders and endless crying don’t strike you as appealing or the foundation of a happy life, that can only be because you, a filthy heathen, aren’t sufficiently sophisticated.

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Written by: David
Anthropology Free-For-All

Or Maybe See If He Needs Help

September 2, 2025 106 Comments

Just a thought.

Imagine that, the first thing that came to that low iq mind was to whip out his phone and hit record, instead of trying to render aid. pic.twitter.com/eA3OlwG7LT

— Liberacrat™️ (@Liberacrat) September 1, 2025

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Written by: David
Anthropology Politics

Her Values

July 27, 2025 111 Comments

From the pages of Business Insider, more progressive-woman-lifestyle news:

I knew I didn’t want to live in the US anymore. Not only did I feel empowered abroad, but I also felt that the US no longer aligned with my values.

What those values might be will, perhaps, become clear, if only by implication.

I quit my job, divorced my husband, and moved to Italy to retire.

That’s the article’s headline. The star of this drama is Ms Cindy Sheahan, a former real-estate agent. Judging by the tone and triumphant photograph, I’m guessing we’re supposed to regard Ms Sheahan as some kind of inspirational figure. No explanation is offered for Ms Sheahan divorcing her husband, taking half his stuff, and then putting half a planet between her family and herself. There are no mutterings of neglect or infidelity. No hardships of any kind.

The nearest we come to a justification is,

I didn’t want just to walk the dog, play pickleball, and tend a garden. I wanted a bigger life.

And, er, so,

Once I stepped out the door and visited places I had only dreamed of and ate food I had only read about, it was ridiculous to think I was going to go back to my “normal life.”

Again, the whys and wherefores of this radical uprooting remain oddly nebulous. Beyond, that is, the intrigue of unfamiliar food. We are, however, informed,

I wasn’t into the US’s overconsumption. With the divisive political climate and the ridiculous gun culture, there was no way in hell I’d live there after experiencing a more peaceful life in so many other countries.

So says our woman of high progressive principle – the woman who abandoned her husband and family, and her job, seemingly forever, despite promising to return:

My company was kind enough to let me take a sabbatical while I sorted out my world. It turned out to be a mistake for them, because I decided I wasn’t coming back.

Quite what Ms Sheahan’s employers made of this, or indeed her husband and four children, is, alas, not disclosed. Evidently they were deemed of no importance in this tale of progressive empowerment. And so, Ms Sheahan went searching for herself in Cambodia, and in Vietnam. And Laos. And Madagascar. And Turkey and Cyprus. And France and Spain and Portugal and Greece. Indeed, this quest for self – this attempt to find an alignment of values – spanned “nearly fifty countries.”

Before – presumably thwarted – trying Italy:

I moved to [Palermo] in October 2024. I didn’t want to live in the suburbs – though living in the outer areas will always be less expensive and, in some ways, more authentic.

And as you can imagine, Ms Sheahan is so into authenticity.

So, I chose to live in the city centre.

And being so authentic, so attuned to higher matters, her days are now spent eating alone in restaurants:

Eating… when you want to is nice. You can go back to the same restaurant twice… You have no one to apologise to or explain yourself to.

Oh, and grocery shopping. Specifically,

tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes,

Ah, the inexhaustible romance of buying tomatoes. It’s all about personal growth, you see:

I feel like I outgrew a lot of people and places in the US.

For some reason, the abandoned husband and four distant children come to mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I desperately miss my friends and family, especially my kids.

Ah.

But they’re all able to travel,

So screw those guys. Madam has tomatoes to buy.

If the above sounds vaguely familiar, you may be thinking of this.

Via Dicentra.

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Written by: David
Anthropology Pronouns Or Else The Thrill Of Unemployment

And This Is The Kind Of Sex I Like To Have

July 15, 2025 52 Comments

Or, Please Don’t Bore Our Staff And Customers With Your Weird Compulsions.

In which Madam applauds herself for her own feats of self-preoccupation:

Woman refuses to be professional at work and it’s your fault for being uncomfortable, conservatives. You made her turn down this job. pic.twitter.com/qW4vBsfSkr

— Σ𝕏ulansic 🦎 (@TTExulansic) July 15, 2025

Madam apparently needs us to know that she is “part of the LGBT+ community,” as if we should not only care but be endlessly fascinated, and insists that she needs “to find a workplace that is LGBT+ community friendly.” Quite what this might mean, practically, is not altogether clear, though the implications that come to mind are somewhat limited in their appeal.

As there are only so many ways in which tales of one’s sex life can be shoehorned into workplace conversation, I’m assuming Madam expects those around her to continually acknowledge some boutique complications of her all-important “identity” – fabulist pronouns, an imaginary themness, or something similar. Something very much about her, rather the task at hand.

We’ve been here before, of course:

If a job application includes imaginary pronouns and claims of themness, I think one could treat it as roughly equivalent to the words I like to shit on the carpet. Signalling, as it does, insufferable pretension or serious mental illness, or some unhappy combination of the two.

And that’s before we get to potential employees who announce with triumph how their “gender changes depending on the day, or week, or even depending on the hour,” necessitating the wearing of, and frequent changing of, colour-coded bracelets. Because they’re so complicated and fascinating, you see. At least compared to you. And which would oblige anyone within range of the Level-Nine Narcissism Field to use the fabulist pronouns chosen or invented for that particular day, week, or hour:

And so, we arrive at a situation in which employers and employees would be obliged to closely monitor the mood swings of their unhinged workmates, regularly checking pronoun-bracelets and pronoun-earrings, and other pronoun-stipulating accessories, as if they couldn’t possibly have anything better to do. Lest they be faced with some hair-trigger umbrage and operatic drama, or get summoned to the HR department and then scolded for being insensitive and insufficiently inclusive.

And a happy, utopian workplace would surely follow.

Madam, featured above, also boasts on TikTok of lying to the people offering her a job – specifically, regarding whether she’ll be willing to work at weekends, the employer’s busiest time – as if they, and other potential employers, couldn’t possibly stumble across such boasts of deception and register the implications.

Oh, and if this cake needs icing, Madam’s chosen slogans – the ones she shares on social media, where potential employers might see – include, and I quote, “I DON’T WANT TO WORK.”

In block capitals, naturally. Lest there be doubt.

Update, via the comments:

Chow Bag adds,

She makes herself unemployable (“I DON’T WANT TO WORK”) and then blames “conservatives and moderates” for her being unemployed.

Do they ever grow up?

Ah, but… but… Madam insists, quite emphatically, that she needs to “talk about my personal life.” At length and in detail. On work time. Apparently, it’s fundamental to her “queer” identity. And yet, shockingly, employers – people trying to run a business – don’t regard that as a priority.

How very dare they.

Update 2:

In the comments, Darleen adds,

This lady may think it’s her identity du jour that makes others uncomfortable (see? EVERYTHING revolves around her) but it’s her hypervigilant narcissism that screams “workplace disruption is her superpower.”

The expectation that employers and colleagues – and presumably customers – should want to hear about her sex life and political views – the expectation of deference, of continual validation – doesn’t bode well. As if a job at Little Caesars should be a backdrop to endless, flattering discussions about her “queer” identity and her “queer” politics, like an unending therapy session, but with more applause. With the spotlight forever on Little Miss Complicated.

“I’m not going to be in a workplace and not talk about my personal life… to make you comfortable,” says she. “That’s not how it works.”

And yes, today’s word is irony.

Via Dicentra.

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Written by: David
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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.