During the 2020 lockdowns, there were some stores that hid empty shelves with posters of shelves with food. I came across a Reddit thread about this and some descendent of East Germans said “wow this is just like east Germany”
Then an actual ex-East German guy showed up and said “actually, it’s nothing like east Germany. There weren’t many options to choose from but no one ever starved or struggled to find a home.”
The descendent guy got upset and said “stop praising a murderous regime.”
The addiction to the theater of “choice” that comes with US consumerism is one of the most mind-numbing things to have to keep retreading with reactionaries. I don’t give it a shit if there are forty brands of oatmeal on the shelves. Just give me one that’s minimally processed and not covered in sugar and corn slurry.
My favorite supermarket chain in the world is a Colombian chain called D1. There’s only one choice for most things and they’re nearly all store brand. Prices are low, quality is consistently high (their wine/liquor buyer in particular is a genius), and because they aren’t filling up aisles with 100 variations of the same thing, they can stock a little bit of everything in a small corner store. It is perfect.
Ask any psychologist at random and they’ll tell you straight-up that excess choice drives people insane. It’s even more infuriating because half the shit here comes out of the same chute, into seven different labeled bags with difference price tags because the suburban boat dads need to feel like they’re buying something better than the filthy poors.
During the 2020 lockdowns, there were some stores that hid empty shelves with posters of shelves with food. I came across a Reddit thread about this and some descendent of East Germans said “wow this is just like east Germany”
Then an actual ex-East German guy showed up and said “actually, it’s nothing like east Germany. There weren’t many options to choose from but no one ever starved or struggled to find a home.”
The descendent guy got upset and said “stop praising a murderous regime.”
The addiction to the theater of “choice” that comes with US consumerism is one of the most mind-numbing things to have to keep retreading with reactionaries. I don’t give it a shit if there are forty brands of oatmeal on the shelves. Just give me one that’s minimally processed and not covered in sugar and corn slurry.
My favorite supermarket chain in the world is a Colombian chain called D1. There’s only one choice for most things and they’re nearly all store brand. Prices are low, quality is consistently high (their wine/liquor buyer in particular is a genius), and because they aren’t filling up aisles with 100 variations of the same thing, they can stock a little bit of everything in a small corner store. It is perfect.
Ask any psychologist at random and they’ll tell you straight-up that excess choice drives people insane. It’s even more infuriating because half the shit here comes out of the same chute, into seven different labeled bags with difference price tags because the suburban boat dads need to feel like they’re buying something better than the filthy poors.