Rioters predominantly looted high-brand retail chains, not generic shops
Evidence
A salient feature of these riots,” designer Adrian Shaughnessy wrote of the recent disorder in England, “has been the fact that the main target of the attacks has been the shops of the major retail brands of British commercial life.” Writing on Design Observer’s website, Shaughnessy further noted that most of the outlets which were targeted — sports stores, mobile phone shops — “spend huge amounts of money on branding, on store layout, on window displays, and slick advertising.” The comments on Shaughnessy’s blogpost were telling: many fellow designers saw the post as, at best, spurious, and, at worst, offensive. Shouldn’t the rioters take responsibility for their own behaviour? What role could design possibly play in inciting such “criminal” actions? — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1589
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Fisher’s broader k-punk project on late capitalism, precarity, and the aesthetic critique of anti-looting moral panics; resonates with contemporaneous k-punk posts on the 2011 England riots. — connects to: Riots’ social-media coordination and retail destruction hinted at nascent class consciousness
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Riots’ social-media coordination and retail destruction hinted at nascent class consciousness