The shopping trolley theory tells me everything I need to know about you

Published 1 day ago
Source: metro.co.uk
I’m not proud of how much this annoys me. I’m really not. I’ll have barely entered a supermarket’s vast car park and I’ll be muttering about it immediately. Oh, look. There’s one. And there’s another one… Trolleys abandoned diagonally across parking bays like giant metal spiders, passed out after necking a bottle of its owner’s own brand knock-off Bailey’s. We all know how they get there. They weren’t blown there by a powerful gale. They didn’t wheel themselves to some level of semi-freedom using unprecedented spell-gifted sentience. They were abandoned. And not due to some poor rushed soul’s unscheduled crisis, either. They’re dumped. Casually. But with intent. As if the person who left it wherever they liked felt that their work there was done. They couldn’t walk ten more seconds to the little trolley park thing. They just managed 45 minutes of pushing it about when it was to their benefit. But that additional ten seconds? It was TOO MUCH TO ASK, APPARENTLY. Sorry. I did warn you this irritates me. Let me explain further… (Picture: Getty Images)
To be clear, I’m not talking about full-blown trolley psychopaths here. The ones who wheel the thing half a mile away from the supermarket for reasons known only to themselves and maybe their therapist. And then ceremonially and ritualistically push it into a canal like some sort of dodgy-wheeled offering to a divine and mysterious inland waterway deity. Those people are not part of this rant. That’s a conversation for another time (perhaps with someone’s probation officer). I’m talking about the far more common type of trolley abandoners. The ones who glance at the trolley bay twenty metres away and decide that safe return is going to be someone else’s problem. Then just leave it wherever they like. On a verge, perhaps. Or full-on totally blocking a parking bay. These people, it’s worth noting, are not evil. They’re lazy, perhaps. And selfish? Definitely. But crucially, they are redeemable. Well, some of them are, anyway. Okay, maybe one or two. (Picture: Getty Images)
It’s never really about the trolley, per se. Nobody’s suggesting it’s some kind of untouchably holy object demanding of particular respect or gravitas. It’s symbolic. The quiet decision that the deserter’s time matters more than everyone else’s mild inconvenience. That someone else will sort out their business for them. That the car park is a place where responsibility can be quietly abandoned along with the trolley. They don’t put the wheeled cage back, so someone else has to. Perhaps you. And you didn’t agree to be part of this shoulder-shrugging stranger’s to-do list. Yet here you are shunting their trolley about like some kind of unpaid caretaker. The issue? It’s not even really specific. It’s representative. (Picture: Getty Images)
Britain is uniquely bad at handling this sort of thing too. We don’t tend to confront. We don’t shout. We don’t even tut loudly enough to be useful. We internalise. We stew. We write ranting articles about things that wind us up. We fix the problem ourselves while quietly resenting the person who caused it. That’s why abandoned trolleys hit such a nerve with so many people. They give you a problem with no satisfying solution. You can’t glare because they’ve already gone. You can’t complain without sounding deranged. All you can do is deal with it while feeling quietly superior. So there is that. In a way, it’s something of a gift. Given to us by the sort of self-regarding types who don’t tend to offer up unsolicited presents to others. (Picture: Getty Images)
At some point the internet noticed this behaviour and decided to give it a name: the very cleverly-titled ‘Shopping Trolley Theory’. It went viral around 2020 as a way of judging someone’s moral character, largely because it’s as brutally simple as it is sensible. The idea argues that returning a shopping trolley is a perfect test of self-governance because it sits outside of any system of enforcement. There’s no penalty for not doing it and no reward for doing it. Nobody’s watching. There’s no direct benefit. The only reason to return the trolley is because you accept a small personal inconvenience to avoid creating a problem for someone else. According to the theory, that choice reveals whether a person can regulate their behaviour without threat or incentive, which is – when you think about it – a rather basic requirement for us all functioning in a shared society. (Picture: Getty Images)
Before anyone gets twitchy, it’s worth being clear about what this isn’t. This isn’t a socialist diatribe. I’m not Mr Community. I don’t want compulsory friendliness or shared lentils. I don’t want any meetings about it. I don’t want badges or forms or fines or people rounded up and forced into the nearest football stadium by an armed junta. I just want people to play fair. And, really, just in this one scenario. This isn’t about collectivism. It’s about not lazily offloading a tiny inconvenience onto someone else just because you can reasonably get away with it. It’s about people not having their Nissan Qashqais scratched or dented because of some feckless pillock’s refusal to stop being inconsiderate for a tiny little sliver of their day. (Picture: Getty Images)
There are, of course, objections and exceptions here. Parents that don’t want to leave children unattended. Fair enough. Some people are disabled. Some are exhausted. Some trolley bays can be a real hike away. Also fair enough. Shopping Trolley Theory isn’t a moral sledgehammer. It’s not meant to condemn people having a rough day. The issue isn’t these odd exceptions, though. It’s the habit. The people who always have a shoddy reason and never see it as their responsibility. They’re the problem. Although it’s worth saying that anyone incapable of returning their trolley could always ask for help from staff or a fellow shopper. (Picture: Getty Images)
This bottled-up irritation isn’t just owned by me and a few nerds online. Take the Cart Narcs for example: a squad of remarkably dedicated trolley vigilantes who film themselves confronting people committing this minor social crime. There’s high-vis vests, sarcasm, public calling out and stickers of shame. British viewers watch with a mix of satisfaction and horror. We enjoy the justice but recoil from the confrontation. Public shaming in a car park is our cultural nightmare. We’d rather chew gravel than be filmed being mildly inconsiderate next to a Vauxhall Zafira. And the idea of being the confronter is even more horrifying. In the US, where Cart Narcs operate, there’s the very real danger of guns. Here, the biggest threat is someone throwing some change at you or posting on a local Facebook group about ‘some weirdo perving over trolleys at Morrisons.’ Still, no one wants either of those things happening to them, do they? (Picture: Getty Images)
The appeal of these Cart Narcs clips isn’t really about conflict. It’s about release. People aren’t furious about trolleys necessarily. They’re tired of being the ones who always have to tidy up after others. Every abandoned trolley is a reminder that the social contract only works if enough other people bother adhering to it. When someone opts out casually it feels quite a lot like cheating. Not dramatic cheating. Low-level cheating. But cheating nonetheless. Cheating that saves them a job, but effectively increases yours and other folks’ daily burden. (Picture: Getty Images)
There’s also a rather boring practical reality to it all. The person who leaves the trolley never pays the price. Someone else does. A driver squeezing into a space. A parent wrestling a pram. A worker collecting trolleys in rain while dodging SUVs, trying not to get run over before their shift ends. A scratched door. A blocked space. None of that lands on the person who caused it. Unless some wild karma intervenes somehow. And let’s face it, karma may be a b****, but it rarely pays attention. (Picture: Getty Images)
Zoom out and the trolley becomes shorthand for all sorts of things. Blocking pavements. Leaving mess behind. Not clearing up because someone is paid to do it. All the small ways people treat shared spaces like someone else’s problem. Communities don’t necessarily fall apart because of villains. They often wear down because of indifference. Because enough people decide a small inconvenience isn’t worth their effort. Hang on, maybe I am some sort of tedious whining socialist. I didn’t realise. (Picture: Getty Images)
Alright, a little context before I stop moaning on. Leaving your trolley doesn’t make you evil. It doesn’t mean you’re irredeemable. It just tells me how you see the world. At least in that moment, anyway. Whether inconvenience is something you absorb or something you pass on. We’re all busy, distracted and occasionally selfish. None of us is perfectly community-minded. But we can manage one small decent thing when it costs almost nothing. Even if that thing is just putting our bloody trolley back where it belongs next time we’ve popped out for our Quavers, potato waffles and anti-dandruff shampoo. C’mon, everyone. Think of the Qashqais, if nothing else. It’s not their fault. (Picture: Getty Images)

Categories

LifestyleOpinion
Read Original Article

Related Articles from metro.co.uk