Banksy told his followers to shoplift from the Regent Street Guess store in London after it displayed a collection that used his artwork without permission.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/1977881

Excerpt:

Banksy isn’t happy with Guess’ latest collaboration.

The legendary anonymous graffiti artist had a directive for his followers on Friday, encouraging them—possibly tongue in cheek, possibly not—to visit the Regent Street Guess store in London and steal the brand’s new collection that features his artwork.

“Attention all shoplifters. Please go to Guess on Regents Street. They’ve helped themselves to my artwork without asking, how can it be wrong for you to do the same to their clothes?”

  • jlow (he/him)@beehaw.orgEnglish
    78·
    1 year ago

    Nice, stealing from multinational conglomerates is never morally wrong and should always be encouraged.

    • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      If it’s someone stealing food and basics then yeah, but if it’s bored kids stealing fashion then they can fuck off. Don’t use the excuse of “sticking it to the man” to justify bring a bellend.

        • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          I’d probably just tell them to fuck off home if I was feeding particularly ballsy. Where do you live where the police are well-funded enough that they’d have time to deal with something as small-time and irrelevant as this?

      • Sethayy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        What so worst case scenario Walmart family is 0.0001% less rich?

        Literally harming no one, get off your high horse if you got enough money to afford shit (yes even cosmetics some people value)

        • Grilipper54@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Companies look at shrink and if the margins are too high, they will close the store. It hurts communities if the store they need to purchase food from closes. This is especially problematic in poor communities where not everybody has easy transportation.

          • Sethayy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            That’d be like a LOT of stealing tho. Avg Walmart pulls in $1mil A WEEK.

            This is even more so in small towns where they were easily able to secure a monopoly, so for operating one store they’re able to be the only option for a whole town - and they’d have to choose to throw away a perfectly functional source of revenue.

            There’s a reason many internet companies are expanding rural, its a larger more spread out market

            • Grilipper54@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              People are stealing a lot. Saying it harms nobody isn’t correct. In the twin cities we’ve had a Aldi, Walmart and Walgreens all close within the last year. All of them were located in areas with a majority of people being on the poorer side of things. If people bought their groceries at Walmart, now the closest place is Cub which is about 6 miles away. That can be a 30-35 minute difference if you don’t have a car and Cub is much more expensive. I’m not defending corporations but they aren’t going to stay if people are stealing too much. Look at all the companies leaving in San Francisco and Portland.

        • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I think you’re missing my point. If you have so little money that you need to steal just to get by then society has failed you and fuck the corpos trying to keep you down. On the other hand, if you’re well off enough that you can spend your time posting online from your smartphone about how cool it is to nick designer fashion and cosmetics then you’re probably a poser who believes in nothing but getting stuff for free. I imagine there are a few people upvoting the original comment who take their beliefs quite seriously and spend their time doing real activism for social change, however I reckon most of them are edgelords who need to grow up and realise they’re not Robin Hood.

          • Sethayy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Nah but I do believe there is a gray area. Sure most people have a probably pretty modern phone and computer, but like is living large??

            I couldn’t get a job today without a PDF formatted resume and attached phone number, I could have to decide between paying my phone bill and spending money on something I actually care about instead of just handing it off to a super company .

            I don’t believe it is even slightly morally wrong to steal just for ones own mental peace of mind, we can probably forgoe a superyacht so some of us to not solely exist for labor

    • Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Does he have an agent or somebody who can be contacted? Not justifying the shop from doing this but how would somebody seek his permission?

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        13·
        1 year ago

        Who Banksy? because he has clearly given his permission in the form of a press release

        So Banksy has gven his moral ascent to anyone stealing from that shop although obviously Banksy doesn’t have the legal right to do that and you will still get in trouble if the police catch you but the police in the UK don’t investigate shoplifting less than £200. Although they recently have been told to crack down on all shoplifting so that might change.

        • tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.ukEnglish
          5·
          1 year ago

          But the shop doesn’t have the legal right to have banksy’s stuff either… is it really stealing if the owner of the art says ‘take it, it’s free’?

    • acastcandream@beehaw.orgEnglish
      67·
      1 year ago

      There’s a legitimate discussion to be had about whether not he should be doing that, but to compare it to a multinational corporation profiting off of clothes depicting his work without his permission is pretty disingenuous.

      This is not me saying people should go shoplift nor is it me saying that Banksy isn’t a whiner.

        • acastcandream@beehaw.orgEnglish
          29·
          1 year ago

          I’m not sure where the bad faith accusation is. You’re saying that because of the way he operates, they get to use his work without his permission on physical products they sell for profit. If this is incorrect feel free to explain what you meant.

          • cyberdecker@beehaw.orgEnglish
            5·
            1 year ago

            You made no bad faith argument here. Your response for further discussion was a great prompt and right in line with this thread but clearly they don’t want to engage.

            I really dislike this trend of responding to comments with the red badge of “bad faith argument”. It is awfully dismissive, particularly without saying why, like in this case here. Best case, they may expect that you know exactly why you are being accused of that and want to shut down bad faith arguing, but if you have no idea why, it’s really just meant to insult or harm. Ironically, accusing someone of a bad faith argument without explaining why may be considered bad faith arguing.

            Sorry you got a response like that. I thought your response was good, thoughtful and good attempt at more discussion. I agree and don’t have much to add, unfortunately, but just wanted to support your post.

    • adrian783@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      nahhhh. we know who he is, and he collaborates with local authorities to put up his art. and retains all rights to it of course.

      so he is actually very justified in feeling this way because he unironically greatly benefits from the commercial side of things.

      of course, he still wants us to think this is some counterculture shit.

      • Squizzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        I don’t know that this is strictly true, he has had works painted over before and notably had a rivalry with that Manchester King fella and they re did each others works regularly.

        • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          11·
          1 year ago

          Yeah and the rappers that make diss tracks about each other totally hate each other too, it’s not for publicity at all, they’d really kill each other if only they had a chance. Too bad they’re too busy making millions.

          • Squizzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
            8·
            1 year ago

            That’s not what I’m saying, I think you’re being intentionally negative and obtuse. Yes there is a commercial aspect, no it not a given that everything he does is with the approval of local governments.

            He didn’t stand to gain anything by feuding with the other street artist.

            Also there are lots of hiphop feuds that do famously bleed into real life and too many have died. Are there people who use this narrative to further their careers, yes but it doesn’t make everything fake.

            • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              He stands to gain attention and notoriety, which is why he does everything he does. As does the other street artist. If you don’t think it was a publicity stunt fine, I certainly can’t prove it was, but that’s what I believe.

  • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    I definitely wouldn’t get a Flipper Zero for the purposes of theft. Allegedly it is a legal device that can be re-programmed to disable security tags and open charging ports on Tesla vehicles, which is wrong.

    Definitely do not purchase a Flipper Zero and utilize it for theft or disruption. Its purposes are to open garage doors.

    • Aagje_D_Vogel@feddit.nlEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      You don’t need to reprogram the Flipper Zero for Tesla charging ports. Just get the Sub-Ghz signal from the internet and store it on the Flipper.

      I definitely never done it myself, of course.

      • acastcandream@beehaw.orgEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Well, it took a whole 2 months, but at last “why all the downvotes?” / “downvoted for the truth smh” / etc. has reared its head in my feed again.

        • Blake [he/him]@feddit.ukEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          What transpired here was a fucking travesty. OP was robbed of the critical acclaim that they deserved for their short form original comedy routine and instead they were met with nary more than silence, broken only by the left-mouse-button click of disapproval.

          Until our deuteragonist, @Blake (PBUH) entered the tale, turning those unwashed, downvoting masses aside, to extend the open hand of succour to the hero of this story, to be the rock that the chaotic waves break upon, and yet the solid foundation upon which civilisation can be built.

          Sir, ma’am, or neither, I say to you - perhaps to you I am but the deliverer of a nearly-forgotten refrain, a creature of yesteryear, attempting to re-establish traditions which should be confined to the annals of history. But do not forget that one of our kindred reached out to touch the minds and souls of their fellow human, thinking that their wit and comedy would be appreciated at least by some, and until my timely arrival, they were ignored and rejected. Put yourself in their shoes.

          I choose to imagine that reading my comment, an expression of gratitude in the desolation of coventration hitherto experienced, was akin to the Sun rising on the horizon after a long, cold night.

          What I’m trying to say, my dear friend, is this: “lol, lmao”

  • Schwim Dandy@reddthat.comEnglish
    20·
    1 year ago

    His celebrity status depends on hyperbolic rhetoric like this. If he had handled it the way normal people do, through courts, he’d be damaging his mystique. The sheep that think he’s the bee’s knees slurp this bullshit up.

  • Obinice@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    1 year ago

    I’m from the UK and I have no idea who Guess even are, so they can’t be that big of a deal. I won’t support them anyway… if I ever see them haha.

    • Venus [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      51·
      1 year ago

      Actually, stealing from a corporation is always good under all circumstances. Everything they have is obtained by theft.

    • TheGamingLuddite [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      35·
      1 year ago

      Important to understand that every instance of mugging, shoplifting etc combined is less than half of what’s stolen by employers via wage theft. In addition, wage theft is virtually never punished with prison time, unlike shoplifting or larceny.

      Shirts are not people, not animals, not priceless relics, just commodities. Direct your ‘horror’ at an actual evil that affects your fellow humans rather than a minor loss of revenue from stolen property.

      • MrBusinessMan@lemm.eeEnglish
        27·
        1 year ago

        You’re definitely confused. The number one type of theft is people stealing from shops and businesses. It happens all the time! Sometimes people come in a big group and run through the whole store stealing stuff just for the fun of it. You see it every day on the news.

        Wage theft? I’ve never even heard of that on the news at all, it’s not happening every day like shop theft. But it is a problem. I have employees that I pay 8 hours of wages to and sometimes when I look at the security cams I see that they actually spent several hours sitting around chatting to each other instead of working so yes, it happens. But people stealing from the shop is still the worst kind of theft possible.

    • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Except when that store is a big multinational that pays their employees the bare minimum for stuff that costs pennies to make but is sold for half their monthly income.

      • MrBusinessMan@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        That’s even worse because that store employs so many people, when you steal from that store it’s hurting all of those employees