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It's not often you see a goat in a department store in Britain. Fortunately a new website is opening a window for Britons onto the bizarre, often alarming, always hilarious shoppers who patronise American budget store Wal-Mart. 'People of Wal-Mart' (www.peopleofwalmart.com), launched by three men in their 20s in August, has gone viral, becoming the latest star of the Internet. Hits increased by 700 per cent on August 27 alone. The site features the gloriously absurd attire of Wal-Mart customers in photographs sent in by bemused fellow shoppers around the country. And in addition to laughs, it's causing a legal and ethical storm, as outraged bloggers slam the site as defamation and an invasion of privacy. There are images of fat people in sweatpants, a man clad in a Captain America costume, a Batmobile, a monkey, a man with his shirt open to reveal his breast implants - and of course, many, many images of mullets. Captions are added by users, leading to the suggestion that the People of Wal-Mart could become the new, wildly successful LOLcats (www.icanhascheezburger.com).
The site was started by three men - Andrew Kipple, 23, from Indiana; his brother Adam, 25, and their friend Luke Wherry, 23.The site's mission is clear: 'We want to document the kind of stuff that when you see it, you immediately have to call someone and be like, 'Dude, I'm at Wal-Mart and I just saw a goat,'' Adam explained. The trio - who said they happily shop at Wal-Mart themselves (often also wearing ugly clothes) - got the idea last month after a visit to the South Carolina branch. 'We turned a corner to see a stripper - at least, I think she was a stripper - with a shirt that read 'Go F___ Yourself,' and she had a 2-year-old kid in one of those child harnesses that looked like a dog leash,' Adam told Yahoo! News.
When they turned the corner they spotted a man with a ZZ Top beard. It was too much for them.
They launched the site, asking their friends to send in photographs. They assumed it would never be seen outside their social circle.
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