Shopping Cart Instagram account captures undertone of the city
Written by Amy Stoltenberg
Images courtesy of the Shopping Carts of Savannah Instagram
Shopping Carts of Savannah (SCOS) is an Instagram account run by a SCAD student (Anonymous) that posts pictures of shopping carts in out-of-place locations around the city.
The account, which started in Jan. 2016, is more than just a collection of random pictures with ironic hashtags. The stranded shopping carts, scattered about in isolation, capture the underlying tone of something painfully offbeat that runs throughout the city of Savannah itself.
The significance of these shopping carts occurred to Anonymous about two years ago –when they noticed little kids playing with a Kroger cart next door.
“Their toy of choice was a shopping cart, and at first I didn’t realize that they were playing with it. I was just going out my front door and was like ‘what the f*** is that doing here?’,” said Anonymous.
Anonymous tried to share some art supplies so that the kids could play with those instead. Yet, the next day, they were back to playing with the cart.
“I’ve been very fascinated with shopping carts since then,” said Anonymous. “I think they’re oddly representative of the socioeconomic state of Savannah. You see them all over, even in the Historic District, and it just makes you remember that there’s this kind of tragic-ness that’s all throughout Savannah”.
Soon, Anonymous started seeing the carts everywhere. So they started taking pictures.
Anonymous photographs the carts as they found them. Adjusting them rarely, and then only to achieve better lighting, or to make the composition easier to read. But their context and location are never altered.
It’s important to Anonymous that the pictures don’t look like they are an attempt at “some high-art s***”, or that they were produced by an art student.
“It’s that norm-core aesthetic. I want them to look like a dad took them on his phone,” said Anonymous. “I just edit them to make them look worse quality than they are.”
Anonymous is excited by the response that Shopping Carts of Savannah has received. Via direct messages, people have been submitting feedback, and even shopping cart pictures that they’ve taken.
“That makes me so happy. I branded it that way because I wanted to see how people react to it, and I wanted to experiment with that,” said Anonymous.
The account attracts a wide variety of followers, from art students to the Mellow Mushroom in Statesboro, to even local real estate agencies. Anonymous thinks this is because the account is something that everybody in Savannah can relate to –which is why they want to keep it anonymous.
“I feel like if I put my name on it, or if someone knows it’s me, then they have a bias,” said Anonymous. “I want people to perceive it as they would organically, so that they have their own perception of it.”
However, as with any brand, there have been some haters. Shopping cart haters. Anonymous has been accused of stealing the idea from someone else’s account. This other account resembles SCOS in the fact that shopping carts appear in some of its highly stylized and edited pictures – but the similarities end there. Anonymous took this pushback as a lesson in branding.
“You’re always going to have haters, no matter what, as a brand. You can be as PC as you want, but someone is always going to be angry. Someone got mad at me over shopping carts. There are so many people who take themselves too seriously.”
The lessons in branding didn’t begin and end with learning how to deal with opposition, however. Anonymous has used this experience to learn about target audiences, and how everyone uses Instagram in their own way.
“It’s making me look at social media and marketing completely differently. I’m using this to experiment and explore, so I can be better at my craft.”
Curating SCOS is also an opportunity to dive into something bigger: the digital world as we know it, and as we don’t.
“I love the fact that we’re in this digital universe right now. We’re kind of pioneers in a movement. I love that fact that you can just control the Internet. You have that power. Everyone has that power. Its incredible.”
Anonymous is currently the primary poster to the account. Only one other person knows the login information and is allowed to post every once in a while. However, Anonymous is graduating at the end of this year, and wants to pass on the account to a qualified and worthy candidate. Direct Message Shopping Carts of Savannah if interested. Serious inquiries only.
