Disclaimer: this is only regarding my experiences at both stores. I’ve not been to every Walmart/Target in the world, but odds are that you’ve never been to my local Walmart/Target either.
I prefer going to Walmart instead of Target every time and for any sort of shopping. Walmart still has the sort of atmosphere of being a classic superstore that carries actual brands and has some image of option or variety. Everything at Target seems to be house brand and overpriced at that.
Most criticism about the Walmart shopping experience seems to be thinly-veiled classism and most pro-Target arguments are just “I don’t have to be around the poors.” Neither of these appeal to me and I find the atmosphere at Target to be overbearing, uncomfortably sanitized, and their security policies are invasive, to say the least.
I don’t care about the politics of either company. If I’m shopping at a fuckhuge superstore anyway, I’m probably in a rush and need whatever I’m there for that day. Neither store is ever my first choice (or second, third, etc.), and if I can, I’ll source whatever I need locally/used/or online, but if my only two options are Walmart or Target, I’ll go to Walmart every time.
I truly believe a lot of the motherfuckers who say “I don’t want to be around Walmart people” (meaning "lower-class,’ or simply “poor”) have truly somehow forgotten that Walmart and Kmart were two different things.
Kmart was full of weirdos. Kmart was sketchy. Kmart did have crazy fuckers stalking the aisles.
Walmart, on the other hand, was always just a fucking superstore. It just is what it is. It’s a place where you can buy Totino’s Pizza rolls, heavily discounted DVDs, sweatpants, calligraphy supplies, fancy seashell-shaped soap bars for your bathroom, and ammunition, all in one trip.
And Target is the same fucking store.
And so was Kmart, in truth. BUT IT HAD WEIRD ENERGY. I don’t even know why. And I kinda miss that shit, to be honest. It’s completely fitting that one of its six remaining locations is in fucking Florida.
I lowkey want to make a pilgrimage, there. Just to see how fucking off-the-hook crazy it is. All the remaining Kmart energy, concentrated and combined with Florida people. Best believe I’d be wearing a fucking bulletproof vest the whole trip, though.
Basically, if you never fucked with Kmart, think of it as Waffle House, compared to all the other stores as IHOP. Very different vibe. Very different odds of a fight breaking out. And, again, it wasn’t even that Kmart was for lower-income people. It might have been SLIGHTLY cheaper, overall…but not enough to really be relevant.
It just had scrappy, kooky, sketchy, cracked-out energy to it, for some unexplainable reason.