Walmartian (Walmart shopper/employee nickname)
Walmart is the largest retailer in the United States, but unions have fought against the non-union company. Walmart’s proposed entry to the New York City market has been the subject of several New York City Council hearings.
Some critics of Walmart have called its customers and employees “Walmartians” or “Wal-Martians”—from “Walmart” and “Mars” (to indicate “from outer space” or “alien” or “crazy”). The term can be jocular and/or derogatory. “Wal-Martian” has been cited in print since at least 1992.
“Area 51 is where they keep all of the Walmart cashiers” and “I don’t need to go to Area 51. I’ve been to Walmart” are related Walmart jokes.
Wikipedia: Walmart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company was the world’s largest public corporation in 2010 by revenue.
The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. Wal-Mart, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, is the largest majority private employer Walmart is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51% of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates the Sam’s Club retail warehouses in North America.
Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, under 55 different names.
Urban Dictionary
Walmartians
Those who shop exclusively at Walmart. They are identified by their outdated style of dress and hair. Most also have unusual body types and dental configurations thereby giving the impression they are natives of another planet.
Friday is the most popular night for the Walmartians to shop.
by legz2walk Apr 28, 2008
New York (NY) Times
He Found $50 Billion in a Five-and-Ten-Cent Store
By Richard Lingeman
Published: July 12, 1992
SAM WALTON Made in America: My Story. By Sam Walton with John Huey. Illustrated. 269 pp. New York: Doubleday. $22.50.
(...)
But a full assessment of the economic and social impact of Wal-Mart needs a more objective narrator. The company has, willy-nilly, been a powerful agent for socioeconomic change, and sociologists study “the Wal-Marting of rural America.” In some towns the news that the Wal-Martians were coming caused local businesses to shut their doors; many of those that held on went under, leaving gaping storefronts along Main Street.
28 February 1993, Washington (DC) Post, “Up Against the Wal-Mart; A Pretty Town Faces An Ugly Dilemma: In Seeking Cheap Prices, Is It Selling Its Soul?” by Eugene L. Meyer, pg. F1:
Even its backers—and there are plenty of Wal-Martians here—do not argue that the megastore is quaint or historic.
New York (NY) Times
Wal-Mars Invades Earth
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
Published: July 25, 2004
It’s torn cities apart from Inglewood to Chicago and engulfed the entire state of Vermont. Now the conflict’s gone national as a presidential campaign issue, with John Kerry hammering the megaretailer for its abysmally low wages and Dick Cheney praising it for its ‘‘spirit of enterprise, fair dealing and integrity.’’ This could be the central battle of the 21st century: Earth people versus the Wal-Martians.
Google Books
The United States of Wal-Mart
By John Dicker
New York, NY: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin
2005
Pg. ?:
Sam Walton has been dead for a decade, but he lives on as the customer- service superego of Wal-Martians nationwide.