Have you guys seen the Cart Narcs? What do you think about them? Should they mind their own business or are they in the right? Do you always return your shopping cart to the corral or do you sometimes leave it on the curb/in a parking spot?

In Germany that's a solved problem. You have to put in 50ct or 1€ into the cart to unchain it from the rest of the carts. You only get that money back if you return it and put the chain back in.

As for the guy, he's a dick. But he's also right about the carts.
He's not so right about much else though:

His video footage is not just "for protection". Straight up lie. Also he argues that he's just filming "the general area" but in reality he's filming the guy he's talking to and he needs their consent to do that. Public space or not.

At least in Germany it's also illegal to put business cards onto parking cars, but I'm not sure if that would qualify. But could be because he's a Youtuber and that's his business. However if you repeatedly put anything on their car against their will it's a form of assault. Again, this is Germany, don't know the legal situation in the US, but it's questionable at best.

He's doing it to get them riled up, obviously, so that's not very polite either. The manager seems to agree that he's harassing customers. Why the customers don't drive away with it on is beyond me though. They could just remove it somewhere else.

Same here in Italy. This system was introduced about twenty years ago because a lot of people didn't return their shopping carts.

We have a grocery chain, Aldi, that does that with a quarter, and it completely solves the problem. Why other stores here haven't picked up on this is beyond me.


I don't disagree with you It's like he chose something that he could be technically right about and then decided to go about it in the most inflammatory way possible. Can't imagine doing anything like this myself, but I also can't help but be glad he's out there doing it. Loose carts blocking spots are annoying and despite him being generally hyperbolic about the damage they could cause, it does happen. And he's only targetting people who have earned it by ignoring the rules (I distinguish rules from laws here, there's obviously no law about leaving out your cart, but every store has a sign asking that customers please return their carts to the corral). On top of that, the cart leavers have so many ways to avoid the pain of the experience that it is basically self-inflicted damage in my opinion, so who is truly to blame for their distress is questionable. You'd never catch me on one of these videos acting like a fool because if someone approached me with this request (assuming I were to choose to leave my cart out), I'd say you're right and just return it. Problem solved.



I see this is more of a lie by omission than a "straight up lie". He does wear it for protection and evidence of false accusations (which he also admits when he's talking to people), so those things are true, but clearly there's more of an agenda than just wearing it for protection. While I'm no legal expert, I know he has a legal team which he mentions from time to time and I believe he's continuously exploiting loopholes to be able to do what he does. From my understanding, in the US, when someone is in public space they have no expectation of privacy and so requiring permission for having them on film goes away. He uses businesses that run security cameras as an example of this. I imagine the fact that his camera is a bodycam gives him some legal leeway, too. He's not really pointing the camera at anyone, it just faces whatever direction he does.


I think the loophole here is that it's not illegal to put non-damaging objects on peoples' cars or to touch someone's car, people do it with flyers all the time here. The grey/probably-just-black area is that he continues to do it even after they repeatedly tell him to stop. I don't know of any laws in the US (again, I'm no legal expert) that classify such activity as a form of assault, but I can't imagine that it wouldn't be considered harassment if it went to court. But he's well-spoken, has alternative phrasing for all the things (i.e. 'I'm not harassing anyone, I'm having a polite conversation about carts'), remains calm, avoids using swear words, goes away when anyone with more authority than the customer asks him to, and tends to go away much sooner whenever someone actually calls the police (he says it's because he doesn't want to waste police resources on carts, but I imagine it's really because he knows if they actually get involved it would likely cause problems for him), so I think all those factors are part of how he manages to get away with it. An additional thought is that my experience with police here has been that they will often use their own judgment in situations, so I would guess that when they show up on the scene and one person is going berzerk and the other is just acting a little silly talking about putting away shopping carts but not really being aggressive they decide it's not a real problem and just tell everyone to act like adults and go away. Likely consider it too petty of an issue to deal with the paperwork for, police here are notoriously lazy There's at least some police who agree with him as well. Interestingly, a police officer actually sent him the bulletproof vest he wears when he's 'on duty'.


The psychology of this is what fascinates me most about these videos and keeps me coming back for more (I won't deny I also get a kick out of watching people freak out over something so silly). There are a ton of strategies that would be more effective than what they do, but almost universally people absolutely will not leave the parking lot with the magnet on their car. My girlfriend's theory is that the people being confronted aren't willing to let him have the "last word" in the argument and the magnet triggers the feeling that he has gotten the last word in and therefore won which is intolerable to them. The people could even just stop, immediately remove the magnet, and keep it instead of throwing it on the ground and in no time at all, he'd be out of ammunition. I guess such ideas are elusive when one becomes so flustered.

I'm curious to see how it develops as Sebastian has been cart narcing for at least 3 years now and I believe he is still actively doing it as he continues to release videos. The legality of what he does is constantly called into question, yet here he remains, posting what he does for all the world to witness. I read he's apparently been sued once but it was dropped before it went to court after an apology letter was written. Fascinating stuff, thanks for humoring me and having the discussion Nude

Damn lost my text 3/4 of the way through. So I'll be brief.


I probably don't need to tell you the origin country of Aldi, do I?


I get where he's coming from, but this one behavior is probably too minor to judge a character by. If you see a trend for similar things, then I'd agree.


He says he does it just for protection. But his main reason is to show them off on youtube. And to have a way to show them and us who's right, which would only count as protection in court. He's never been to court and always keeps his distance. Hard to argue that protection is the main purpose. If he were honest he should say it's also for protection and tell them they're going on youtube. That would probably calm them down though, so he prefers his little lie.


Might be different in the US. In Germany you can freely film in public as long as you're capturing the whole scene and are not focusing on specific persons. Security cams clearly focus nothing and also mostly film private property. Fun fact: In Germany this mostly is of course not enough. Generally you have to black out the parts of a camera picture that show public spaces. It has been enforced by court on occasion, but luckily it's not that common.
You might have a point there. Could well be that this makes it legal.


Language AND legal knowledge barrier here, so don't quote me on the terms.


Yeah... nah. The words may sound polite, but the conversation certainly is not.

c might apply, but he clearly violates a and b.


Yeah, another lie. (Even though we can't prove it)


Which is exactly what they should do unless they're holding up traffic like in the screamer vid.


Yeah. He's right about the carts.


Yeah interesting. Sounds plausible.


Sure. It's an interesting situation. It's such an everyday and minor thing that we all can relate. We all cheer for Sebastian for being the moral pointing finger - we don't actually care what happens to the carts, we don't even care about order is being served. We love that he exposes the wrongdoings of others, so we can feel better about ourselves. At the same time it's funny to see people get tilted. That's enough that we ignore that he's being a total jerk, many still see him as a hero. What does that tell about us?

I always put my cart away and I think people that don't are inconsiderate bogans.

As a crime I'd rate it on the same level of littering.

I like Germany's solution but it wouldn't work on people who aren't that concerned with money. But at least then it works as a sort of fine / charity as other people would be like ooh a free 2 dollar! And return the trolley. So yeah that's actually genius.

Yeah, same here at the chain I frequent - a ₽5 or ₽10 coin does the trick (though it's not implemented at every shop; there's no fare in some). I always stow the cart because if I'm strong enough to carry the bags from the shop and to the home, I'm strong enough to carry them a magnitude shorter distance from the shop's exit to the edge of the territory.
I'm always amused how a non-issue like this can be given... so much significance by some.
But I'm likewise pissed off about people placing rolls of toilet paper the wrong way in the holder.

I have not heard of Cart Narcs. I agree with just being like "Hey buddy, you gonna put that away?", but after skimming through the videos, making a whole huge thing about it like it's some kind of crusade feels a bit excessive. TBF it is annoying AF when parking spots are blocked by abandoned carts, plus if it's windy they could start to roll and bump into parked cars, so I also don't really think they're in the wrong for trying to point it out to people. Otherwise leaving carts doesn't really bother me, other than it's a completely lazy act and just creates unnecessary work for the employee has to wander around to gather them all.

I usually just leave my cart at the entrance of the store with the rest of the carts and carry my bags out to my car, unless I have too much to carry all at once. I don't think I've ever just left it at a curb or wherever because it literally takes like 30 seconds to just walk it over to the corral.

I just grab all of the carts I come across on my way to the store and bring them back myself, whether I need one for myself or not.