Young girls in Japan flocking to IKEA for cheeky photos riding in carts

IKEA is a place to shop for furniture, maybe do some window shopping and, some would say, eat meatballs. But, it also seems that IKEA is a place to take photos and watch the number of likes jump on your social media – at least for some Japanese high schoolers.

As well as taking selfies in the room displays and using IKEA products as props, a peculiar new trend has emerged: Riding in shopping carts.

Apart from the fun of speeding through the aisles in carts, it seems that an underlying motivator behind such photos is how it looks oshare, which means “stylish”. This could very well be the influence of pop culture, thanks to scenes depicted in western fashion magazines and music videos.

The size of IKEA’s shopping cart is bigger than the usual ones in supermarkets, allowing it to fit an adult easily. On top of that, in the DIY area, the aisles are also wider to accommodate moving around huge products. The number of people in Japan’s IKEA store is also relatively less, making it a perfect spot for photo-taking.

Some netizens, however, cannot fathom why people would ride shopping carts for fun. “This is trending? Isn’t this not allowed?” “IKEA is not a place for you to take photos.” “The youngsters who ride on a cart and take photos are scary,” are some of the comments posted online.

For its part, IKEA is fine with taking photos in the store as long as it is not dangerous, or it does not cause trouble to the other shoppers.

Not sure about your stand on this, but as long as we can get our meatballs, they can take all the photos they want.