It starts simple. A candy bar here. A pack of gum there. Maybe a couple of bucks from a neighbor’s desk drawer. Before you know it, you can’t stop.

Or you don’t want to.

At least, that’s how it goes according to the users on r/shoplifting, reddit’s unofficial home base for fans of the five-finger discount.

I have no idea how or when I stumbled into this bizarre community. I’m sure it happened the same way anything does on the Internet. Click a link here, read an interesting nugget, click something new, rinse, repeat, and suddenly you’ve spent two hours reading about some obscure oddity. In this case, the best way to lift an expensive iPhone case from the local Walmart.

(Answer: go to the tool section, grab a pair of scissors, walk to Electronics, cut the plastic that secures the phone case to the rack, go to the bathroom, remove other security measures, discard the evidence, put your own phone in the case, walk out.)

Nearly 1,500 people subscribe to the shoplifting subreddit. Some of them lurkers, like me, but many of them incredibly active and forthcoming.

Some of the threads here exist simply for users to brag, like: “What’s the largest thing that you’ve ever shoplifted?”

Inside, the top answer: “A king size bed frame, headboard, and two night stands.” Another user writes about making off with a $50 bottle of Jack Daniels.

Other threads curate tips and advice, like “How to get past alarms?”.

Answer: “Just keep walking normally, don’t stop or run or draw attention to yourself.”

Reddit has a history of hosting controversial communities like this one, notably r/jailbait (pictures of young girls), r/niggers (racism), and r/creepshots (candid photos of attractive women). These are all closed now. However, a few others, like r/mensrights, are open for business and continue to draw heaps of criticism.

But we’re all essentially numb to this kind of hate and lechery by now, aren’t we? Anyone who’s ever read a comment thread on the Internet lost that innocence a long time ago.

The stuff on /r/shoplifting is different. It isn’t hateful or obnoxious or slimy. It’s illegal. Casually so. Brazenly so.

This kind of stuff was never meant to be out in the open.

And I can’t stop reading.