In Nobody Needs This, a series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad.

THE SUPERMARKETS OF dystopian fiction and film are typically shown to be austere places, with shelves that have been picked clean or are clearly suffering from supply chain collapse or agricultural failure. In Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, Ireland’s supermarket aisles are bare as the country falls further into the grip of totalitarianism. The Handmaid’s Tale depicts grocery stores as bleak, and the products free of branding or writing (because the women aren’t allowed to read anything in Gilead, not even the back of a box of cornflakes).

Our own real-life supermarkets have been giving off dystopian vibes for a while now. We can carry around our own little handheld scanners. There are security tags on condoms and baby formula. Cashiers are being replaced by self-service tills and shoplifters are discouraged by barcode-activated security gates.

“Dark stores” are operated as grocery warehouses, where pickers choose online orders and no customer ever sets foot inside – Ocado operates on a large scale in the UK while in Ireland Shuppa is the first to have a go, but only in parts of Dublin.

Amazon had a stab at doing away with supermarket staff and checkouts altogether but still allowing shoppers to browse. Their Amazon Go stores allowed customers to “just walk out” with whatever........

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