Originally published at: Fascinating Horror on the violence that is Black Friday | Boing Boing
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Nothing exists in the universe to make me want to deal with Black Friday shenanigans.
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How do we not learn?
(to ask dumb questions like this)
Thanksgiving: Let’s take a day to express our gratitude for this bounty of blessings that have been bestowed upon us and appreciate all we have been given.
Day After Thanksgiving: I need more material possessions and I will literally trample an old lady to get them.
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Did not recognise Bruce Campbell in that trailer.
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The olympic trials for January 6
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Is this still a thing? I thought they’d resolved the problem by starting Christmas in mid-October
A few years ago after eating Thanksgiving dinner, the Mr. and I were curious if people were out doing the Black Friday thing. We drove around to the big box stores and sure enough, people were already lined up at 9 pm the night of Thanksgiving.
That’s crazy. But the craziest part to me was, when we asked what people were in line for, thinking there must be a $50 flat screen or some major bargain, they answered, “just deals. Looking for deals.”
So they didn’t even have a goal in mind other than, “deals.”
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Many years ago Black Friday was a way for poor folks to get some good deals and be able to afford some Christmas stuff. My wife used to head out to get a toy or some new clothes for our daughter at significant savings. She also hit places like furniture stores where the first 100 people would get a set of knives or a blanket or some other sort of free thing we could use.
For a while it was a way for people that normally couldn’t afford a tv or vcr or game console to be able afford one.
That slowly turned into the riots you saw over the years.
Up until the pandemic my wife and daughter would head out just because they enjoyed the people watching and shopping. The places they went were never sites for the mad rushes and over the years it has calmed down some, at least in our neck of the woods. The stores also started spreading out the times for deals so the need for rushing the doors became less.
They’re a little sad today because they both have a ton of coupons for Bath and Body Works that they can’t use. For either one of them it has nothing to do with the money, it really is just fun for them.
I am glad to see Target announced they will never be open on Thanksgiving again. Although never is a long time and I’m sure it’s just a CEO change away from reopening but for now it’s good news.
I will miss eating the rest of the pie and turkey at 1am because my wife will be home yelling at me to get out of the fridge instead of drinking coffee in line at some store somewhere.
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I haven’t been able to find it again, but recently I saw a Twitter link to an essay on Black Friday and No Purchase Day. The author wrote about how proud she’d been, when she was better off, to skip all the Black Friday sales… but after changes in her employment, when she didn’t have as much money, she needed the bargain deals available over the holiday weekend. She made a clear distinction between consumerism for its own sake, and for necessity’s sake, and recommended no shame for participation when it was needful.
I wish I could find that essay again, it was good reading, but it’s no longer in my History.
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How utterly depressing.
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Made it half-way through that depressing video and was shocked (shocked) that the origin of the “black” in “black friday” wasn’t even alluded to. So many sales anticipated by that time of the year that the sellers would have their accounts for the year go “in the black” (showing a yearly profit). At one time literally shifting from the red-ink to the black-ink (positive profits) entries in the accounting books.
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