Black Friday is a nationwide craze created to get Americans out of our houses on Thanksgiving and into the stores to consume something other than mashed potatoes. Retail employees are expected to work unreasonable hours in the middle of the night, to stand up and act happy while crowds of deal-starved Americans pile out of their Hondas in an ocean of greed.
Citizens will descend on their respective Best Buys in search of the elusive “respectable deals” that hide inside. Along side them, me with eyes wide open savoring every last moment of this glorious day.
I love Black Friday. My sister and I cut our family time off at 9 p.m. sharp to join the hordes. There is no time for relatives on a day like this – are you joking? The insanity that is about to go down outside of my quiet Pennsylvania home is far more exciting than watching the Detroit Lions perform yet another depressing impersonation of a game of football. This is special experience for me because I get to observe the weird parts of being an American. No one is forcing us to leave our homes, but the advertisers drill it into our brains that we are missing out on something. And we cannot be left out. Just to make it clear, I don’t buy anything. I brave the Black Friday shoppers to witness the accepted psychological breakdown of a society. And I will gladly take part.
My family cannot comprehend the deep understanding of humanity I get every time I go out Thanksgiving night. Yes, I am talking about people watching, but on Black Friday it feels substantive and maybe academic. I don’t look down on these people; I am jealous of these people.
If you aren’t a retail worker and don’t like Black Friday, there is no need for your complaining. Just stay in your home and spend quality time with your great-aunt Liz who is visiting from Rhode Island. Leave us expert consumers — and people watchers — to our business on Nov. 27.
And the earlier these stores open, the crazier we get. I know I am encouraging a holiday built on capitalism but then again, no one is forcing anyone to buy anything. If there was not a demand for Black Friday, it wouldn’t exist in the way that it does today.
Black Friday has been slowly consuming Thanksgiving for more than a decade now. We forget that the forefathers of Black Friday had humble beginnings.
“15 years ago when the stores would open at 5 a.m., that was fun. I had a family member who would get up early, go out, shop, come back and eat breakfast with the rest of us,” DePaul communication and marketing professor Dan Azzaro said. “Then it crept back to midnight and now it is (9 or 10 p.m.) and that is really breaking up the family aspect of the holiday. You are also not getting the great deals you think you are.”
The worst part about Black Friday is knowing what many people have to go through to make this holiday come to life. Young and old retail workers are forced to work in the middle of the night or on Thanksgiving Day instead of getting to spend time with their families.
“When I worked at a mall earlier in my life, we would have to get up at (3 a.m.) and get ready for the 4 a.m. rush,” said Ann, a long-time retail worker who preferred to not give her last name. “We are not even allowed to schedule days off during the Holiday season. It’s impossible to go home for Thanksgiving or even Christmas working retail.”
Does neglecting these people’s struggles make me a monster? I can stand idly by in the Blu-Ray isles of Best Buy hoping that this day never dies, making snarky remarks with my sister about how much it must suck to work on Black Friday. Why should I encourage this? Why do people still go out on Black Friday with Cyber Monday making all of this consumerism much easier and less shameful?
“There is perceived economic value tied directly to Black Friday, but others like yourself see intangible value in the experience,” marketing professor James Mourey said. “Going out with family at (3 a.m.) brings with it a communal aspect.”
This is likely what keeps people venturing out to department stores in the middle of the night. It makes memories. It is a moment in the year where there aren’t rules. It is a moment outside of the traditional consumerism we are subjected to every day.
“The phenomenon of a misattribution of arousal is a huge part of this rampant night of consumerism,” Mourey said. “You feel the adrenaline rush of buying something, the excitement. Our bodies attribute that to the actual thing we are buying, but in reality it is a feeling that has been created by the people making the products.”
Thanksgiving used to be a day of family, football and food. Now, that pastime is being usurped by what is arguably even more of an American tradition: buying stuff.