Black Friday: What have we learned? Will we ever learn?

Now that all the leaves are gone and Thanksgiving over, the holiday season is here.  A time to getting around to set-up that old, plastic tree stored in a box and in the attic, collecting dust for almost a year.  A time to visit family and deal with the same old family drama, or dealing with grandpa’s stories about the war(s), or how successful your sibling is and you’re not.  A time; where “Merry Christmas” has become culturally insensitive to those who don’t celebrate Christmas. 

But oh no!  You still couldn’t find that Malibu Barbie dream house for your daughter or the Wii-U for your “casual gamer” son... or that 60” TV for yourself.  “You could’ve waited several hours to get what you needed on Black Friday, did you ever consider that?”  Tch… well don’t you just have a simple answer for everything. 

Black Friday is the dreaded day after Thanksgiving where everywhere has a sale and everyone MUST go out and shop before the popular items are gone.  Nowadays, places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart thought it would be awesome to open their stores on midnight for the best deals known to man.  Who would be so crazy as to camp out on Thanksgiving morning and missing out on food and family just for a new TV or laptop?  Surprisingly, enough people in line to wrap around the building a couple times by dark.  To see what the whole thing is all about, I decided to check it out myself later in the night after the line got shorter.  One by one, someone would walk out either with a TV, two TVs, five TVs, or a couple of games and movies… or nothing at all.  I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to get the things I want with my recently acquired birthday cash before they’re sold out for who knows how long.  Luckily, I got in and got my stuff, but found that the line in there is much longer than out there. 

And we do this for what?  A copy of Halo 4 and the new Dethklok album.  Sure enough, when I would go shopping again, there were still plenty of things in stock, just not for the price of what companies pay an entire Chinese factory for a day.

Over the years that I’ve known about Black Friday, I’ve never once thought more about it other than it being a major shopping day.  And what I’ve realized over the weekend: it’s stupid.  So you managed to get the new TV you want by missing out family and waiting out the cold for hours.  Congrats on that.  Work called you in to work at night after Thanksgiving?  Hope they pay you overtime.  Couldn’t you have waited any other time?  HELL NO, I MUST GET THAT TV!  *sigh* Well there’s a reason why Chinese factory workers are committing suicide and Wal-Mart workers bailing work and protesting.  All that matters is making money by exploiting crazed shoppers.  Hell, you can even shop online instead of going out… Oh, now there’s a thing called Cyber Monday?  Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions.  Can we as a consumer nation ever settle down and just enjoy the holidays in peace and with family?  Enjoy the festive lights, the fresh white snow, sitting around the fire listening to festive music?  Tell stories and drink hot-holy crap, today is Tuesday!  Newly released DVD’s and games!  Logging off!  Kthnxbai!

- "Demon" Matt Little

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