What intrigues me about Black Friday is how normal people so easily reveal their selfish, materialistic, and nearly animalistic personas. It is more of a psychological situation than anything, much like rush week or an Insane Clown Posse concert. In their minds, people dismiss all their negative actions, almost as if the event was not an actual part of their lives. The power of a crowd is that it empowers people to blend in and escape all accusation; more times than not, this yields chaos. In a competitive event such as Black Friday, shoppers feel that if their selfish side does not come out, all the selfish people will come out on top.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Black Friday Madness
This past Thursday, I participated in the infamous "Black Friday" festivities. My friend and I had no desire to purchase anything, only to go have a good time. With this mindset, there was really no way we could be disappointed. We got to the mall at around 10:30pm on Thanksgiving and immediately got in the Macy's line. In hindsight, we both wished that we had gone to Wal-Mart or Best Buy as the demographics probably would have been much more exciting to observe. Even though we were stuck with the "uppity" Macy's consumers, the trip was still worth it. We got all kinds of footage and ticked people off, as was our goal.
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I have been to an Insane Clown Posse concert and I know first hand that it is a lot like the madness of Black Friday. The fact that people are so selfish and rude is just repulsive, a lot like the people were at the Insane Clown Posse Concert.
ReplyDeleteI have experienced few things as scary as Black Friday in a neighboring town where the majority of the shopping is done the day after Thanksgiving. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Kohls and Target are war zones that I have avoided as a consumer.
ReplyDeleteHere is a great video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGlGMxGP4Mo
I went out Friday night to do a little shopping, and I thankfully avoided the major rush. I'm one of the people who gets disturbed every single year when people literally act like wild animals, leaving many injured or killed. It really is a disgrace to our culture how nasty this day has turned into. That being said, anyone who believes what I believe, myself included, would be best off boycotting shopping on Black Friday. Cyber Monday is definitely going to become a growing option for millions of consumers who get fed up with the crazy competition that goes on in a brick and mortar store.
ReplyDeleteWhat is so interesting to me is how black friday completely counteracted the Occupy movement. Thousands of people protest, sit in the streets, and camp out in the parks complaining about corporate greed.
ReplyDeleteBut low and behold, when there are major sales, the 99% of America waits hours in line just to turn their hard earned money back over to those same corporate executives. This year there was a 16% in sales on black friday. So while there are thousands out there protesting, they still had to succumb to the prices that executives set.
I just found it embarrassing to be standing out there in the cold, hoping to be one of the first in to target just to save 20% on some random tangible product. I never have been shopping on black friday before and I will never go again.
I completely agree and definitely understand the selfishness of how customers can act. I worked at Victoria's Secret this year and could not believe the ruthlessness for many of the customers. The have no feelings toward anyone but more towards the products they are dying to get their hands on. I cannot count how many customers were rude and just could have cared less about their actions that day. You could definitely distinguish the homophily with each group of people that would enter the store. Black Friday in general was just insane and I believe that it will get worse each year.
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