It is that time of the year again. The snow is falling gently to the ground in a pirouette-like fashion. The children are blissfully playing outside, anticipating the amazing gifts they are to own shortly. Parents are racking their brains wildly, running left and right for the most perfect products to delight the whole bunch. And malls are flooded with thousands, the spending tens if not hundreds of times more than regular dates. It is the most wonderful, most merry time of the year. Folks, it is Black Friday.
Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year in many parts of North America, especially the United States, and it has been since 2005, nearly a decade. This is the Friday after American Thanksgiving in which businesses all around the United States drop their prices tremendously low, prompting consumers to purchase a ridiculous amount of merchandise leading to unprofessional, unethical, and violent confrontations between buyers.
This day, Black Friday, is a very popular day among many for its extremely low prices, the fact that it unofficially marks the beginning of the Christmas season, numerous employees get days off, and stores open very early for the barrage of shoppers preparing to wreck havoc on the inventory. The deals are endless and many people try to take advantage of them, doing some early Christmas shopping and stocking up on goods. In fact, we consumers are being tricked for the money we invest in Black Friday commodities, though we believe that the discounts are unbelievably low, is actually quite more than the cash we would spend on any regular day at the mall.
On average, $407.23 was spent last year per person on Black Friday products. There were about 307,000,000 shoppers last year online and in store for Black Friday, 23% of the shoppers camped out in front of stores by midnight or beforehand, and $57,400,000,000 was spent last year alone during Black Friday. And this was ONLY the United States! I know if I were to pay 400 bucks on anything at one time, unless it directly benefits my education, I would probably be banned from buying anything for the next several years, courtesy of my loving parents. It really is unbelievable though, how all this money could be spent on one day by one country, and this day is not even an official holiday all over, only some places in America. People have spent thousands of dollars on this day annually, more than they would spend during Easter, March Break, and even Christmas combined!
And then there is the violence. Oh Lord, praise the souls of the unlucky few who are going to end up scratched, bashed, mauled, or even worse. In 2006, employees were pinned against shelves and an old lady, as well as others, were severely injured when gift cards started falling out of a Wal-Mart ceiling in Columbus, Ohio. In 2008, the first recorded death during Black Friday was documented as a 34-year-old employee was trampled over by cold customers who were restless after hours of waiting for the opening of a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York. During the 2010 Black Friday fiasco, a woman was arrested in Madison, Wisconsin for cutting a Toys ‘R’ Us line, a Toys for Tots volunteer in Georgia was knifed brutally to death by an unruly thief, and a man in Buffalo was trampled to death once again when the doors to a Target store were opened. No wonder employees want days off on this deadliest of days. I could go on and on about several more injuries and deaths that were results of this mind-changing day, but I would probably have to publish it.
But the point of this article was not to point out the bad and gory of this beloved day. Sure, it fills up the hospitals like an epidemic was let loose, and sure we buyers are going to be wondering in April why the interest on our credit card is through the roof, but do not forget what I had written in the beginning. Black Friday brings joys to people. Not the shopping aspect specifically, but all the new gadgets and gizmos. And one day, just maybe, if one day all our reckless shopping is done JUST on Black Friday, people will finally be satisfied enough to contemplate the true meaning of Christmas: family, friends, togetherness, and our Lord. Until then, if you dare to brave the vast waters of hungry price-eating shoppers this Black Friday in your local piranha infested pond known to some as the mall, you better gear up and get ready to get down!
Angelous