Every year, families make the decision to do all their holiday shopping during Black Friday. Of course, it’s tempting, given that most if not all stores offer deals on that day. As far as I’m concerned, Black Friday has always been a sham. If you don’t believe me, read on, maybe you’ll be convinced to stop buying during this scam of a day.
Black Friday wasn’t always referred to as such. In the latter half of the 20th century, companies and media platforms began referring to the day after Thanksgiving as ‘’Black Friday’’ for a myriad of reasons. The origin stories vary. The economic origin of Black Friday, however, stems from the fact that no store or corporation would release Christmas-themed advertising until the store-sponsored Thanksgiving parades finished: Santa floats tailing in at the end. These parades were considered by many stores as the official start of the Christmas shopping season, which, in turn, increased sales by tenfold. The most popular of these parades is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, which is still televised every year.
Christmas shopping brought increased sales. This meant that companies and stores wanted to begin the Christmas shopping season earlier, and to appease these complaints, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the celebration of this holiday from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday. Although it feels natural to have Christmas sales in advance, in reality, celebrating Black Friday is a consequence of capitalism and a product of consumer culture.
Year-round, an excess of products are mass-produced and exported to stores. These products occupy a defined space. Depending on consumer trends, some of these are bought, and require immediate restocking, while others simply are never taken off of the shelves. Therefore, the supplies at the warehouse are never removed. This, in turn, occurs while expiration dates run, the quality of products depletes, and the theorized planned-obsolescence date flows. That is to say, products become less marketable, so stores need to get rid of them. What better way to sell them at a ‘’reasonable’’ price than on a day of mass hysteria?
Most products that are sold, at drastically reduced prices, on Black Friday are products that have been mass-produced for the moment. They had really low sales during the year and need to be sold to make up for the losses, are taking up space needed for other products, or are approaching their dates of guaranteed quality. In other words, most of the products being sold on Black Friday NEED to be sold for this period. Otherwise, companies lose out.
Even when the special is applied to a product that is of great quality and nowhere near expiration or planned obsolescence, these products are usually overvalued in the market on a day-to-day basis. A cellphone should NOT be worth anywhere near $1000. Everyday use technology depreciates in value fairly quickly, so it’s ridiculous to consider changing to the latest high-tech phone when the price tags are this unfair.
Companies’ profit made from the increased sales during Black Friday makes up for the money they don’t earn from the offered deals. That is why, during Black Friday, most products are limited. There is a specific quota of money that is to be earned from newer products. When it comes to older products or those that were never sold, the cheapest prices merely represent the lack of quality, the urgency of more space, and the need of earning back profits that weren’t earned during the year.
Mass production forces Black Friday to exist, and consumer culture allows stores to benefit from it. Most products on sale during Black Friday are products that people don’t actually need to survive. You’ll rarely see everyday-use products on sale because people could take advantage to stock up on these and not buy from stores during the year. Of course, no smart company would allow this and they definitely have no interest in being charitable. This is why it’s common to see racks of $1 panties (which were probably produced at the cost of a cent, in some sweatshops), LCD TVs (which probably won’t make it past 2 years), and an incredible amount of DVDs and video games (whose value is attributed exclusively on a cultural level, not material-based one.) These products and many more are the physical manifestation of a culture that produces way too much, has the need to earn in excess, and is willing to repeat it year after year.
If these sham deals aren’t enough to convince you, think about the following: you wait in a line for 7 hours, right after Thanksgiving dinner, feeling stuffed, stressed, and anxious about being able to buy one of those $15 air fryers (which is probably only $10 cheaper than usual). Then, you don’t find the air fryer, waste over $150 on other things you probably didn’t need, and end up being physically attacked or insulted for picking up the last copy of the latest Pokémon game (which was sold in an overpriced bundle with the Nintendo Switch!). You end up with a black eye, unsure if you actually got the gifts you needed, and probably might need to get into contact with the cops or assume the risks of the situation you faced.
People have literally died at Black Friday sales, and I wish I was making this up, but I really didn’t even imagine it until I looked it up myself. That is to say, I’m not dissuading anyone because of the unlikely chance of you dying, but rather, you could avoid potential acts of violence, mass hysteria, and forming part of a system of consumer culture that has contributed to the current climate crisis and an inexplicable obsession with self-validation over the things we own.
If you want to avoid wasting time, money and affecting your mental sanity, do yourself a favor, and just don’t go. If you want to find better deals, or at the very least avoid getting into physical altercations, buy everything online during Cyber Monday. Everything I previously said holds true to Cyber Monday (precisely because many people cannot afford to physically go to Black Friday sales) but the odds of actually getting a better deal than you can evaluate and simultaneously compare with many other websites will probably ensure that you get more for your money. But keep in mind, Cyber Monday means shipping and shipping impacts climate changes in terrible ways.
Happy Thanksgiving.