Black Friday: is there a cure?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It has always fascinated me that Thanksgiving so strongly resisted most attempts to commercialize it - beyond a little gluttony, there simply wasn’t any way for the consumer corporations to sink their hooks into it. Maybe collateral sales like a new TV for the bowl games or new furniture to impress the in-laws, but that’s about it. It’s stubbornly remained about its basic elements: food, family, togetherness and, well, thanks.

So the attack now comes from the rear, rolling the horror that is Black Friday back and back, first to midnight, now to dinner time on Thanksgiving itself. There are reports that the major malls are demanding their component stores be open for this time, whether it’s their policy or not. (Some mall operators are issuing fines of over $1000 an hour for stores that remain closed during the new open hours.)

Having been unable to build on Thanksgiving, the retail world is intent on tearing it down. I can see, ten years on, a significant erosion in the focus of the day, to where some number of families essentially give it up or move it to Wednesday or Saturday… all to accommodate the insanity of Shop Yourself Dead Day.

Even trying to ignore it all, as we’ve done since it hauled itself from the swamp of consumer corruption, no longer works. Our older daughter works retail; we have to move our dinner back to early afternoon so she can be at work at 5:00 pm. (We’ve never done the thing of Thanksgiving dinner at 3-4 pm; I don’t care for all the hassle that goes with that, such as starting to cook at 7 am.)

So other than boycotts, which have yet to have any effect on the expansion of Black Friday and its kittens (Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday), what could we do to roll back the tide - mostly, back off of Thanksgiving, but back off from predawn insanity that has literally killed people, to the bigger goal of downsizing the whole concept to the irredeemable core of idiots who think Christmas shopping simply must-must begin the day after Thanksgiving? AdBusters has been limply flailing the idea of Buy Nothing Day for almost 30 years; effect: nil. Social media campaigns of the last few years: ditto. It all just fuels the fire.

Is the rollback to dinner time Thursday and the heavy-handedness of the malls in enforcing it (which may be as much legend and hysteria as truth - it’s not entirely clear yet) the tipping point? Will the US finally say “Enough!”… or just cave in and let Thanksgiving as a concept be fully co-opted and reshaped as another super-sell day?

2

Stop shopping on Friday.

Problem solved.

3

Gosh, that’s easy. :rolleyes:

Maybe you could expand a little on how to get the message to millions of people who have been goaded/manipulated/programmed into this running of the bulls(hit)?

4

…Tell them to stop shopping on Friday?

5

Noted.

The member from Olympia is thanked and excused. :slight_smile:

6

The stores are already trying to lessen the impact, I think. Some sales are going on right now. Several are being staggered up till Christmas eve. I’d say they’re not crazy about the bad publicity from being open on the holiday, or being overwhelmed by so many shoppers all at once. If it proves they really are offering “the best” deals at different times during the season, and they continue doing it, the crush of humanity can stop storming the doors. :eek:

7

There no cure for Black Friday; it’s just a symptom of the underlying disease. People are obsessed with consuming. Until that’s fixed, if ever, Black Friday will continue.

(As a random digression, am I the only one who, as a kid, got Black Friday and Good Friday mixed up constantly? It seems as though the day Jesus died should be Black, and the day you get stuff really cheap should be Good. I know about the whole “profit margins going from red to black” thing, but still).

8

Do stores even offer ‘great deals’ on BF the way it was initially done? From what I can see, the prices are not that exceptional any more - about where mid-season prices were in the past - and the loss-leader sales like TVs for $100 tend to be junky come-ons, more like lotteries than real sales. The stores and the whole consumer sales establishment seem to have successfully reached phase two, where the notion of “Black Friday” no longer needs a specific driver and exists, and can be exploited, for itself.

Much of it also seems to be B&M hysteria over the level of sales being lost to online shopping, maybe the onset of death spasms for heavy in-store shopping days.

Having reached this entrenched, self-referential, self-sustaining point, is there any approach that could lead to a loosening of the concept’s hold on the consumer population? (Besides telling them to stay home, which is up there with telling people to stop smoking, eat less and exercise more…)

9

I don’t recall even hearing the term until I was in my 20s. I refuse to use it myself; it was and is just “the day after Thanksgiving” to me.

10

I wouldn’t disagree; I simply hold out hope for a fix on both points. Rolling back this specific and relatively new point of insanity seems distinct from general consumption mania issues.

I’ve always considered that explanation as closer to urban myth or biz-folk etymology than truth. From what I’ve been able to track, it’s been called “black Friday” because of the rush of shoppers, back into the 1950s, since long before Black Friday became a trademarked term.

I think the “ledgers turn black” notion grew from the idea of “Tax Freedom Day” or whatever, in the spring - the day most people have earned their tax burden for the year. But it’s still a retronym, not the original origin.

ETA: Smapti-ninja: I heard the term in at least the early 1970s, but I had family connections to a shopping-center management firm that built some of the first postwar centers-cum-malls. So it’s existed as an industry/business term much longer than as a popular meme.

11

Well, people on Black Friday are obsessed with consuming at the best possible price. So if the sales on Friday were no better than other sales during the season, then the drive to leave your turkey on the table to stand in line at Walmart would be a lot less.

Of course, as multiple news stories have pointed out, the sales on Black Friday often AREN’T uniquely deep compared to the rest of the season but people remain convinced that they are and that standing in a giant line outside a department store is the only way to stretch their shopping dollar.

I’m a little surprised to see that Best Buy is doing the Thanksgiving opening this year. From what I read last year, between the thin margins on the sale products and the massive amounts of overtime they paid out to staff, they were lucky if they broke even for the day.

12

I’m not sure that’s the case any more, either. The origins of the mania, maybe 15 years ago, were to get these killer loss-leader buys - $50, then $25 VCRs, then the same on DVD and then BR players, a continuing low price on a TV model or two, etc.

The evidence is mounting that the prices just aren’t any better; that there’s very little to be gained by all these consumer calisthenics; that the same or better prices can be had much later in the season, and beaten online pretty much 365 days a year.

That’s kind of the root of my concern, here. It’s passed the introduction/development phase and even though its economic justifications are widely suspect, the mania, the push and the expansion just grows and grows every year. It’s become a thing unto itself, existing for its own sake, and driving behavior that makes absolutely no sense, especially from the consumer perspective.

It’s become the very definition of “sheeple.” And it’s that aspect that really bothers me.

13

I think the only thing you can do is concentrate on you and yours and not worry about what other people are doing.

I’m really not a fan of making any day “sacred”. I love Thanksgiving Day. It’s always been my favorite holiday of the year. However, for some people it’s just another day. Maybe they don’t have family. Maybe they try to celebrate Thanksgiving year-round. So why shouldn’t those people be able to shop if they want to? And while the workers not wanting to work is understandable and unfortunate, it’s not like there aren’t others who wouldn’t love to take their place.

There have always been businesses that have stayed open on Thanksgiving. I’ve always been able to pick up a few last minute things at the grocery store, or fill up my tank on the way to someone’s house. A couple of years ago, my sis and I didn’t feel like cooking on Thanksgiving, so we went to a restaurant. If I have no problem patronizing these business on such a “sacred” day, then I can’t justify “boycotting” other businesses.

14

There might have been a time I’d have agreed with you. However, I think the problem and the consequences are much bigger than “what my family is doing vs. what those guys next door are doing.”

Let me condense a whole lot of discourse into one concept:

The one day of each year that we have set aside for family and little else, based not on any strong religious roots or other influences - perhaps one of the only really “pure” holidays that is almost universally observed, thought well of, and promotes an unarguable set of social, family and community positives (okay, we have to nod at gluttony here, but overeating is very much optional) - this one day when individuals and families and communities and people reign supreme - the “marketing industrial complex” just can’t fuckin’ stand it, just can’t live with their failure to commercialize and consumptivize it, so they have to roll back their beachhead from the wasteland of “Black Friday” and jam the insanity into this of all days.

And we’re letting them - supporting them - even encouraging them, despite all emoting and hashtag outrage.

This isn’t just more of the same. It’s a calculated assault in a new direction that shows Target, Best Buy, Wal*Mart and the legions of mall stores really don’t give a shit about anything but preserving their B&M dominance and bottom lines. Fuck all this family, feel-good shit, y’know? Gobble that last bite of pie and get your ass shopping.

15

Yes but the OP’s family is directly affected since they have to move their celebration in order to accommodate one daughter’s work schedule.

Black Friday is an old term and the day after TG has been a big shopping day going back many decades, well before most of us on this message board were born. Originally the term was because that was the day that retail outlets were finally in the black for the year. They were lucky to break even up until then and made like 80% of their revenue during the xmas season. In fact, FDR moved Thanksgiving back a week in the early 40’s to help boost the economy. The big Midnight Black Friday Sale thing is more recent. Open the afternoon of TG itself is only a few years old and has generated a lot of bad publicity.

Cyber Monday started in the mid 90’s or so when most people has online access at work but not at home yet. Places like Amazon would see their biggest spike on the Monday after TG. This lasted for maybe three or four years before home internet availability sky rocketed but the term remained as an excuse for a BIG SALES EVENT.

Back when I was a teenager still living at home I would have worked for free on TG just for an excuse to escape the dysfunction. I am probably in the minority but I bet that many people like the extra day’s pay.

16

It’s understood when you take a job in retail that you’re going to have to work on the biggest retail day of the year. If that’s not acceptable to you, don’t take a retail job. And if you (or a loved one) don’t have a retail job, there’s nothing at all stopping you from ignoring Black Friday.

17

I used to follow Black Friday pretty seriously in the late 90s because I was convinced it was the best day to get bargain basement prices on stuff too and I don’t remember any out-and-out mega deals. It was the same stuff as today… 10% off this or that and then a massive rock-bottom discount on some no-name TV (and often with only five in the whole store).

The only difference today is that it’s encroaching on Thanksgiving Day too.

18

You imply that this is an option for many of the people who work retail.

19

Actually, the stores are listening. Dozens have declared that they will not open on Thanksgiving Day:

20

I have a friend who’s wife is an ER doctor. She has to work on Thanksgiving.

So does my brother, the truck driver.

I will be surfing the web and watching TV sometime during Thanksgiving. Are robots running those things, or are people? I’m thinking it’s people.

Lots of folks work on Thanksgiving and no one cares about them. Why should the Walmart cashier who WANTS holiday pay be fretted over, but not anyone else?

Oh, I agree with you that consumerism has gotten way out of hand. I just don’t think fixating on the “wrongness” of a single day makes sense. It’s not like the people lined up for deals on Thanksgiving Day aren’t pretty much doing the same thing all the other days of the year. And it’s not like shuttering doors on Thanksgiving will make all this nonsense go away. Not in this day and age of online retail and HSN.