Is Black Friday becoming the new capitalist Holiday?
Earlier this week we posted a reminder about today’s Buy Nothing Day. Although the Buy Nothing Day movement gets bigger every year, so does the Black Friday craze, on and off the Internet.
Image by Jesslee Cuizon (source: Flickr)According to the Wikipedia page, Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving in the U.S., which also marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. That day shops open very early, offer plenty of discounts and special offers to lure customers in to kick off sales for the season. The term Black Friday was introduced in 1966. It refers to the overcrowded streets and shops and to the consequential traffic.
Since 1966, Black Friday has become the biggest shopping day in American history, turning it slowly but surely into the new capitalist Holiday. Companies have gladly adopted the term, using it to advertise products on sale and to get the money for Christmas presents roll long before the Christmas tree is decorated. If I judge the day by the number of times I’ve seen it advertised over the last couple of weeks, I’m forced to conclude that this day – which does not represent anything else than consumption – has become a Holiday, just like Thanksgiving, Easter or Christmas.
The Black Friday idea really gets to me. Why is it that so many people want to participate? Like little grey mice people are forced to wait in line in front of shops at wee hours in the morning, and for what? To get a better price for things they don’t need and to end up buying twice as much useless items because they are so “cheap” anyway.
Then there is the question of how such a shopping doom can become part of the Thanksgiving tradition. For me there is a major contradiction between the two. You’re sitting at Thanksgiving dinner while discussing the hot items and places you’ll rush to the next day for Black Friday. There is no way you can do that and still be thankful for what you already have and for all the blessings in your life.
In my opinion this means one thing and one thing only. Consumption has taken over and is slowly making us forget who and what we are. Buying stuff has become the number one craving of a capitalist society where businesses gain by enslaving consumers, making them crazy enough to get op at 2 am to go shopping, fight with others over useless stuff and feel like winners for spending money.
So now Black Friday is a capitalist Holiday. A day to celebrate that we are brainwashed consumers, idiots really that have no other value to our consumption society than the contents of our wallets. Should we be proud of this?
tagsblack friday buy useless stuff