By Michael Clemens ‘16
News Editor
The day after Thanksgiving has been turned into a horrific event known as Black Friday. Black Friday used to be used to describe the heavy traffic after Thanksgiving, and later meant when retailers would begin to go from operating losses to turning a profit. However, today everyone knows Black Friday as a shopping extravaganza, yet they fail to see why it is one of the problems with today’s society.
Many retailers throughout the nation have sales on Black Friday, and many people will go to these sales expecting to save big on all of their purchases. While you can definitely find some great deals on Black Friday, they aren’t even the best sales of the year. Many items on sale during Black Friday were available at cheaper prices at other times of the year, especially during the last week before the holidays. For example, according to the Wall Street Journal, the “Orbeez Soothing Spa” toy normally sells for $29.99 at most retailers. However, during Black Friday they were found for as much as $90 at some stores. “They spent three times as much for something than if they would have bought it three weeks earlier,” said Ron Brawer, partner at Maya Group Inc. Not only are Black Friday sales not the best of the year, sometimes they’re even ripping people off!
Another terrible thing about Black Friday is that the people at the sales are usually crazed. First off, they camp out in front of the stores before the promotions just to ensure that they’ll be one of the first people in so they can grab as many things as possible before the stores run out. They’ll camp out in front of the stores for days, even to the point where they’re not celebrating Thanksgiving so they can go to these sales. Maybe if these people had gone to work instead of taking off so they could go to the sale, they might make more money than they’re saving.
The people at these sales are dangerous, too. People have been injured at numerous Black Friday sales. An employee at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York was trampled to death in 2008 when the crowd at the Black Friday sale stampeded into the store, breaking down the doors as they ran. What’s worse is that when other employees tried to help injured employee, the crowd did not stop rushing in and did not even appear concerned that they were harming the worker. Even when police officers tried to help the employee, they were shoved aside by the crowd, still rushing into the Wal-Mart. The customers complained that they had been waiting all night and were not willing to wait any longer. Due to their impatience, the employee lost his life. No matter how much money was saved during that sale, all of it combined is no where close to the value of the man’s life, a life that was lost because of some stubborn shoppers.
Black Friday has gotten a little ridiculous. The sales have been starting earlier and earlier to the point where there were midnight sales, meaning people would miss Thanksgiving to wait in line for the sales. That’s not even the worst part. It’s progressed to where sales are actually starting on Thanksgiving Day itself! There was a commercial that aired on Thanksgiving that said “Black Friday’s not over yet!” Not over? It technically hadn’t even started! Considering Black Friday sales are getting earlier and earlier, they’ll eventually overpower Thanksgiving and soon people will forget that it’s even a holiday! This catastrophe has already begun. With sales taking place on Thanksgiving, employees of retailers are forced to work on Thanksgiving, preventing them from participating in their family’s celebrations. That’s taking away the entire meaning of Thanksgiving: being thankful for what you have, which includes family. Yes, family that those employees aren’t able to spend Thanksgiving with because they have to work while a bunch of snobby, rude, stubborn, and ruthless shoppers charge their way through the stores and treat the employees like dirt. On the topic of the meaning of Thanksgiving, aren’t we supposed to be thankful for what we already have? Black Friday is having us buying all sorts of new things that we don’t really need just a few mere hours after saying how thankful we are for what we have. Oh, that’s right; we don’t do that, because on Thanksgiving, we’re all waiting outside a store instead of spending it with our families.
The madness of Black Friday is truly pathetic. It’s saddening to watch what our society has come to. The stubborn shoppers, the violence, the missing out on Thanksgiving, all just to buy some things just because they were on sale, even though they’re not even the best deals of the year. Maybe the citizens of today will grasp that last bit of intelligence they have left and realize that Black Friday is nothing more than a waste of time and money.