Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is “Black Friday,” the busiest and most insane shopping day of the year. Every year the story is the same: We see the news reports about the lengthy lines at the major retail stores and all the “great deals” — and there’s always inevitably a headline out of somewhere about how a fight broke out at Wal-Mart over $50 DVD players or something. (The $50 DVD player as a Great Deal, which led to a fight/headline a few years ago, is already a humorous anachronism; now $50 DVD players are a dime a dozen.)
I’m here to announce the painfully obvious, which is that Black Friday is colossally absurd. It’s one of the most ridiculous examples of media/marketing-manufactured hysteria that I can think of. Retailers should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging this annual mess — far more ashamed, even, than for starting Christmas season on Nov. 1.
I will demonstrate this not with my usual rant, but with an anecdote. Read the rest of this entry »