Grandparents Day, Father's Day, Black Friday and now Cyber Monday. (Cue commercials for After-Christmas sales and New Years Doorbusters.) There seems to be no limit to the invention of special days designed to coax us into spending money. Although Father's Day and even Grandparent's Day are officially celebrated as days to recognize the loving members of our families, there's little doubt that those particular days are well supported and promoted by the retail community as days we need to show our love by purchasing crap.
If you love your father, you'll get him an iPod. That's how we show our love, right?
Although, we knew the designation of Black Friday as the day when retailers finally turned a profit for the year (being in the "black") it had never taken on the significance that it currently has. I used to work in retail and Black Friday was never the busiest shopping day from a revenue standpoint. The final panicked days before Christmas blew Black Friday away when it came to how much was in the till. It's different now.
People camp out in the freezing cold for a chance to snatch a fleeting bargain at 3AM. If there was ever a carrot dangled in the faces of consumers, it is the prospect of saving $100 on a laptop if you come show your allegiance to consumerism by dragging yourself out of bed in the middle of the night and joining the worship at the local Best Buy Megachurch parking lot. Bring your own Dunkin Donuts hot coffee.
As if being led around by our noses with all of this Black Friday bullshit wasn't enough, now there is a new shopping event. Cyber Monday. The name of the event itself brings thoughts of illicit activity like cyber-sex and cyber-crime. Cyber Monday is the answer to those who don't buy into the middle-of-the-night shopping stampedes. Now you don't even have to put your clothes on. Just sit in front of the computer, scratch yourself and spend, spend, spend. There's apparently no end to this nonsense. I can only imagine what the next invented shopping day will be. Update...there IS a new event! Apparently "Free Shipping Thursday" has garnered enough attention to become an event all its own. I'm anxiously awaiting the announcement of a long lost holiday of giving that is being resurrected from the folkways of some clandestine culture. My guess is that it will fall some time between Memorial Day and Independence Day in order to even out the annual cash flow. Mark my words.....
Not to be a curmudgeon, I'm for businesses being successful. Heck I have my own business so I completely understand. It's too much though. Too much useless junk that gets tossed in a closet or re-gifted. Too much emphasis on having, buying, upgrading. What little happiness we get from the newly purchased usually fades before the packaging is out the door.
Last year I posted a note on Facebook about Black Friday. People were getting killed in stampedes...they were dying under the feet of people who simply had to get the best deals. That's the sort of thing that happens when people are trying to get out of a burning building that doesn't have enough exits, not in front of a Wal Mart that has toaster ovens on sale. How did we get to the top of the food chain again?
The whole thing is exacerbated by the media who show video clips of women in stores, hair askew, breathing heavily exclaiming how much they "love the rush", "the pursuit of the bargain." In the background, whizzing past are shoppers with carts stacked high with consumer electronics. The scene is reminiscent of natural disaster stories where residents are looting...getting stuff for free. I can't help but think the similarities are intentional. During Black Friday, things are...well... practically free.....so get out there and loot. All of it has become a well orchestrated herding of people and their credit cards to the check out aisle.
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| Are you freaking kidding me? Who chooses this over sleeping in a warm bed? |
I think my favorite part of the whole "black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" horseshit is that they take place during the Holiday Shopping Season- Which means that in theory, folks are supposed to be out buying gifts for loved ones, etc. Are they in large part actually doing that? HELL NO- they are out getting deals on crap for themselves. I could almost give it all a pass if folks were actually more into the giving than receiving- but Nooooooo, its all for number 1. It isnt about the spirit of the holidays, or any other imagined good- its just stuff for ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI dont hate consumerism, I rely on it for my living, but jeez folks- fess up.