Over the years, Black Friday has become its own faux national holiday. Given that, when did that phrase become associated with excessive joyful spending, astounding deals and immense profits?
In fact, history has shown us that the word “Black” has long been associated with loss, devastation or just plain back luck. For example, the sell-off day right before the 1929 stock market crash, was referred to as Black Monday. Another example happened in 1954, it was referred to as Black Wednesday since it was a day of widespread air traffic bedlam (Stout). In fact, the first use of the term Black Friday was in 1870, by The New York Times, in an article about the gold market crash (Stout).
Notably, an executive producer from Vocabulary.com, Ben Zimmer, said “its association with shopping on the day after Thanksgiving began in Philadelphia in the 1960” (qdt. In Stout). This was predominantly due to hordes of consumers heading out to shop, triggering major traffic headaches, so it became a less than positive reference. As a matter of fact, numerous retailers wanted that day to have a more positive name attached to it like, Big Friday, but it never caught on. Thus, a new meaning was associated with Black Friday. According to Zimmer, that meaning was “The day retailer’s books went from the red ink to black” (qdt. In Stout).
Whereas, on November 29, 2013 there was an article, in U.S. News Digital Weekly titled “Black Friday by the Number” (Zalan). This quiz pertained to the financial aspects such as hot toys, number of shoppers and the total retail workers hired for the 2012 Black Friday shopping season. Notably, over that particular Thanksgiving weekend, shoppers spent an average of $423 each. Furthermore, approximately 700,000...
... middle of paper ...
... keeping their businesses closed on Thanksgiving, along with consumers boycotting stores, also starting online petitions and causing some workers to go on strike(Tuttle)?
Works Cited
“Black Friday Breakdown." Newsweek. Newsweek LLC, 28 November 2011. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 March 2014.
Hauser, Christine. "The Spectacle and Sales of Black Friday." New York Times. New York Times, 29 November 2013. Web. 24 March 2014.
Stout, Hilary. "The Transformation of Black Friday." New York Times. New York Times, 23 November 2014. Web. 24 March 2014.
Tuttle, Brad. "Tis The Season To Beg, Pressure, And Guilt Retailers To Stop Ruining The Season." Time.com. Time Inc., 14 November 2013. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 March 2014.
Zalan, Kira. "Black Friday By The Numbers." U.S. New Digital Weekly. U.S. News, 29 Mar. 2013. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 March 2014.
Edemariam, A. (2009, March 14). It all began in a small store in Arkansas.... The Guardian. Retrieved December 2, 2013, from http://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/mar/14/wal-mart-us-economy
Hays, Constance L. “Martha Stewart Living Says Revenue Fell 14% in the Quarter.” The New York Times. 1 May. 2003. <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/
There have been many financial corruptions and scandals though out history and in 1869 one such scandal rock The United States financial institute’s foundation. The attempt to corner the gold market lead to the preverbal straw which almost broke the camel’s back. This scandal has become to be known as Black Friday, not to be confused with the Friday following Thanksgiving this Black Friday proved that without oversight of the market it could quickly become a market of the few.
...er that same period. This may indicate that consumers are going online to make the purchases they once made at department stores.
Hansen, Brian. "Big-Box Stores." Are They Good For America? 14 (2004). 14 Mar 2005 <www.libraries.psu.edu/cqresearcher>.
Retail stores and websites compete with each other every year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday to see who will offer the best deals and sell the most product. Customers will find different stores to shop at if the deals don’t appeal to them as much. It seems to me that over the years, stores like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Amazon have always competed for more customers by trying to offer the best Black Friday prices. Personally, I have found that Best Buy significantly discounts items for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. When I needed to purchase a new cell phone, I decided to do it on Black Friday and I ended up finding the best deal at Best Buy. The phone that I purchased was triple the price after Black Friday and no other store sold the same
2008 is the year of economic recession in the United States 7.9 million people lost their jobs in the United States (Isidore, 2010) so the demands for purchasing apparel and sports items have decreased much like any other c...
Thanksgiving Day is a day of family, food, and giving thanks for the blessings in life and yet some people believe Thanksgiving to be a prep day for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. The focus of Thanksgiving shifted from family bonding to incessant shopping. This trend of taking away from the hours of Thanksgiving in order to shop is enraging. It steals away from family time for the shoppers and the employees. Employers threaten workers that if they do not work on that certain holiday, they will be fired. Black Friday should be kept to Friday instead of moving in on my family time. The whole culture of Black Friday has become repugnant and unnecessary.
The 1950’s and 60’s saw a great increase in consumerism. People made more money and had the desire to go out and purchase all of the luxurious goods they could afford. There was also an increase in advertisement for these new goods. Commercials began playing in people’s homes on their new televisions. During this time, the overall economy increased by 37%. Credit also got introduced at this time with the idea of “buy now and pay later”. With this there was a massive debt increase. In the twentieth century, we have one day a year that consumerism sky rockets. Black Friday. During this time, sale prices bring shoppers into stores to spend hours and hundreds of dollars on “great deals”. Advertising continues to be one of the main ways of catching
4. Hale, Todd. “Understanding the Wal-Mart Shopper.” Nielson Trends & Insights: Page 1. 10/19/2008 http://www2.acnielsen.com/pubs/2004_q1_ci_walmart.shtml
Religions influences on consumer’s behavioral spending habits have drastically changed throughout the past centuries. Christian’s rituals of holidays such as Christmas were once only demonstrated by worshipping God and attending Church Masses and services in early years. Their behavioral habits can be understood by their spiritual philosophy of the spirit, God. Hegal, a philosopher, argued that “spirit” represented the essence of freedom, distinguishable from the individual “self.” (Lindridge 2005). This belief prompted people to focus more intently on their religion then on the actual idea of buying gifts for the holidays. Christianity worship particularly was a time that was meant to set a time away from the markets or business’ and a time for one’s soul to repent. Often time services would be held for worship, not only Sundays and holidays, but as well two to three other days during the working week. This custom lasted for many years among the religious groups while the markets struggled to stay productive.
Kenney Paul, Alison. “2014 Retail Industry Outlook.” The Wall Street Journal. Jan 7, 2014. Web.
Livingston, James. "It's Black Friday: Spend for Your Soul". Los Angeles Times. 25 Nov. 2001.
Shopping and philosophy: Postmodernism is the new black. (2006, December 19). The Economist, Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/8401159.
Lowery, Joseph. “Leave the Crowds Behind This Holiday Season: A Whole New World Is Only A Click Away.” ShopOnline 1.2.3. 1999: 9-10.