The Darkside of Black Friday For most, Thanksgiving is a holiday spent with family and delicious food, but for others, it is a day consisting of tremendous planning in hopes for a major haul of “discounted” items. In the United States, it is safe to say that Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping events each year. In recent years the public's participation in Black Friday has continued to decline, stated by the National Retail Federation. ”Thirty-five percent of consumers who plan to shop during Thanksgiving week say they will do so on Black Friday, down from 51 percent last year and 59 percent the year before, according to consumer markets research from PwC, the professional services giant.” (Bhattarai). I personally have never been …show more content…
Black Friday is always the fourth Friday of November and or the day after Thanksgiving. Even though it is widely practiced throughout the United States every year, it is not recognized as a federal holiday. In the past few years, Black Friday has not just been a one day event. Each store wants to attract more customers than the next, they have come up with some ways to do just that. By leaking their ads early they hope to attract more customers or start the sale a couple days early. Some have even been known to extend the sale a few days after the initial Black Friday. Since stores are now extending the sale longer than one day, there is no more sense of urgency the event once held. Hence the recent decline in the public's participation (“What is Black Friday”). The day after Thanksgiving is the day my family sets up the Christmas tree, so you could say Black Friday marks the beginning of the holiday season. For others, it marks the beginning of holiday shopping. Most people have the day after Thanksgiving off from work because their employers gave an extra day off for Thanksgiving. Personally, I would take that day as it should be, a rest day. My body is already in a food coma, and I need time to let it settle so I have room for leftovers. Some families have created other Thanksgiving traditions that are not related to Thanksgiving at all but to Black Friday. Bundled up outside their favorite store, waiting hours to get inside just to see if they can snag a couple of discounted items- whether they are needed or
Walmart was the first retail store to open early on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. Once all of the competitive stores learned this technique, they put it to a test. JC Penney opened at 6p.m. the first year and at 3p.m. the second and third year on Thanksgiving Day. Macys and Kohl’s opens at 5p.m. and the more upscale retailers such as Dillard’s close on Thanksgiving Day. The retail stores that open so early are also ruining the chances of making the profit on Black Friday due to extending the time open. In reality, these stores are open more than 24 hours
Wal-Mart represents the sickness of capitalism at its almost fully evolved state. As Jim Hightower said, "Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad." (The Nation, March 4th 2002 www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020304&s=hightower).
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.
Imagine having to work on thanksgiving. Not only do those people miss out on Black Friday, but also miss out on time with your family. They also get to go to work more than likely sleep deprived, deal with unpleasant customers, and constant lines. Curtis West worked as a Macy’s employee. In his 24 years of work for them he had to work a total of 19 Black Fridays. He said it wasn’t bad when Black Friday started off, because it usually meant going in at 5 am on Friday. Now for sto...
American culture is made up of a number of different influences one of them being holidays. On of those esteemed holidays is Thanksgiving, which was made a national holiday in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln (History.com Staff). It was made a holiday at the time in order to bring the nation together during a time of pain and suffering. In this day and age, it is meant for families to come together and give thanks for what they have over a large meal, which is surrounded by football games, family recipes, and shopping. Thanksgiving, a ritual Americans have done for generations is a classic example of American civil religion. Because it brings together what it means to be an American, but at the same time ignores the history of some American
For hundreds of years Thanksgiving has been a holiday filled with traditions celebrating family and togetherness. The day after thanksgiving known as “Black Friday” is a day for shopping and taking advantage of greatly reduced prices. The recent decision by retailers to move Black Friday to Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, has caused quite a stir among many families. People have become upset over the decision to turn a day of gratitude and family, into another day of greed and violence. Retailers should not open their stores on Thanksgiving Day because doing so will cause many employees to miss out on spending a special day with their families, cause people to forget about the thanks and festivities that thanksgiving represents, and create more violence in stores and violence towards people.
It is seen in everything from the hoarding of material objects to the destruction of friendships, both of which are popular themes when regarding the topic of Black Friday shopping. Black Friday has become Black Thursday, a trend which has only shown up within the last decade. The great American holiday that is Thanksgiving is celebrated because of our gratefulness toward all that we have, a holiday that is meant to be spent gathered around a table of our loved ones. However, the retail holiday that consumes the day afterward has begun to overflow into our gatherings, and it is due to the greed of the American people. Were it not for the market’s demand for earlier sales, stores would not open their sales on Thursday nights. Everyone would simply wait until early the next morning to start off on their shopping extravaganzas, and the sales themselves would likely be far less violent as
The popular Canadian magazine AdBusters was the push that truly made Buy Nothing Day as big as it is today. Over 60 nations now participate annually, and the expected amount of participants for 2015 was a whopping one million people (AdBusters). In North America Buy Nothing Day is held on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, whereas everywhere else holds it on the last Saturday of November. Participants show their support in a number of ways. There are the easier tactics such as simply not purchasing any products from a large nationwide retailer like Walmart or you could go extreme. AdBusters recommends you have fun with it and go a little extreme. They suggest Zombie Walks, when you walk around the mall or shopping center essentially dressed as a zombie to exhibit the now normal behaviors of those that have fallen into the trap that is the consumerist machine, or you could participate in a fan favorite, the Whirl-Mart, this is a conga line of silent protesters pushing around empty shopping carts through widely known stores (AdBusters). Buy Nothing Day, in all, is a day dedicated to the raise awareness about overconsumption and the negativity in
When comparing two different ways of shopping most people do not even think about the difference, they do both and not even realize it. In today's society people shop while at work, after work and on the weekends, whenever time permits. Stop and think how can I get more time in the day for family or just myself? The best way to figure that out with all the recourses we have is to go into a store and spend time looking through racks and waiting in endless lines to just purchase something. I compared going into a store verses online shopping; to see which one will save you time and money.
Christmas decorations should not be put on display before Thanksgiving because you can hardly find anything for thanksgiving. On the other hand people get discounts and prices are really low. When it comes to Christmas the stores always raise the prices. Also,
Holidays have always been known to affect our consumer culture for many years, but how it all began eludes many people and very few studies have been completed on it. Even though some say that the subject is too broad to precisely identify how holidays, especially Christmas, directly affect our market, I have found that people’s values, expectations and rituals related to holidays can cause an excessive amount of spending among our society. Most people are unaware that over the centuries holidays have become such a profitable time of year for industries that they now starting to promote gift ideas on an average of a month and a half ahead of actual holiday dates to meet consumer demands.
In fact, they have fun on the day because they love the atmosphere through Christmas songs and illuminations. Christmas is thought by many people to be the most wonderful time of the year. Winter snow, Christmas tree, decorations and Santa Claus are very important things which makes us happy and think that it is the most beautiful day of all the year. Everybody waits for the day because it has various meanings for different people. Moreover, they can see beautiful illuminations and listen to Christmas songs in cities or downtown. However, some adults who are parents need to spend money for buying many gifts for children. In the United States, parents generally purchase the gifts on a Black Friday. It is good for them to get their presents on the day because they more discounts on that day than other
Protests on Black Friday every year seems like a tradition, but why? Employees are not getting treated right. Employees who work for Walmart, all over in the world are asking for the Walmart Company to hear them out. Employees want to be heard because they have to live poorly with their salaries. Protesting the only way that they can get heard and they will not stop until they receive what they’ve been fighting for.
Environmental Studies is the academic field, which systematically studies human interaction with the environment in which we live in. It is a broad field of study that includes the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them. Environmental studies takes into account many different factors that help provide an enjoyable, fruitful way of life, such as national policies, politics, laws, economics, sociology and other social aspects, planning, pollution control, natural resources, and the interactions of human beings and nature.
Holiday shopping, for me, is a nightmare because of the abundance of crowds, all of the fighting and competitiveness. I believe those last minute shoppers are the worst, they are the ones that are rude and impatient. For some people, with lots of patience, dealing with holiday shoppers is a good experience. For people like me, who has very little patience, it is a dreadful experience. Another aspect of shopping during the holidays is dealing with tired, overworked and frustrated employees. They are just trying to get their jobs done as quickly as possible, so they can go home to their families. Meanwhile, you have those employees that are cheerful and are eager to help the distraught shoppers. Also, during the holidays horrible accidents can occur often at this time of year. I am going to portray the dangers and mishaps that can occur during the holidays. I am not anti-holiday, but the older I get the more I don't have any desire to be exposed to all of the potential chaos.