I have never participated in the celebration of consumerism known collectively as Black Friday. Ten years ago, I'd never even heard of it. It's been celebrated in the USA since 1952, but is a far more recent thing in the UK, only really starting around 2013.
The origin basically seems to come from the fact that in the USA, Christmas is the next major holiday once Thanksgiving is over, and Black Friday is traditionally held the day after... marking the beginning of 'Christmas shopping season'. Thanksgiving is an American holiday commemorating the Pilgrim Fathers, and has very little significance the rest of the world over. The reason Black Friday has crossed over to the UK (and many other countries as well) seems to be down to two things: 1) The rise in online shopping; and 2) Because Asda, which is owned by Walmart, decided to participate and it went from there.
I think the whole thing is foul, and I will not participate. Here are five reasons why I feel this way:
1) It's a celebration of consumerism
I don't tend to buy many Christmas presents. I don't really ask for people to buy them for me either. If someone would like to buy me something, that's up to them. And if I do buy something for someone, it's usually because I've seen something that's made me think of them, or that I know they could really use. I hate the formality of gift-giving. A gift is a non-essential special thing that you do for someone, a moment to demonstrate that you value their presence in your life and that you're interested enough in them to know what they want/need. It is NOT an opportunity for relentless marketing, advertising and selling for huge corporations to get a nice bottom line at the end of the year. The Christmas shopping season is a horrible, cynical attempt to cash in on people's kindness to one another.
People with small children are the greatest victims of this, because much of the marketing is aimed strongly at children. We have a cost of living crisis; I know anecdotally of people who can barely afford to eat, but still somehow manage to scrape together enough to buy their child the latest gadget. And how can you not, if their child is being led to believe constantly that this is how a good parent shows love to their child?
2) It's utterly hypocritical
This is more in relation to the American side, which I don't personally have much connection to, but it needs saying. The meaning of Thanksgiving is in the name - it's to do with being thankful for what you have, spending some much-needed time with your loved ones. This is the antithesis to our consumerist culture, and is an attitude that we urgently need more of in every culture. And then the next day, everyone dashes out to embrace consumerism even more wildly than they did before. What happened to being thankful for what you had?
3) It actually causes people to spend more
You know, we're in a cost-of-living crisis. If there's something you badly need, I won't begrudge you waiting until the day when you might happen to get a few quid off. But here's a great deal for you: if you don't buy it, you get 100% off! Yes, I know, almost too good to be true. There's a serious point here though - a lot of us could probably do with living more frugally, using fewer of the planet's resources, and if you don't need it, the cost being reduced is not good enough reason to buy it.
I've seen personally that it can actually cause selfishness. I used to be a door-to-door charity cold caller, and I will always recall the number of people who, in 2017, couldn't sign up to charity because, they claimed, they'd spent all their money in the sales. If you can't afford it, fair enough. But if this is about saving money, why are people suddenly more hard-up after it than they were before?
4) It can get physically dangerous
Just look at these. I'm a bit loath to share this link as the website talks about it in quite a flippant and humorous way - but every single year, there's some kind of report of a fight or someone getting hurt as a result of the Black Friday rush. That's not even counting abuse to retail staff.
5) It's bad for the environment
You know, Cop27 is over, and as usual it's Cop-Out 27, with very little in the way of commitments to phasing out fossil fuels. If we're going to do anything about this global warming thing, looks like we're going to have to do it ourselves. A festival celebrating consumerism and greed is not conducive to that. At all.
Thankfully, I've seen a lot less Black Friday stuff around this year anyway. I'm not sure if that's because the world is waking up or if it's because the cost of living crisis has got so dire that people don't have the time to think about purchasing useless items even if they are on sale, but it is at least welcome.
If you want to get some new stuff, why not take a visit to your local charity shop? Bring a bunch of your old junk whilst you're at it as well.
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