Black Friday shopping stories are not news

The idea was to end the Black Friday arms race. It's the one holiday a year that all American families can get together and celebrate, and retailers are ruining it. It particularly noted how retail workers can't have a relaxing Thanksgiving.

 

I've never participated in Black Friday, and I never intend to. My dignity is worth more than a $200 HDTV.

I know this is going to sound like, "I don't know anyone who voted for Nixon," but I don't know anybody who runs out on Black Friday to shop. It almost feels like a pretend news story to me (even though I know it's not), because nobody I know participates. At least that I'm aware of. I'm sure some family members do. I know that a couple of my brothers in law went to Meijer and Toys R Us at some point on Friday, but I'm talking about the people lined up at the doors, making the openings an event. I don't know any of those people.

 

This is one social-engineering, hand-wringing topic the Times would have been better off not addressing.

I've gone out to the Black Friday wars twice in my life . . . more than twenty years apart. The most recent one probably turned me off to the experience, for all time, going forward.

 

How do you claim that, Stitch?

Kind of a stupid way to make the point, but let me say: I read the Black Friday story in my paper, and I've NEVER participated in Black Friday.

But life where I live certainly was affected for those hours.

 

Some people simply are wired with a need to be part of an "event". It dawned on me when I visited Wal-Mart at 6:30 p.m. Thanksgiving Day to get some cold medicine for my wife. There were dozens of employees --- not even sure if they were actual Wal-Mart employees --- wearing yellow vests with "Event Staff" on them, preparing for the "event" that was to begin at 10 p.m.

It's why people gather at Times Square on NYE. Why they endure the torture that attending an NFL game has become. Why they watch a lame Super Bowl halftime act --- an act which, if presented on another network, they wouldn't watch.

Others are wired the opposite way. To avoid "must-see" this and that. To avoid going to "the place to be."

 

"You never cover me unless someone gets trampled to death or attacked with pepper spray."

--Black Friday

 

To me, the biggest scam is newspapers charging Sunday prices for Thanksgiving papers without any additional features, and news that has mostly been locked in since noon the previous day so they can have time to stuff all the ads inside.
I spent the weekend with the family on the coast and went out every morning to buy newspapers because my dad still likes reading them and my mom likes the puzzles. The rest of us were on-line checking Facebook and new sites for updates.

 

If Black Friday essentially went away, the resulting shock would certainly drive the economy into a ditch and cause another recession. Far too much money is pumped into the economy in that day.

I do go out on Black Friday, but only later in the day. Usually the crazies are long gone. I went in a Meijer around 9 Friday night just to look around a bit.

That said, I think Thanksgiving opening times are ridiculous. So are people who push and shove to get to the bargains. But what do you do?

 

The answer to this is simple.

Go through your Thursday and report back to me how much of it was ads. TONS of ads. A weekday paper that was like a SUnday paper. Ads after ads after ads after ads after ads.

And those stores all paid MONEY to these papers to have those ads in their paper. Dollar after dollar after dollar.

You don't think papers won't scratch their backs after they scratched the papers.

So damn right you'll get Black Friday stories. Story after story after story.

 

No, I like big games and such.

I just find Black Friday to be a little low-rent for my taste, to be quite honest.

And that it has become an Event kind of took me by surprise. I always remember hearing it was the "biggest shopping day of the year," but that was when it was more of a grass roots, organic thing.