Black Friday: America’s most dangerous holiday

Shane Wade
Opinion Editor 

In just a few days, we will all become witnesses to the most American holiday: Black Friday.

This day combines the essence of American capitalism, the violent effects of rampant consumerism on both customers and employees and the paradoxical nature of us being unable to afford items, but buying them anyway. Its decorations come in the form of fliers and long lines and its patron saint is Tom Haverford, clad in circulars and declaring “Love fades away. But things … things are forever.”

As much as we all hate Black Friday on principle, it’s here to stay. As long as we’re beholden to our mixed-market and consumer-driven economy, Black Friday is as much a holiday as Thanksgiving or Christmas. In some ways, it’s more of a holiday than other holidays: Every year, we collectively move further away from celebrating the genocidal Christopher Columbus on “Columbus Day” and our religious holidays are overshadowed by businesses taking advantage of what is functionally a vacation day in order to advertise sales. Black Friday is the most American holiday because it celebrates America’s true religion: money. Why else is “In God We Trust” inscribed on our currency?

Admitting that truth, as any reformed or reforming user will tell you, is not a condemnation, but a liberation. From that admittance, we’re better able to both assess and manage the damage of said truth: We celebrate the world’s most destructive holiday and every year, we expand on it, with the addition of “Cyber Monday” and “Small Business Saturday.” Black Friday shopping and spending comes at no benefit to either consumers or retailers.

It’s an economically and physically taxing day for retail employees, who often begin their shift hours earlier than normal to prepare for the onslaught, cutting into the time that could be spent with their families. It’s also not as profitable as it might seem.

Despite more than 130 million adults frequenting stores over the four-day weekend and shelling out nearly $60 billion last year, according to the National Retail Federation, Black Friday isn’t the biggest shopping day of the year. The Saturday before Christmas is, according the International Council of Shopping Centers and Snopes. Black Friday is just the largest amount of foot traffic and the largest functional window shopping day of the year. The retail industry’s shift toward Black Friday sales has only managed to push back and rearrange consumer traffic from early December to late November.

The alternative for stores, obviously, is to avoid the onerous experience by not having a sale, and instead being the only business in a busy shopping center that doesn’t offer a 60 percent discount on everything touching a shelf to see how customers react, or rather, don’t react. How many customers are going to frequent a store without sales after they spent thousands of dollars they don’t actually have on a sale next door and accomplished all their shopping goals? Why go somewhere else and why spend an additional amount of money?

The phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.

Competition, the engine that drives capitalism, forces businesses to cater to consumers, but in the least positive way. It’s become so oppressive that, with the introduction of Internet retailers, it’s surprising that smaller and more local businesses are able to maintain a reasonable profit revenue stream during this time of the year.

For shoppers, the solution to this odd holiday and the shopping addiction isn’t, however, to solely alternate shopping patterns or buy online or at local businesses. It isn’t even to just stay home.

It is to manage the limited freedom of choice that we do have and to drain ourselves financially: in the days leading up to our biggest holiday, pay off other bills, pay the monthly minimum on your credit card and give half of whatever you were going to spend to charity, particularly the victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

What you do with your money, particularly around this time of year, should be an investment. It’s 2013; you don’t need a new flat-screen, DVDs or some Apple product you’ll crack open while speed walking to an 8 a.m. Purchase investments, whether that means buying clothes, stock options, textbooks or school supplies for the next semester. Things fade, but investments are forever.

We are not beholden to the mainstays of the customs of holidays, particularly the more artificially constructed ones. What this Friday represents is a dangerous ideology and concept. By acknowledging the inevitability of incommensurate spending and self-tempering, we’re able to bring out the best of a bad situation.