With Black Friday being one of the most comedic holidays to grace this planet, Sean, local funny-man, presents the history behind the concept of Black Friday shopping and the psychological effects that pertains to us as Americans, consumers, and Fruit of the Loom underwear owners.
Black Friday has been around longer than a lot of us can remember, but why? Why has the idea lasted that the best route for Christmas shopping is the day after Thanksgiving, when stores across the country drop their prices anywhere from fifty to ninety percent? Why do people act like absolute barbarians when tearing apart the faux marble tiles at Walmart in an attempt to get their hands on one Tickle-Me-Elmo doll? Why is it that people somehow lose every bit of driving skill they have ever retained, when all I want is a white chocolate/caramel macchiato from Starbucks at 7:30AM? Some of these questions are unexplainable, but as a future musical theatre major and a psychology minor, I am going to attempt to decipher some of the peculiar measures a majority will take to obtain a product that holds the same value no matter what. Nevertheless, it continues to persuade people to purchase with said-discount.
Let’s start with some background. There is an odd, wavy line between when Black Friday was developed through methodical sales strategies and when it was considered a tradition of Thanksgiving (which, may I add, has also shifted from a meaning of compromise and passiveness to eating a full-course meal until you become toilet-ridden). According to PBS, this notorious, money-making holiday was first brought to life by two gold connoisseurs by the name of Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, who were so awfully bored with industrialization in 1869 that they decided to drive up the price of gold. At this point gold was so unobtainable, that the market crashed (dropping by $4 million in government gold), and the low prices people were willing to buy it back for led to the market continuing “in the black.”
Now, you may be asking: how in the world does this have anything to do with the capitalist institution of a federal holiday pertaining to the celebration of colonialism? Well, trust me, this all links up somehow. Poor people loved making rich stockholders lose money to such an extent that separate corporations began to install the event as an annual occasion, marking the day when the company would go “in the black.” This is ironic because most companies end up having more profits in sales on Black Friday than on any other day of the year. You can imagine, in this scenario, that megacorporations find a malicious amount of joy in taking advantage of this holiday by looking from their hidden surveillance cameras and stroking their evil-looking cats like a James Bond villain.
May I add to this broad idea: people have and always will be deranged when it comes to easy, limited access to their ultimate desires. The scarcity route of persuasion runs deep in our country, which can be easily exemplified by work opportunities that pay high, like whatever Jay Gould and Jim Fisk got paid for. Normally, these positions are highly competitive-- but drop the prices of hand soaps to fifty percent and OH BOY. Everyone is rolling in dough at that point. Living in a country with a capitalist structure that encourages others to strive for the top at any instance and punishing those who will not sell themselves in order to get by, this behavior almost makes sense. It almost makes you wonder why many other countries never have the same problem, doesn’t it?
While I could bash on selfish, rich people all day and rant on the matter of how discounting my Fruit of the Loom underwear won’t fix anything, I still encourage you Scroll readers to take advantage of these deals and save some money on Christmas presents, Apple watches, bare essentials, bananas, or Fruit of the Loom underwear. And no: I will not elaborate on what happened with me and my Fruit of the Loom underwear. That stays between me and my Fruit of the Loom underwear. If there is anything you could do worse than shoving fellow Target shoppers and trampling them to death for a pair of Fruit of the Loom underwear, it is not taking the opportunity to go Black Friday shopping at all. Recall the day when impoverished people took advantage of the gold market crash. After all, those two silly men really put in a lot of effort to drive up those prices and gatekeep gold from everyone else.
If you’ve gotten to this depth of my article, this is also a reminder to fill out your FAFSA form and use your P-EBT food stamp card when buying groceries. No matter what the instance is, I fully support taking and using the government’s copious amount of money. You could ask me about anything else, but when it comes down to it, there’s nothing that could bring me more joy than that.
