I confessed to liking the Christmas holiday, but there’s a part of it that I find so unattractive.
I couldn’t see myself waking up at 5 a.m. to stand in line for a cheap television on Black Friday or any other day. I think the whole idea of Black Friday is absurd. It doesn’t seem ethical to me for corporations to have sales where they only offer a certain number of items for really cheap; a laptop computer for $199, a 32 inch flat screen for $300, etc.
I personally think it’s a marketing tactic that degrades people. It turns otherwise normal people into drooling zombified consumers.
Retailers spend billions on advertising and advertising research. Everything in a successful store is planned, from the color scheme, to the layout, to the smell to stimulate you into buying.
I don’t think, although I could be wrong, that if you can afford to pay the full price for an item, or a regularly discounted price that you would be waiting in line at 4 a.m. to buy a limited supply of television sets. In other words I think these sales make a spectacle of people who can’t afford to pay full price. When you only supply thirty discounted laptops, it creates competition and you pit consumers against one another. It really brings out the ugly side of people.
I swear there are executives in some office somewhere coming up with these crazy ideas just to watch the madness ensue. And they are probably thinking, “What a bunch of suckers.”
Then, I also wonder that in that crowd are people who can afford more, but want the thrill of the push and war stories… I think the whole black Friday idea is dark, dangerous and gimmicky and yes, degrading. Ugh!