Imagine crowds of screaming, hair-pulling, belligerent people all running into a small building: Welcome to Black Friday.
The day after Thanksgiving has been dedicated to half-off deals and one-day-only sales in hopes of bringing in the largest crowds of the year.
Having the privilege of working on this hectic day, I was able to get a glimpse from the opposite side of the checkout counter.
A few years ago, this extravagant sale began exclusively on Friday morning. Stores have been slowly moving up their opening hours to accommodate the demand and dangers of large crowds.
Stores like Walmart and Target now open their doors on Thanksgiving Day with hopes of pulling families from the dinner table and into their stores.
This is a smart business move, but an abuse of the tradition.
Black Friday has been a one-day event until recently. Now, the occasion has turned into a weekend ordeal, beginning Thursday with some sales extending to Sunday.
I thought Cyber Monday was created to accommodate those who had to work on the stressful and busy Friday, but obviously conspicuous consumption never ends.
Leave it to America to show lust and greed after a day that is meant to give thanks for what we already have.
Prior to Black Friday, most customers said they had no desire to shop anywhere on the busy day. It was a general consensus that no item was worth the amount of time and effort required to obtain it.
Even my family chuckled at the thought of waking up from food comas and venturing out into department stores for a half-off blender.
This hyped-up shopping day seemed to have lost its shine and luster to most consumers, but on the fateful day, the amount of people filling the stores was shocking.
The tradition of camping out the night before has yet to fade away due to stores enticing customers with freebies if they are among the first in the store.
I work at Lush Cosmetics in the Mall of Louisiana and experienced quite a few different reactions on when customers discovered we were not having any Black Friday sales.
All anyone cared about was getting a good sale, never paying full price and checking off his or her shopping lists.
Customers were almost insulted when they discovered no sales were happening in a few of their favorite stores — as if it was their right to a discounted high-end product.
You would think people would take advantage of these sales and purchase presents for others, but selfishness clearly overtook that desire.
There is a misconception that Black Friday is the best day of the year to shop. The correct assumption is that it isn’t always worth the traffic and hours waiting in line.
The tradition has consumed an entire weekend of our lives, plus the following Cyber Monday.
Cyber Monday has probably brought the excitement of Black Friday down to a reasonable level now that customers can simply click an “add to cart” button without leaving their beds.
Maybe the reason Black Friday is extending its sales is because of exactly that — no one wants to bother driving and fighting crowds for something he or she can get online.
Also, the absurd consumerism aspect of this shopping weekend is most likely a turnoff for most level-headed people.
Black Friday needs to withdraw back into its one-day spot so the other shopping days don’t get overrun by big-business sales.
Sooner or later, Black Friday will have lost its appeal and we will have moved on to another shopping day, letting the Internet pave the way for our materialistic desires.