What’s up with Black Friday? (Editorial)
On Black Friday, shoppers wait in line for hours just to save a few dollars.
On the day of Thanksgiving, many families get together and bond with their friends and relatives. After stuffing their face with that famous dinner plate, apparently this year, they can now leave and shop for Black Friday.
Black Friday is a tradition for many shoppers and is an exciting time for the kids to stay up past their bedtime. But what are they really excited for? The prices might be good, but the people you have to encounter to get those deals make the experience overrated.
People steal, people yell, people even get violent for that great deal on the laptop at Staples. It’s a negative experience, and it’s a really aggressive place in time.
In Walmart, the coworkers have to work together to spread the shopping carts around the store so that people aren’t hurting each other while trying to snag a buggy. After fighting for those limited sale items, the shopper is confronted with such long lines, full of the most impatient people one will ever meet. While in line, people actually walk up to other carts and take items from what’s inside of them, in essence stealing from one another.
A shopper could be waiting in a 2 hour line in 50 degree weather, and not get what they wanted that whole time. The thought of people being “nice” will change instantly, just from this one experience.
Why people like Black Friday shopping, I couldn’t tell you. This experience has its pros and its cons. But personally, I would wait until a week before Christmas and wait for the deals then, when stores are trying to throw everything out at last minute, instead of watching everybody go crazy, mere hours after being thankful for their fellow mankind.
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Amanda is a staff writer for the second time this year, this time heading our new Student Life section. She loves the when the moon comes out but she...
Janie Haseman • Jan 21, 2014 at 11:48 pm
I think its crazy that stores are opening earlier and earlier before Black Friday itself. I wonder if at some point, Thanksgiving will end up becoming simply a pre-Black Friday. It saddens me not only because it means more workers are away from their families on Thanksgiving, but also because people are spending less time being thankful for what they have and more time thinking about what new gift or gadget they might get for cheap later on. As time goes on, I feel like it will be harder and harder to really remember what Thanksgiving is meant to be about.
Kelley Ann Mitchell • Dec 4, 2013 at 1:40 pm
I personally think that black Friday shopping is also a bit overrated. Most of the time you can find the exact same deal online without even having to go to the store. I feel that people get too carried away in the whole ‘black Friday’ event and think they are getting awesome deals when they really aren’t that much different than normal store sales. It also is silly to wake up at 1 in the morning to go shopping for something that you could get online. I personally am a fan of Cyber Monday!