black friday used to mean something

old man yells at cloud

Exarte via Wikimedia Commons

Black Friday used to tap into the old American spirit of—I don’t know—killing a buffalo? Bad example. My point is that it was about how deals awaited you if you were brave and insane on this one day of the year. Other people, softer people, might be sleeping off their turkey comas. But you, American hero? You were girding your loins. For savings!

Now let it be known, I am a soft person. I was not going to venture out into the great battle of sales at any point. That was okay. It wasn’t for me. It was like battling at Troy or something. I would have stayed home for that too, oath or no oath. I would have olives to press, views to admire, things of that nature. But it takes all sorts.

Then, one year, Black Friday had a sibling, the clunkily named Cyber Monday—for people like me who did not want to go out into a big mass of people but didn’t mind a bargain. And that was acceptable. I remember contemplating a Mad Men season set on a Cyber Monday. Did I get it? No. Still, Cyber Monday was its own thing. It was one day. You snoozed you losed.

But this year, the Black Friday sales started the moment it was November. I’m getting emails about Black Friday sales all days of the week. You can’t tell me it’s Black Friday on any old November Tuesday and yet these brands are doing it and they just won’t stop. They are pelting me with deals. I’m being crushed to death under the dollars potentially saved.

And the weirdest thing, to me, is how this removes any urgency from the purchasing situation. These sales aren’t cutting off before Black Friday (or Cyber Monday). There’s nothing motivating me to purchase now. The emails keep telling me to act now but I don’t in fact need to unless I’m worried about stock running out. I’ve never felt less need to buy anything than I feel about these sales. (Plus, if you’re a brand that is constantly running huge sales throughout the month, all I really get from that is that your normal prices must be ludicrously inflated.)

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Now look. I get how Christmas got overrun by crass commercialism. Or Thanksgiving. Or any other number of things. What I don’t understand is how crass commercialism got overrun by crass commercialism. How did a sale season undermine itself by getting so big and lasting so long? Don’t these brands get that diluting Black Friday like this is a bad decision? Don’t we stand for anything anymore? It’s a dark day. A dark day. A black Friday… of sorts.