By "you," I of course don't mean you, Dear Reader! I mean the very concept of Black Friday, which is so vulgarly capitalistic and basically just about crass commercialism. If it were any other day, I'd say discounts would be welcome, but not the deceptive kinds that many people are now associating with the day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving--a holiday that is all about giving thanks and spending time with friends and family! Isn't that great? Well, it's not great for commerce, since you're not buying enough cards, decorations, or other crap.
I remember 10 years or so ago, the concept of Black Friday didn't even exist. They just called it "the day after Thanksgiving," and yes, everyone knew it was the busiest shopping day of the year. But that was out of necessity, since so many people have jobs that require them to work 5 days a week, so a Friday where the kids got off school and the folks didn't have to work did indeed provide a chance to go shopping.
But it was shitty. Every mall and every store was packed with every other idiot that decided to go shopping. That's why they started calling it Black Friday, since it was "black" as in "all the light has gone out of my life, since I'm here trying to find bargains at Sears when I could have stayed home, relaxed, and digested turkey on my day off."
But it seems like it's been just in the last few years that Black Friday became a big thing. A big, shitty thing, and I'm here to say I don't like it. The worst part is, it's even come to Costa Rica. But here they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so the whole idea of it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And the discounts here are something small, like 10 or 15%. So they have "viernes negro," but no one knows why it's called black, nor why everyone's going to overpriced stores on this one day. It's all filler and no taste, which is even worse than Black Friday in the US.
I realize that it's too late to do anything about it this year, but next year I think I'll participate in Buy Nothing Day. I can't say I did this year, though, since I paid for a Chinese class and then went to the supermarket to buy some noodles and ice cream. Dammit, I'm still in consumerism's claws!
Anyhow, Happy Black Friday! (See how bad that sounds?)
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