Shoppers in a frenzy over cool stripey pants. Photo by John Crosley.
I know I said I was taking the day off today (put down the mouse and step away from the computer!), but I can't resist passing this along while it's topical: Gary Brown pointed out an interesting article (in my own local paper no less) about the real origins of the term 'Black Friday' (that's today, if you're wondering—the Friday after Thanksgiving in the U.S.). It also charts for us the rise of the term's usage.
Meanwhile, we often turn to Ctein for technical assistance around these parts, but after I saw a certain commercial yesterday I had to laugh—I would need Ctein's help to calculate how infinitesimal the chances are that I'd be showing up at K-Mart at five o'clock in the morning. It would have to involve something like a quantum teleporting of every atom in my body through a different dimension, randomly reconstituting me in the aisles of said K-Mart. Rather than, say, 900 nautical miles east-southeast of Melanesia or in the air two miles above Tobruk. I suppose kidnapping by a Colombian cocaine cartel might also have to be factored in: "Dear Zander, Thank you for tendering the entire $7,347.69 from your father's savings account along with the nine sundry film and digital cameras we demanded as ransom. You can find him tied up in the deserted garden products section of your local K-Mart at 5:00 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving."
Or maybe if they gave the first five shoppers free Audi S5's, say. I'd be pessimistic about my chances, but I might try.
I can't come up with any other plausible scenarios.
Now, if our retail establishments wanted to get me to shop, what they'd advertise is the least busy day of the year. "Attention! Almost no one shops on July 22nd! The stores are nearly deserted! Mosey through the doors at your own lackadaisical pace! Come after you've slept late and had three cups of coffee—it won't matter, everything will still be there!"
That might get me.
Enjoy your day!
Mike, back to vacation
UPDATE (Saturday): Seeing some of the reports yesterday evening I was genuinely repulsed by it all. Granted, the "news" is culling the worst incidents and the worst video clips from all over the country, but it makes us look bad to the rest of the world. (Sort of the way the British look when you see those compilations of the worst behavior by soccer fans.) I have to trust that most Black Friday sales were probably pretty orderly and dull, but the worst ones...ugh. I hope this is something on the order of a fad or a popular craze, and that it will pass.
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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Here's a disturbing Black Friday story:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/wal-mart-black-friday-marred-by-shootings-pepper-spray-attack-.html
Posted by: Doug Dolde | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 10:10 AM
After Thanksgiving dinner, she said she and her friends were complaining about the lack of eye-catching deals this year. “And one of the men asked, ‘Then why go?’” she recounted. “We were like, ‘Because this is our thing. It’s what we do.’”
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/11/25/i-get-things-i-really-need-not-just-presents/?mod=WSJBlog
It is definitely not what I do. But I see lots of freelance editorial images of shoppers, lines and merchandise.
Posted by: Speed | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 10:31 AM
Please, Colombia is with an 'o' after the l. I've been married to my wonderful Colombian wife for more than 10 years and from the beginning this has been ingrained in my mind. Although within the English language, does one spell it with a u instead of o?
Posted by: Andy de Groot | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 10:36 AM
Mike, in keeping with the Zeitgeist of the times, there's a report of one of these 5 AM shoppers, a woman in California, holding off other shoppers with pepper spray to defend her shopping turf.
Posted by: carlweese | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 12:14 PM
It's getting worse and worse. First the stores started opening at 6AM on the day after Thanksgiving. Then it became Midnight. Last night I was driving home from the family Thanksgiving dinner at my brother's house and I see that the Outlet Mall in Aurora, Illinois is opening at 9PM Thanksgiving Day. Soon Black Friday is going to start on Wednesday.
Posted by: Tom Swoboda | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 12:28 PM
death of a Long Island Walmart worker stampeded by frenzied bargain hunters
Yes, We Don't Speak Proper English Department: the poor man/woman was not stampeded. The bargain hunters stampeded and trampled him/her. Learn the words you appropriated from other languages. :)
Posted by: vlatko | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 12:47 PM
My sentiments exactly ...
Posted by: John | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 12:56 PM
>> Even in 1985, a Philadelphia Inquirer story shows, retailers in eastern Pennsylvania were still bemoaning the Black Friday label they were stuck with.
"We hate it," one Philadelphia merchant was quoted as saying. Retailers elsewhere in the country, meanwhile, had never heard of the term.<<
That retailer is wrong. I was working in retail, at a mall, in 1983, in Akron, Ohio. We used the term then for the shopping day after Thanksgiving due to the masses of rude, agressive people who would arrive. All of the employees at the other retail establishments used it, too. It was generally considered to be an old term, not something we made up.
Local papers survive on the advertising from local merchants. They don't often print articles that are anti-shopping (at least not until recent years). Looking for such articles in those papers might not be the best research design.
--Darin
Posted by: Darin Boville | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 01:09 PM
Mike, it's rumored that Macy's gave away free digital cameras to the first 100 shoppers to cross their threshold. (Make and model unspecified). Here's a link to a blogger who mentions that she met someone who received one. How's that for verification of the rumor?
So, would that change your mind? Would you venture forth amidst the mayhem at midnight to be one of the first 100 shoppers and receive your very own free digital camera (make and model unspecified)?
Posted by: Christian | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 01:13 PM
Yeah, that S5 is pretty fetching.
Posted by: John Morris | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 02:22 PM
Full contact shopping. It's the new American sport. Personal fouls are not only expected, but encouraged. No lost aisles or red flags for punching, gouging and biting. The person with the highest number of maxed out credit cards wins.
Posted by: Eric Rose | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 02:26 PM
But Mike... Shopping is Good!
http://photos.everybookinchina.com/six_months/galleries/all/112.html
Posted by: Jeff Hohner | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 03:13 PM
Andy,
Thanks for the correction. I fixed it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 03:14 PM
Activity for the morning was going to see "Masters of Venice" at the De Young in San Francisco. Almost empty and easy to stand far enough away from the paintings. Shopping was crowded chaos, I imagine. Tee Hee...
Posted by: Steve Greenwood | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 06:21 PM
Being that my specialty is dog photography, the day after Thanksgiving here at Top Dog Imaging is "Bark Friday."
Posted by: Bob Rosinsky | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 06:36 PM
Man after my own heart.
Posted by: John Hall | Friday, 25 November 2011 at 11:56 PM
Mike,
you are probably the marketer's worst nightmare. An intelligent and informed consumer, slightly contrarian, and unlikely to get carried away in the sort of buying frenzy that afflicts crowds when faced with apparently attractive prices and apparently time and stock limited availability of "bargains". I'm with you on that although part of my job is to create such conditions, which isn't hard.
Posted by: James B | Saturday, 26 November 2011 at 03:00 AM
Could it be that the Walmart pepper spray lady works for UC and simply considers it acceptable to spray people who are inconveniently in the way?
Posted by: dale | Saturday, 26 November 2011 at 05:29 AM
Following the coverage of this - which is all new to me as a European - I couldn't help feel that I was watching, or reading, a science fiction tale of some dystopian future. Phillip K Dick or J G Ballard. Very strange...
Posted by: Richard | Saturday, 26 November 2011 at 12:47 PM
Searching Google Groups and limiting the search by date seems to indicate the term was already entering the vernacular by the early 90's. IIRC, it was sometime in the mid 90's that I first got up early to get to a store in time (8AM!) and prior to it's normal hours to get a special deal. (An Xmas gift for my wife, one of the few times I've gotten up early on Black Friday.)
As Darin says above, searching news articles is (for a variety of reasons) a really bad way to measure penetration into the vernacular.
Posted by: DerekL | Saturday, 26 November 2011 at 01:04 PM
Is it really that bad or just the youtube video?
Posted by: Dennis Ng | Sunday, 27 November 2011 at 01:39 AM
Don't worry, the report you are talking about didn't make it to Sydney Australia :)
Posted by: brigitte | Sunday, 27 November 2011 at 04:42 AM
Mike,
You don't need to post this as a comment but I thought I'd share my more uplifting Black Friday story.
Back in January I was installing a security system in an older gentleman's house in my hometown and I noticed that he had a bunch of old cameras displayed in a downstairs room. We ended up talking about photography for a while that day and the fact that I had taken up film photography. A couple of weeks later my wife and I took new jobs and moved away.
Fast forward to this past Wednesday evening. My wife and I have come back to my parents' house for Thanksgiving and there's a message on the answering machine from the gentleman with the cameras (he's done business with my parents in the past and figured out I was their son). He said that he remembered that I had an interest in film photography and that if I was in town he had something he wanted to give me. I called him the next day and we made plans to meet on Friday.
When I arrived at his house he took me down to the cameras, picked up a Rolleiflex 2.8, and asked me if I would like to have it. I was shocked and tried to explain that it was worth a lot of money but he insisted that he would rather give it to someone he knew that would use it than sell it to a stranger. He handed it to me and asked me if there was anything else there I might use. There were a number of Nikons, a Zeiss folder, a Mini Crown Graphic, among other treasures. I told him that the Rolleiflex was more than enough and thanked him over and over. He kept insisting that he didn't want any money so I promised to send him prints from time to time and walked out in a bit of a daze.
There's no real point to the story except to share my anti-Black Friday tale. I'm beyond humbled by the generosity I was shown and hope that I can pass the camera on in the same way when I can no longer use it.
Adam
Posted by: Adam Rothermich | Sunday, 27 November 2011 at 10:23 AM
Dear Speed,
Nicely illustrates the perils of quoting out of context.
Your quote makes them sound like frivolous, irresponsible, girls-just-wanna-have-fun, obsessive mall-hoppers.
Here are selected excerpts that summarize the article, starting with the very first sentence:
"For Estela Juarez, Black Friday is more than just a shopping spree, it’s a lifeline."
then
"They arrived at 4:15 a.m., and had already spent $400 — what each makes a week working at a Chicago factory.
"But they stretched that paycheck, scoring three $70 winter jackets for their children at $15 each. “And I found bigger sizes so they can wear them next year,” Ms. Juarez said. "I have to buy for the future, not just right now.'"
and
"With the economy still slumping, her standards for sales are higher: at least 40% off."
Paints a rather different portrait, doesn't it?!
Folks might want to think on this, in an era where (mis)-quoting sound-bites out of context is a favored method for trashing a political opponent.
pax / Ctein
Posted by: ctein | Sunday, 27 November 2011 at 01:11 PM
Consumerism :(
I hope, for everybody's sake that people stop caring about things, and start caring about experiences sometime soon.
Posted by: Nico Burns | Sunday, 27 November 2011 at 08:25 PM