Why Black Friday Is a Scam for Consumers

In the United States, the day after Thanksgiving is the single busiest shopping day of the year. This day marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. It is the starting pistol that signals people across the country to begin their search for that perfect gift en masse. Although Black Friday continues to gain momentum year after year, I think that it becomes more and more of a scam for consumers each year.

The story goes that retailers who operate at a loss most of the year do enough business on Black Friday to make a profit and thus move their accounting figures from red to black, hence the name. Retailers encourage shoppers to spend more by offering one-day-only sales on limited quantities of goods at drastically reduced prices. These no-coupon, no-rebate, and no rain check sales are the stuff of legend, which is why they occur just once a year.

In the days leading up to Black Friday, Internet message boards begin buzzing with rumors about which stores are having the biggest sales. People post store flyers and advertisements online and discuss which stores are having the best deals. Consumers get shaken up with excitement over these deals as the pressure builds like a bottle of soda.

On Thanksgiving Day people begin lining up outside retail stores like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Costco, and the shopping mall. They will endure darkness, discomfort, and cold weather all night long just to be first in line on opening day. They will take time off from work and be away from their families at the prospect of saving a few dollars on some hot consumer item. Some people even camp out days in advance!

This kind of insane consumer loyalty has expanded beyond Black Friday and is now commonplace. People have camped out for the release of major video game systems including the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii. People will line up outside of a movie theater hours before a film opens to catch the first midnight show (Star Wars anyone?). Some people will queue up outside of bookstores waiting for the hot new titles from JK Rowling wearing homemade costumes of the characters! They will wait in line for hours to buy concert tickets, iPhones and just about everything else.

On Black Friday, the pressure reaches a critical mass. Spots at the front of the line are sold for hundreds of dollars in the hours before stores open. Crowds of ravenous shoppers tear through the stores as the front doors are unlocked. People shove each other out of the way as they run down the aisles. Store workers are trampled and injured in the mass of confusion. Shoppers motivated by greed will buy two or more of a hot item hoping to resell it at an inflated price.

Black Friday is a frenzy of consumer spending unlike anything else in the world. It is an orgy of spending and mass consumption. This poses the question: is getting a great deal worth the true cost of Black Friday deals? I don't think it is.

The whole ritual that Black Friday has become just sickens me. I can't believe that people will stand in line outside of a store all night so they can have the "privilege" of being the first to fork over their hard earned cash for some mass produced piece of garbage. I can't believe they will pay hundreds of dollars to cut to the front of the line. I can't believe they can be so brutal to their fellow man when storming the aisles in search of bargains. They trample each other like a herd of wild animals instead of civilized humans. Christmas is a time for joy, peace, and love. Black Friday is just the opposite: it is all about greed, selfishness, and a lack of compassion for others.

To take part in the madness of Black Friday is to give up your dignity as a consumer. Standing in line all night says to the world that there's nothing you won't do to save a few bucks. By standing in line, your friends, family, co-workers, and even retailers can see what a gullible fool you are. Am I being too harsh? Absolutely not, because only a fool would stand in line all night risking their own safety and comfort to buy that must-have present! In all likeliness, a present that will be forgotten about by next Thanksgiving.

I like getting great deals as much as the next guy, but the truth is that many of these hot deals just aren't worth it. An example might help illustrate my point. Let's say that a big-box electronics retailer is advertising a $100 digital camera for $49 in-store, one day only. $51 dollars off sounds like a great deal, right?

Well if you arrive at the store at midnight and stake out a place in line until the store opens at 8am, that's eight hours of waiting. You only saved a little over $6 dollars an hour by standing there all night (assuming you actually get the camera). Is that $6 dollars worth more to you than an hour with your family? Is it worth more than an hour of sleep? This is the hidden cost of these "killer deals:" you pay for them with your time.

Personally, it's worth it to me to pay the regular price and get a good night's sleep. It's worth it to me to not get trampled by some foaming-at-the-mouth, bargain-crazed shopper on the way to the electronics department. It's worth it to me to maintain my dignity as a shopper. No product is so desirable to me that I would pay twice its retail value to a scalper selling one on Craigslist.

Don't get me wrong, I like gadgets and technology. But nothing is so important to own that I would lie in a sleeping bag on the ground and watch the sun come up for. That shitty feeling would forever be associated with that product in my mind and I would remember it every time I used it.

Do the world a favor and shop sensibly this year on Black Friday. Don't join the hoards of compulsive consumers in wrestling over Bluetooth earpieces. It's not worth your dignity or your time. Remember, it's just stuff.

I'm not the only one who feels this way:
http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n51/my_shopping_orgy
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/29/useconomy-retail

Celebrity Gossip Magazines are Completely Irrelevant

It seems like there is a magazine for every hobby and interest these days. There are even magazines for people who are interested in the lives of other people. One of the lowest forms of entertainment are the magazines that dish out the latest gossip on Hollywood celebrities and their off-camera lives.

You know them as US Weekly, People, and Life & Style magazine. These weekly rags appear at the checkout of every grocery and convenience store from coast to coast. Co-workers gaze at them during their lunch breaks. Women flip through them as they get their hair or nails done. And yet nothing between the front cover and back cover is of any importance at all!


The idea that anyone would care to read about the everyday lives of actors, singers, and other high profile individuals is lost on me. Celebrities are not more special than ordinary people, and everything they do and say should not be taken as gospel. Being an actor is a job, just like flipping burgers and waiting tables are jobs. Someone has to do it. Celebrities do not deserve special treatment just because they made a record or starred in a film.

The headlines make every article sound like the most monumental news since Moses delivered the 10 Commandments. Check out who's engaged and who's getting divorced! Look at the dress that so-and-so wore to some stupid event! Holy s**t, this is major life-changing news that YOU need to know!! And of course it's always printed in the most eye-catching, bright yellow, 96-point text that makes real layout designers cry.

Guess what, people who star in movies aren't any different from people who assemble widgets for a living. They get married and divorced, they have children, and they shop at the store. They go to the beach and drive cars just like normal people - because that's exactly what they are. They're just regular people and they should be treated as such.

I hate the idea that people fawn over celebrities and everything they do. Wow, look at Britney Spears stopping for coffee at Starbucks! Check out this person who gained or lost weight! Look at her hair, nails, and clothes! SO WHAT?! A high-paying job is no excuse for such ridiculous special treatment.

If you think celebrities are such amazing, gracious, generous super-people, I've got news for you: being directed around a soundstage by someone else for eight months while wearing too much makeup does not make one qualified to give opinions on current news and world events.

Celebrity tabloid magazines don't need to exist. They are nothing but photographs and ads with no real articles or content at all. They are a form of Prolefeed, a term first coined by George Orwell in his novel "Ninteen Eighty-Four." They entertain the most easily-distracted people in society with lots of pretty pictures. They provide drama and excitement to people whose lives are lacking both.

If you think this passes for entertainment of any sort, you're wrong. Celebrity gossip magazines aren't worth the paper they're printed on. They are not even worth complaining about beyond what I have already.

I'm not the only one who feels this way:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/non_aviation/read.main/1945863/
http://everything2.com/title/celebrities
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/1736/200905amusingourselvest.png

Why Car Magazines Suck

The Automotive Gossip industry is almost as big and competitive as the Automotive industry itself. On the newsstand you have magazines such as Car and Driver, Road and Track, Motor Trend, and AutoWeek. On the web you have AutoBlog, and Jalopnik. There are no shortage of publications claiming to have the most authentic and most current industry news about the car industry.

For the longest time, I enjoyed keeping up with the news in the automotive industry through magazines and periodicals. After a while though, the magazines all started to sound the same to me.
One problem with car magazines is that the reviewers are always so snobbish about the vehicles they test drive. They expected the Cadillac to be more luxurious or the Mustang to be faster. They complain about the suspension being too stiff or the engine not powerful enough. They gripe about automatic transmissions being slushy or a steering wheel that feels too small.

These automotive pundits have forgotten that the majority of their readers do not get behind the wheel of a high-performance or exotic car every day. Most drivers have very boring cars, and we would be happy to have a vehicle that works without breaking down on us.

For example, the 14-year old economy car that I drive has been nothing but one expensive repair after another during the six years I have owned it. I would gladly take home any new car featured in a magazine, even if the reviewer thinks the leather trim is the wrong color.

After a while, the things that reviewers dislike about cars start to sound petty, insignificant, and downright ridiculous. It's almost as though they approach every vehicle with a magnifying glass rather than looking at the bigger picture, which is this: car manufacturing has come a LONG way over the past few decades. New vehicles are dramatically safer, more comfortable, and more efficient than ever before. There's almost nothing to complain about, so they magnify the smallest quirks in a vehicle to write an article.

What car magazines should focus on is helping people find the right car for their needs. How fun it is to drive, how well it performs in everyday situations, and how much it costs to maintain. These are things that average drivers would like to know before purchasing a new vehicle.

Instead, car magazines love to bombard you with useless facts, like how fast it goes around some fucking racetrack in Germany or how the new Mercedes has 0.006 inches more legroom than the BMW. They blast you with statistics that really aren't that important or relevant to how the vehicle will be driven in the real world.

They claim one car is superior to another because it has six more horsepower or is a fraction of a second faster down the dragstrip. Honestly, I would be happy to have a car with a zero-to-sixty time that's not measured in minutes! The automotive gossip industry is so wrapped up in cramming data down your throat that they've lost touch with the people who truly enjoy the experience of driving.

In spite of all this, the automotive gossip industry stronger than ever. An entire subculture of people now post their thoughts about every new make and model to be announced. Log on to any automotive news forum or message board to find out what Joe from Philadelphia thinks of the newest Kia crossover. Seriously, who gives a crap? These armchair experts probably drive around in a 1992 Toyota Corolla and yet trumpet their opinions about the newest generation of muscle cars like they're the freaking world experts.

As a whole, the automotive gossip industry is full of self-absorbed know-it-alls and "experts" who quote arbitrary facts out of context to try and seem smart. Headlines that are of paramount importance one day are discarded and forgotten the next day. Everyone's looking for the next big thing and living in the "now" with no thought to the past or future. I'm sorry, but car magazines just aren't fun to read anymore.

I'm not the only one who feels this way:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/car-and-driver-road-track-motor-trend-automobile-americas-buff-books-laid-low/
http://autosnob.blogspot.com/2009/10/power-of-preconceptions.html