Showing posts with label Black Friday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Friday. Show all posts
Friday, July 16, 2021
Friday, August 28, 2020
Friday, November 29, 2019
It's "_______________" Friday!
"___________"?
Yes.
Today provides a really interesting example of global tensions in all sorts of things, consumerism and anti-consumerism among them.
In the United States today is often called "Black Friday", as its the day of the year a lot of businesses make a profit for the first time in a year, i.e., go into the black. That's because of Christmas shopping. A lot of people (not me) who have this day off use it to go to post Thanksgiving Day sales for Christmas.
It'd be tempting to decry this as a feature of the current era alone, but in truth Christmas shopping has been a huge deal for well over a century. Indeed the fact that this is so much the case belies the claims occasionally seen that consumerism didn't exist a century ago. It did.
What's new about Black Friday is the huge emphasis on a single day. That's come about in recent years.
And also coming about in recent years are reactions to that. In much of the Western world this day is also Buy Nothing Day, a day whose goals I'll observe simply by default.
Started as a protest against consumerism by an American family in 1968, Buy Nothing Day in that context is part of a larger Buy Nothing For Christmas movement. That no doubt in fact is an intellectual strike against consumerism, but it's also part of latent American puritanism which we've addressed here before. The Puritans were a joyless lot and opposed almost every public expression of fun (as we've noted before, they were not opposed to drinking, which a lot of their followers in later years have been, and they were very okay with private marital bedroom fun). They banned Christmas.
Something that urges people not to buy anything for Christmas at all and to just give gifts that don't involve purchasing are basically urging people to give nothing for Christmas at all, as people don't really have the time or skills in the modern world to knit socks for something for Christmas. Hence the joyless Puritan goal would be achieved, I suspect, and people observing it can accordingly be self smug about it.
Taking another approach is Small Business Saturday which always falls the day after Black Friday. The goal of it is to have people shop locally. It's goal is a consumerist one, but sort of a distributist consumerist one.
Black Friday now coincides with something called Green Friday, which appears to have varying goals depending upon where you are. For some, it's simply the first day of a weekend of environmental activism. For others, in other places, it's focused on sustainable, hence green, products.
In Ireland, however, it's a day to shop local, like Small Business Saturday, but within Ireland. I.e., it coincides with Black Friday, but with a "shop local" emphasis.
One of the interesting things about all of this is how its all hinged on American Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Day in the United States is morphed from the European Catholic tradition of giving thanks for the fall harvest. Nothing consumerist about it at all. It survived the reformation no doubt in part because the very early Church of England simply carried forward, nearly intact, the Catholic faith although that didn't last long and was falling apart by the time Queen Elizabeth I took office. The overall surprising thing is that it survived the Puritans, which makes a person suspect that its somewhat disorganized nature didn't put in in their scopes for elimination. It was, and really remains, a pretty simple holiday and even now most people grasp that they're giving thanks for something.
The big consumer launch that follows Thanksgiving is sort of a calendar accident that has taken place simply due to when American Thanksgiving is. Other countries that still observe something like Thanksgiving don't have the same calendar date, of course. Indeed, the American date floated around for years. Canada's Thanksgiving, for example, is in October. Their harvest is also in October. German Erntedankfest is the fist Sunday of October. Poles have their Święto Dziękczynienia but it's been put on top of Thanksgiving in the US. Most countries had a Thanksgiving Day that was largely the same as the original American one, although quite a few no longer do. In a lot of countries that retain one, it's a day on their local liturgical calendar that falls on a Sunday.
It says something about American consumer muscle that Black Friday is something that exists clean across the globe now. Europeans who are observing a Buy Nothing Friday or a Green Friday (outside of the Irish example), are noting and participating, in some fashion, in an post American Thanksgiving economic boost even if Thanksgiving is foreign to their calendars in the American sense. It's another example of how American culture, and even counter culture, have become so dominant.
Christmas shopping crowds, Alabama, 1941.
Yes.
Today provides a really interesting example of global tensions in all sorts of things, consumerism and anti-consumerism among them.
In the United States today is often called "Black Friday", as its the day of the year a lot of businesses make a profit for the first time in a year, i.e., go into the black. That's because of Christmas shopping. A lot of people (not me) who have this day off use it to go to post Thanksgiving Day sales for Christmas.
It'd be tempting to decry this as a feature of the current era alone, but in truth Christmas shopping has been a huge deal for well over a century. Indeed the fact that this is so much the case belies the claims occasionally seen that consumerism didn't exist a century ago. It did.
What's new about Black Friday is the huge emphasis on a single day. That's come about in recent years.
And also coming about in recent years are reactions to that. In much of the Western world this day is also Buy Nothing Day, a day whose goals I'll observe simply by default.
Started as a protest against consumerism by an American family in 1968, Buy Nothing Day in that context is part of a larger Buy Nothing For Christmas movement. That no doubt in fact is an intellectual strike against consumerism, but it's also part of latent American puritanism which we've addressed here before. The Puritans were a joyless lot and opposed almost every public expression of fun (as we've noted before, they were not opposed to drinking, which a lot of their followers in later years have been, and they were very okay with private marital bedroom fun). They banned Christmas.
Something that urges people not to buy anything for Christmas at all and to just give gifts that don't involve purchasing are basically urging people to give nothing for Christmas at all, as people don't really have the time or skills in the modern world to knit socks for something for Christmas. Hence the joyless Puritan goal would be achieved, I suspect, and people observing it can accordingly be self smug about it.
Taking another approach is Small Business Saturday which always falls the day after Black Friday. The goal of it is to have people shop locally. It's goal is a consumerist one, but sort of a distributist consumerist one.
Black Friday now coincides with something called Green Friday, which appears to have varying goals depending upon where you are. For some, it's simply the first day of a weekend of environmental activism. For others, in other places, it's focused on sustainable, hence green, products.
In Ireland, however, it's a day to shop local, like Small Business Saturday, but within Ireland. I.e., it coincides with Black Friday, but with a "shop local" emphasis.
One of the interesting things about all of this is how its all hinged on American Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Day in the United States is morphed from the European Catholic tradition of giving thanks for the fall harvest. Nothing consumerist about it at all. It survived the reformation no doubt in part because the very early Church of England simply carried forward, nearly intact, the Catholic faith although that didn't last long and was falling apart by the time Queen Elizabeth I took office. The overall surprising thing is that it survived the Puritans, which makes a person suspect that its somewhat disorganized nature didn't put in in their scopes for elimination. It was, and really remains, a pretty simple holiday and even now most people grasp that they're giving thanks for something.
The big consumer launch that follows Thanksgiving is sort of a calendar accident that has taken place simply due to when American Thanksgiving is. Other countries that still observe something like Thanksgiving don't have the same calendar date, of course. Indeed, the American date floated around for years. Canada's Thanksgiving, for example, is in October. Their harvest is also in October. German Erntedankfest is the fist Sunday of October. Poles have their Święto Dziękczynienia but it's been put on top of Thanksgiving in the US. Most countries had a Thanksgiving Day that was largely the same as the original American one, although quite a few no longer do. In a lot of countries that retain one, it's a day on their local liturgical calendar that falls on a Sunday.
It says something about American consumer muscle that Black Friday is something that exists clean across the globe now. Europeans who are observing a Buy Nothing Friday or a Green Friday (outside of the Irish example), are noting and participating, in some fashion, in an post American Thanksgiving economic boost even if Thanksgiving is foreign to their calendars in the American sense. It's another example of how American culture, and even counter culture, have become so dominant.
Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Colorado State Parks Free on Friday, Nov. 29th
Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Colorado State Parks Free on Friday, Nov. 29th: News release from Colorado Parks & Wildlife DENVER- Reclaim Nov. 29 by avoiding the shopping hysteria and getting outside for a breat...
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Wasted Wednesday?
I heard this phrase for the first time yesterday.
Ironically, I'd just completed an item that will run later this week on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Green Friday, Buy Nothing Day, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.
Wasted Wednesday was a new one.
I figured it was called that as the day tends to be wasted, in productivity terms. And as a person who always works this day no matter what, and who often works at least one of the work days prior to the next business day (the infamous Cyber Monday), it is often not terribly productive.
But, nope. It's called that as apparently its a day in which there's a lot of heavy drinking.
I don't know what to say about that. Alcohol and the holidays have gone together for a long time. I suppose this is nothing new, but it sounds like it is. And if it is, that's a sad development.
Ironically, I'd just completed an item that will run later this week on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Green Friday, Buy Nothing Day, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.
Wasted Wednesday was a new one.
I figured it was called that as the day tends to be wasted, in productivity terms. And as a person who always works this day no matter what, and who often works at least one of the work days prior to the next business day (the infamous Cyber Monday), it is often not terribly productive.
But, nope. It's called that as apparently its a day in which there's a lot of heavy drinking.
I don't know what to say about that. Alcohol and the holidays have gone together for a long time. I suppose this is nothing new, but it sounds like it is. And if it is, that's a sad development.
Monday, November 26, 2018
Thanksgiving and Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, oh my!
Today is Cyber Monday, originally so named as this was the day when workers returning to their offices, work stations, cubicles etc., chose to shop on company time, rather than dive right back in.
Not surprising really. Those with a long weekend tend to return for the most part with the post holiday blahs.
Retailers, however, picked up this pretty quickly and started offering Cyber Monday deals, making it a real thing.
How about you, have you participated in the Consumer Culture Bacchanalia? It's sort of hard not to, although I support Small Business Saturday.
Which doesn't mean I participated in it. I don't like shopping much anyhow. And my land line phone has broken so that the message light hasn't been going off. Given that, I missed an invitation to a book signing, but truth be known as I was very much looking forwards to four days in a row with now work, perhaps that was to my benefit in another sense. Book signings make me really tense as I'm highly introverted by nature, something that people who know me only in a professional sense would be surprised to learn.
Anyhow, I guess it isn't true that I didn't participate entirely. That Saturday I did run out and stop by a sporting goods store to get something I required anyhow. Things were marked way, way down and it wasn't until I got home that I realized that it must have been a Small Business Saturday sale.
My daughter and wife did participate, however. They went to a collection of small local businesses on Saturday to shop for Christmas. Good for them.
Thanksgiving was otherwise low key but odd. As already noted on these pages, we went to our in laws where an elderly hunter died in a field while we were out there. Strange melancholy experience. The next day I had a message from one of my employees about a medical emergency of epic proportions in their family, very distressing indeed. All that caste a sort of tense gloom over things. I didn't work, however, and did go hunting a couple of times.
Cyber Monday? Who knows, perhaps even I'll participate a bit.
Not surprising really. Those with a long weekend tend to return for the most part with the post holiday blahs.
Retailers, however, picked up this pretty quickly and started offering Cyber Monday deals, making it a real thing.
How about you, have you participated in the Consumer Culture Bacchanalia? It's sort of hard not to, although I support Small Business Saturday.
Which doesn't mean I participated in it. I don't like shopping much anyhow. And my land line phone has broken so that the message light hasn't been going off. Given that, I missed an invitation to a book signing, but truth be known as I was very much looking forwards to four days in a row with now work, perhaps that was to my benefit in another sense. Book signings make me really tense as I'm highly introverted by nature, something that people who know me only in a professional sense would be surprised to learn.
Anyhow, I guess it isn't true that I didn't participate entirely. That Saturday I did run out and stop by a sporting goods store to get something I required anyhow. Things were marked way, way down and it wasn't until I got home that I realized that it must have been a Small Business Saturday sale.
My daughter and wife did participate, however. They went to a collection of small local businesses on Saturday to shop for Christmas. Good for them.
Thanksgiving was otherwise low key but odd. As already noted on these pages, we went to our in laws where an elderly hunter died in a field while we were out there. Strange melancholy experience. The next day I had a message from one of my employees about a medical emergency of epic proportions in their family, very distressing indeed. All that caste a sort of tense gloom over things. I didn't work, however, and did go hunting a couple of times.
Cyber Monday? Who knows, perhaps even I'll participate a bit.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Eh? Oh Cyber Monday
I'd forgotten that Black Friday is followed by Cyber Monday.
As I don't pay much attention to such things, I'd sort of dimly recalled that there was a computer sales hootenanny, but I didn't remember when. I sort of thought it was Saturday.
It's today, Monday, as people return to work, and shop with their work computers. Seriously. Makes sense, I guess.
So there you have it. Thanksgiving, with Black Friday creeping into Thursday night of Thanksgiving. Black Friday. Then Small Business Saturday, followed by Cyber Monday. Black Friday seems to have been a disappointment, I guess, and so there's big hopes pinned on Cyber Monday. I guess it's the equivalent of what catalogs were, with much more ease of purchase, back when I was young.
As I don't pay much attention to such things, I'd sort of dimly recalled that there was a computer sales hootenanny, but I didn't remember when. I sort of thought it was Saturday.
It's today, Monday, as people return to work, and shop with their work computers. Seriously. Makes sense, I guess.
So there you have it. Thanksgiving, with Black Friday creeping into Thursday night of Thanksgiving. Black Friday. Then Small Business Saturday, followed by Cyber Monday. Black Friday seems to have been a disappointment, I guess, and so there's big hopes pinned on Cyber Monday. I guess it's the equivalent of what catalogs were, with much more ease of purchase, back when I was young.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Lex Anteinternet: Distributist of the world unite! National Small B...
Lex Anteinternet: Distributist of the world unite! National Small B...: Saturday, November 29, is National Small Business Saturday, a holiday, of sorts, oddly enough thought up American Express. This follow...Since posting this I've been impressed by the seemingly endless series of days that follow Thanksgiving, dedicated or observed in some informal fashion. The sales frenzy following Thanksgiving is, of course, Black Friday. Then we have now National Small Business Saturday. I'd forgotten that the following Monday is Cyber Monday, but saw reporting on it, on the news, yesterday. And today is apparently something like C heritable Tuesday. An interesting series of competing, or perhaps compatible, forces at work there.
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