Last year around this time I ranted about the concept of the consumer orgy referred to as Black Friday being an unwelcome invasion in my life. (Click HERE for said entry). One year later, my feelings towards Black Friday have not improved. If anything, they have become, for lack of a more politically correct term, blacker. I harbour a growing resentment to being bombarded by Black Friday offers, campaigns, announcements to the point where I feel bullied and cornered. Everywhere I go online there is some offer or another popping up trying desperately to entice me to shell out money. Online shopping has hit a new high this year, with millions of people shopping from home instead of strolling around malls and shopping areas, for a good reason, but Black Friday wasn’t invented this year. If anything, I feel as though it has transmogrified into a gigantic purple monster with seven heads looming around every tab I dare to open.
For years I felt safe from the Black Friday shopping frenzy, mistakenly assuming it was confined to North America. It wasn’t until I moved back to Germany that I discovered that the reason I was isolated from it all was simply because I had been living in countries that were not heavily influenced by US shopping trends. Imagine my horror to be back in Germany and be inundated by Black Friday offers from every possible crevice. You can’t even poo these days without being attacked by a Black Friday offer for whatever it is you might need while doing your natural biological expulsions! Good heavens, there is even a dedicated website here in Germany for all the offers available.
This time you can’t even blame it entirely on Amazon! Even the IT giants like Adobe have jumped on the bandwagon, and certainly all the telecom conglomerates. Anything that requires a membership fee will most certainly be offering Black Friday deals as well. You will be broke before Christmas even rolls around! The only thing missing is a Black Friday deal for COVID-19. There is still time to come up with one though – book your vaccine and get the next one free…
Historically, Black Fridays have always been associated with natural, political or economic disasters, dating all the way back to 1688. The consumer-related Black Friday that most people associate the day with now (the Friday immediately following the US Thanksgiving holiday) only began in 1952. In 68 years this originally harmless concept has overflowed into several countries around the globe, and I for one, reject it.
If Christmas and New Year celebrations are being cancelled across continents (if it were up to the Canadian and British Prime Ministers the holiday itself would be cancelled this year!), even the beloved Christmas markets in Germany, France and Austria, why can’t we bloody well cancel Black Friday as well?
FrogDiva Thoughts 