Do you shop Black Friday sales in person at the store? Have you gotten into any good brawls there? Apparently, you can be a youtube star if you snatch a product away from a little kid, choke a nearby customer and/or act obnoxiously or dangerously. Some of these "Black Friday" videos show security being entirely overwhelmed by stampeding hordes of customers.
It's crazy.
I don't go out of my way to watch the videos, but occasionally a friend or a news source will post a picture and a link about them. What little I've seen makes me glad I just stay home. Maybe a little Amazon. My computer email inbox goes just nuts. There is enough stuff "out there" that one could probably find a decent bargain, if not a ridiculous bargain.
Do we all need ridiculous bargains?
Washington Post says that these videos are nothing but wealthy people being entertained at the expense of the poor. I disagree. I think it's just like any other news video. You need to keep it in context and remember not everyone is like that. Though I have no doubt Black Friday is just a crazy time. No bargain is worth losing your cool over like that. We're not starving and snatching food packets here. Actually? I've seen news clips of starving people grabbing for food packets and they're more orderly.
The paper also states that plenty of people like to make racist comments about the videos, comparing shoppers to animals and that sort of thing. I'm sure many comments are, in fact, racist, what with the internet being what it is and all. But animals come in all colours and sizes judging from what little I've seen.
At the same time, what you don't see on these videos are the people who hop into the store, find a bargain or don't find a bargain, and exit the store without causing a commotion. Yeah, videos like that just don't go viral. Could you imagine my making a video titled, "Buying Frozen Peas at the Grocery" and getting over 50 million views?
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Look Out, Dad!!
My father is the purple dot above the blue weather station. He's juuust outside Milton's evacuation zone. Well! My brother and I jus...
Never go to sales just buy what I want when I want, it does work out cheaper and I don't end up with lots of stuff I don't want or need plus I don't like crowds.
ReplyDeleteMerle..........
You save 100% on the stuff you don't buy! Brilliant!
DeleteI don't think we have Black Friday sales here, we do have before Christmas sales and after Christmas sales, by I don't think there's hordes of people stampeding over each other the grab something/anything.
ReplyDeleteThe most congested sale I ever saw was when a department store,Harris Scarfe, was closing down and even then people were civilised. The sales began six months before closure and as the closing date got nearer the prices got lower. In the last week, the store was so very crowded I could hardly walk through any department that still had things in it. almost everything had been moved to the lowest floor and crammed in anywhere, lines at the few checkouts were a couple of hundred people long, easily, yet every one was patient and nobody even shoved anybody else. I remember getting a couple of $90 handbags for $30 each and when I saw wallets that would match each one, the assistant put them in the bags and I got them for $5 each.
I like that idea of a good bargain but not a crazy one. And that idea of sales assistants. I mean real sales assistants that actually know how to help you find what you are looking for or give genuinely helpful suggestions. They've pretty well disappeared from the US unless one goes to a high-end store. Even then, you know they have a sales quota and will push you to the most expensive item they figure you'd be willing to spring for.
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