Friday, November 23, 2012

They call it Black Friday

For me, it's like driving past a bad wreck on the highway. Don't really want to look, but can't help myself. So every year I watch the black, rotting heart of American consumerism further subsume the better natures of humankind.

Thankfully, no reports of Black Friday deaths or tramplings that I've seen, though of course there were some disturbing incidents of Christmas shopper conflicts. I especially loved the guy in Texas who pulled a gun on a line cutter. He wasn't arrested because he had a concealed carry permit. Assume threatening to kill someone for trying to get between you and your new flat screen teevee is justifiable under the castle doctrine. Or something. Are state's rights great or what?

I've rubbernecked at way too much of the coverage today. This was the seminal video. Fair warning, it's dubbed with an awful heavy metal track. Sadly, it fits the footage too well.



On the bright side, the internets tell me this only reflects about 18% of our population. So there's that.

8 comments:

Victor said...

For a few seconds, I thought these were starving people in a 3rd World country, fighting for food that was being distributed.

Then I saw how many of them were fat, and a $1.99 sign behind them like the kind you see at WalMart, and I realized, 'Nope, these a moronic American shoppers acting sharks at a feeding frenzy.'

I worked as a Customer Service Rep at a Sears while I went to college in the late 70's to early 80's. I don't shop in malls unless I can avoid it - and now, being poor, I have absolutely no reason to shop for anything except necessities.

Never Ben Better said...

I suspect lemmings would display more manners while heading off the cliff.

We see these annual advertising-driven frenzies and wonder why a Romney/Ryan ticket can draw 47+ percent of the vote?

Libby Spencer said...

Frightening stuff. I forgot to add the link to the BuzzFeed quiz. I only got 10 out of 15 right. It's really hard to tell the difference between crazed shoppers and actual riots.

Never Ben Better said...

Hey, I got 12 out of 15 right! And I never attend either type of festivity.

Victor said...

12 out of 15 for me, too!

And, like NBB, have never attended one of either.
Plenty of purchasing, and plenty of protests - but no BF shopping or rioting.

merlallen said...

The guy who pulled the gun was punched in the face by the guy he pulled it on. The puncher is lucky to be alive, I'm pretty sure Texas has a self defense law to cover that.

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