An Ode to Black Friday
- Mimi Nikolic '26
- Dec 13, 2024
- 3 min read
A once exciting opportunity to witness small-scale war amongst everyday people, Black friday has been desecrated by online shopping.
Once upon a time in the ancient era of the 2000s and 2010s, there existed a sacred American ritual that brought us together on a holiday just one day after the insignificant Thanksgiving: Black Friday. It was the one day a year when societal norms were thrown out in favor of sleeping in a line with hundreds outside of Best Buy at 3 a.m., beating up strangers over a $30 toaster you just needed that holiday season, and finding a way to justify it all for the sake of a good “deal.” Now? Black Friday is a washed-up has-been. A beautiful holiday gone to waste. Prime Day, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day… you name a date some website will have a “sale” being advertised.
Who cares about Black Friday anymore? Seriously. The sales are nothing like what they used to be, these stores have gone cheap on us. Gone are the days of real, pulse-pounding markdowns where you’d sell your own children and dignity for a $100 flat-screen TV. Instead, today’s “Black Friday” deals are a cruel joke, a cynical game of smoke and mirrors. “Was $300, now $299.99! Plus shipping!!” and it still manages to get some people. Stores have given up on putting huge markdowns on products instead, hoping the stupid masses of shoppers will storm the stores buying the same products for the same price.
The decline of Black Friday hype has been both an economic shift and a national tragedy. My Thanksgiving break used to consist of sitting with my family and watching the news show grainy, handheld footage of grown adults fighting over an Xbox like it was a gladiator match in the Colosseum. Best Buy, Walmart, Macy’s—these were the battlegrounds where America came alive, uniting us all.
The Black Friday Chaos
Nobody is breaking down doors to the mall or beating up security guards. Fighting is at the core of the American experience and we are at a total lack in this day and age. People now would rather stay at home chasing mid-tier discounts on Amazon. Online shopping is the real villain here, as the creation of Cyber Monday killed the joy in America, telling us consumers how convenient it is to get these deals from the comfort of our couches. In losing the chaos, we lost the magic. Black Friday isn’t just about shopping. It’s a tradition and one that united everyone in our day and age: liberals, conservatives, vegans, carnivores—everyone came together. It was as close to harmony as America could get, and I would say, the last time we have seen America united in a long time. The experience of being shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers in an aisle, arguing whether it was worth losing a chunk of hair to get that new Apple watch; you didn’t care who they voted for. You were united by a common cause: the deal. Black Friday’s decline is intertwined with the unraveling of our society, which is divided, isolated, and most importantly, boring. No more stampedes at Sears (RIP). Instead, I was forced to watch people’s monotone tiktok hauls this Black Friday. Honestly, it’s depressing that there are no lines at 11:00 p.m. Thanksgiving night waiting for the gates of a store to open.
Consumerism in America is a present illness that won’t go away anytime soon; but at least in the years past it felt alive. Now it’s like a post-apocalyptic struggle seeing someone one-click order their air fryer from Amazon, which is about as exciting as watching paint dry. So where do we go from here? Can we resurrect Black Friday, or are we doomed to live in a world where deals are digital and chaos-free? I want to believe there’s still hope, but as I paced around the Century City Mall on Black Friday, it didn’t seem that promising. Maybe, just maybe, America can remember what it felt like to go to war for a blender.
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