That title sounds like the start of a silly song.
“Who put the ‘Black’ in Black Friday?
Grab stuff before it’s all gone. (dum dum dum dum dum)
Don’t be a snivelling cry-baby,
Crash through the queues and be strong!”
The first I really heard about Black Friday was a couple of years ago via Amazon UK’s Black Friday deals. For a while that’s all we had, but this year one of the “Big Four” supermarkets decided to bring Black Friday to the UK! Yes, it has made its way across “The Pond” and reached our happy shore.
Within mere moments the full glory of Black Friday became a reality. There were massive queues, pushing, shoving, fights and a “suspected broken arm”. I feel like the UK has finally “arrived”! No longer will we be regarded as a nation of polite queuers. We can rip each other apart with the best of them! Woohoo!
Oh me oh my. This is like my worst nightmare made flesh.
(Picture from newnownext.com.)
Apparently this all started in the early sixties in Philadelphia, USA and in the early 2000’s had become quite the shopping day. Shops began opening earlier and earlier until ultimately in 2011 they began to open at midnight. There are a couple of theories on the origin of the term “Black” – one of which being that it is the first day of the year when retailers go “into the black”. However, the earliest usage seems to suggest that it was coined by police, bus drivers and cabbies in Philadelphia in the sixties, referring to the awful traffic jams on that day. (Information from Wikipedia – so it must be true!)
Obviously, on an ordinary shopping day in England, a conversation might go something like this:
“Oh, I say, the latest toy! I shall just reach across and…”
“Excuse me, old bean, but I do believe I saw that first!”
“Oh, do excuse me, old chap. Please, you take it.”
“Awfully decent of you, dear fellow.”
On Friday it was more like this:
“Yes, that’s the one, giz ‘ere!”
“Oy, I saw it first! Get off it!”
“Finders keepers, be-atch!”
“You slaaaaaag!”
(Fisticuffs begin)
What was the object of this little fight I wonder?
Could it have been this frankly quite hideous little dude?
(Picture from amazon.co.uk)
Something about a single day of massive bargains seems to destroy all civilised thought. If people act like this over a cut-price TV or the last of the Furbies, I dread to think what might happen if some future disaster destroys the world’s food supply and people are queuing up to buy the last tin of baked beans on the planet.
So what is the real origin of the “Black” in Black Friday? That it brings out the blacker side of some people’s nature?
(I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to the woman I met across a shelf of cut-price television sets. I’m sure that your arm will heal in no time, and I have no doubt that modern medical science will have no trouble re-attaching your ear.)*
*This never really happened!**
**OR DID IT?!?!
How did your Black Friday go? Did you hide away, or did you grab some cool bargains? A cut-price Furby perhaps? Did you camp out or shop online? Let me know!
