If you went shopping today you may have noticed no lines.
No excitement.
No drama..
No fights.
And quite frankly no deals–but were there ever deals? It was all fake anyway, right?
In the end, everything is cyclical–including Black Friday’s demise.
A few reports for your viewing..
It’s over..
It is too early to stick a fork in it, but things sure seemed quiet this year.
Despite previous years’ fights and retail mayhem, we went silent in 2021.. yes the pandemic. We know. But even with that said, a semblance of a return to “normal” tried to occur before the omicron outbreak started in South Africa.. and even with that, these numbers:
Retail watchers say that the “consumers,” as they refer to the huddled massive of bargain basement shoppers, are starting to browse earlier.. online retail is going to soon far outweigh the brick and mortar..
Stores being closed had an impact as well..
On Thanksgiving day, visits to brick-and-mortar stores cratered 90.4% from 2019 levels, Sensormatic found. Retailers including Target, Walmart and Best Buy opted to keep their doors closed to customers on the holiday. Target has said it will be a permanent shift.
One of our yearly traditions since we began this website back in 1999 was the imagery and pageantry of Black Friday madness! Brawls and fights.. people going out to shop but landing in a coma, all while old terrible quality cell phone videos caught the rampage..
None of that this year.
NOTHING.
It was quite quaint and orderly. We did not even get sent one fight, one punch… one scream.. The masks kept those who actually shopped quite quiet!
The AP captured the event for history like this, with Alexandra Olson writing,
The raging coronavirus pandemic kept crowds thin at malls and stores across the country on Black Friday, but a surge in online shopping offered a beacon of hope for struggling retailers after months of slumping sales and businesses toppling into bankruptcy.
Talk about depressing!
But is it all the virus?
For years, we have seen spending habits changing.
Big box chains have been slowly bleedings for years, and “local Saturday” shops have been closing.. Cyber Monday has immersed from the shuffle with the grand prize!
A graphical representation:
This year, Black Friday is a story of the haves vs the everyone else!
People in line for a Playstation 5 may have been equipped with the hundreds to spend to get it, but were shocked to hear their local game stop only had 2 per store for the most part!
Meanwhile, the rest of the country is seeing a spike in hunger and food lines..
While you may not see in on the American media cable channel of your choice, the world is watching a nation spiral out of control..
In what is traditionally a season of celebration, less than half of US households with children feel “very confident” about having enough money to afford the food needed over the next month, according to the US Census Bureau’s latest pandemic survey. A staggering 5.6m households struggled to put enough food on the table in the past week.
Families of color are suffering disproportionately with 27% of black and 23% of Latino respondents with children reported not having enough to eat sometimes or often over the past week – compared with 12% of white people.
Overall food insecurity has doubled since last year due to record unemployment and underemployment rates. For families with children, hunger is three times higher than in 2019, according to analysis by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, director of the non-partisan Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.
Another British publication, the UK DAILY MAIL, is showcasing a starving nation during pandemic
A staggering 5.6 million people struggled to put enough food on the table in the past week according to US Census survey data, while an estimated two million people are expected to go hungry in New York this holiday season.
From New York to California, people waited for hours on end to claim their parcels for the holidays and celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Tyler Perry and Tracy Morgan have lent a hand.
So yes..
This year we miss images like this:
Because now all we see are images like this:
Perhaps no videos this year of people having a knockout drag out affair to get the newest piece of cheaply made plastic..
Instead various reports from around the nation are showcasing empty stores. Quiet lines.
Media blaming COVID, but black Friday has been waning in popularity for years.
In one instance, a Philadelphia news site saw a longer line for people to be paid for donating plasma than the Game Stop next door selling only 2 PlayStation 5’s..
Other reports from around the country report mainly quiet retail, with mostly gaming being the top contender for potential crowds (until they find out how severely limited stocks of the PlayStation 5 console are)…
During a time when all other traditions are being killed or dying natural deaths, is this retail hell another one that will be gone?
Developing
In the heat of the moment, with major PR firms spreading news that Black Friday sales were breaking records and that profits would be had, I predicted that it would end up being less than stellar.. mediocre I thought!
And this comes today…
News now that the Thanksgiving and Black Friday store sales have yet again fallen. The online sales? up.. brick and mortar.. failure..
This has been the pattern for years.. My little experience allowed me to surprise this result.. my wife and son and I stopped by a Walmart Thanksgiving night after a family dinner. It was empty.. We had to go get, of all things, groceries on Friday.. and still nobody.. NADA.. Empty.
The facts speak for themselves..
Internet sales rose in the double digits on both days, surpassing $3 billion for the first time on Black Friday, according to data released on Saturday.
Data from analytics firm RetailNext showed net sales at brick-and-mortar stores fell 5.0 percent over the two days, while the number of transactions fell 7.9 percent.
Black Friday is filled with countless amazing stories of great deals and beautiful people shopping. But let’s face it, that is not the type of stuff we enjoy.
We like the fights..
The brutal seasons beatings..
We have no time for quaint tales of monetary bounties. We want the blood and guts..
This year, like others, we simply have to search the news accounts of Black Friday and we will be hit with a lot of fodder for our enjoyment. Forgive me for giving press to such notoriety.. but deep down, we just love watching endless consumerism equal inhumanity and desperate people doing desperate things.
For ….plastic.. For .. slave-made products.. For .. junk in the trunk.
A few notes from ‘Merica so far..
Here is a video showing people running around for an in-demand STEAMER (a veggie steamer people) … a woman is seen ripping it out of the arms of a child..
That was worth it, right?
I bet the extra violence in the purchase will surrreee feel nice when you wrap up that gift–one that will no doubt be in a landfill by sometime around mid-2016..
Here is another piece of cinematic glory for Christmas time: Punches are being thrown at a Kentucky mall:
Here are the kids doing what they do best, I assume:
Keep some decency people!
Keep some perspective.
This is going to be the theme of this fine Black Friday morning.. children being brutalized by adults because they are holding vegetable steamers.
These are mostly products you don’t really need.. don’t really want.. really cannot afford.. And you are also (sorry to tell you) not getting any deals much at all! The prices have already been artificially inflated so when they go back to a little closer to normal for Black Friday you think you get a whopping deal. It’s all a hoax. It’s all staged.. And you , when you chop while you shop and beat your fellow neighbor over steamers, are simply actors on that already built stage of retail.
Enjoy it..
Just a few more..
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxZmDwqg9BA]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0C8TDU1Ykc]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9_LMQc2Z-o]
The media reminds me a lot of Andre Linoge from Stephen King’s STORM OF THE CENTURY. In that fictitious horror tale, Linoge was an aging devil looking for a child apprentice to teach the evil ways.. he found one by demanding a town during a massive blizzard to give him what he wants and he will go away. After chaos and brutal fights ensued, Linoge took his child and flew off into the distance, leaving the mess of the world behind him.
The media does just that. In Ferguson last week, after drumming up people and revving their airwave engines, they inspired a riot. They wanted it. They needed ratings, and knew that once the grand jury decision regarding the Michael Brown shooting would be revealed, their dreams could be fulfilled. A town burned, even some media folk got their heads slammed with bricks. And the next day, as the smoldering mess was still too hot to touch, the media slowly vacated the scene and took their news trucks with them. They really, really don’t care about Michael Brown, nor do they care about justice or a police state. They wanted ratings.. for a brief night in November, they got astounding ratings. And a city burned..
Now, with Black Friday upon us, the media has the same desire. They want rage, blood, fights, and gore. They hope that the shopping scene is chaos, that store owners will be in peril, and that shoppers fighting over foreign made slave products will punch and push their way through lines in stores all over the United States. Luckily for the media, people on Black Friday are somewhat predictable. This type of event will most likely happen today–violence has marred Black Fridays in the past, so why wouldn’t this year be the same? The media will get what it wants. And it will go away..
But what do Black Friday shoppers want? They want deals..I get that. I think they want something more than that. I believe they want to feel they are a part of a group, a little branch of humanity. They want to share laughs, share stories, and they want to be in line with other human hunters for goods.. In a sense, they are a part of something today. A part of a herd, sure, and yes they will be cattle prodded through WALMARTS across the fruited plain.. but I think becoming a shopper on Black Friday is a bit like being a part of a team. Either you’re on team Shopper or on Team StayatHome. You are choosing your side once you get your keys in hand and trek to the mall..
And this year, so far, there have been some photographic evidence of humanity’s brutality over material possessions, and it’s not just the US of A:
And another from London:
People brawling over a TV set. Who will win? ! Cut it in half and let them both have a piece!!
These scenes will happen anywhere the smell of commerce is existent today..
Do you want to be a part of this scene? Or you can simply wait for Cyber Monday. Clicks don’t hurt other people.
OR Local Saturday.. whatever they call it these days..
For a person like me, someone who actually wouldn’t mind just getting out of the house today with a three year old, where would I go? Malls could be vicious and dangerous. Even grocery stores may be fraught with hidden dangers. My local Turkey Hill market is selling ice cream and soda at half price. That sounds like a trample waiting to happen, as well..
The HORROR REPORT will monitor the shopping scenes across America today.. Maybe not in person, but certainly newsworthy events will be shared and tidbits of anarchy will be broadcast on this site.
If you head to a store, may your journey be peaceful and your harvest of cheap plastic be plentiful. Just think before you buy.. And don’t throw the first punch. You can be shared in a Black Friday crime.
