SYSK Selects: How Black Friday Works

the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, and that makes this stuff you should have. That's that you just checked to make sure Jerry was there. She's very quiet. You literally turned her head and body right. Yep, she's there. I did the bigfoot thing like I had to turn my whole the whole side of my body to look

over my shoulder. That's how you know that was real footage. Well, typically when you know Jerry's here, because you can just smell like me so soup or something emanating from our right side or my right side, your right side but it's not emanating from you, it's coming from Jerry. Yeah, she stinks like me, so, which is actually a very pleasant smell, salty and new mommy. That's right. Uh so, Chuck. Yes, have you ever been to a Black Friday sale? No? No, And I want to say, h no. Oh yeah, well,

I mean that's not for me. That's a decent qualifier though, because it's it's not like an average sale, and like, if you don't go to a Black Friday sale, uh, it's they're a pretty good reason. Why is because you're scared. Well yeah, and I think this is one of those a very divisive topic. You're probably either really into going or it's the last thing on earth you would rather do. I don't know a lot of people are like, maybe

I'll go check out a doorbuster three am. I think there are people who who do have that kind of

that idea, but maybe not at three am. Sure, there's it's almost like a multifaceted creature like it is for some people, like just in the middle of a normal shopping day on the Friday after Thanksgiving, they'll go to a store and it's fine and there's some sales or whatever, But then you know hours earlier, these hardcore people you know who would bathed in the blood or their fellow shoppers sadly, yeah yeah, um had had already come through

and gotten all the best deals. But and then there's those of us like us who are just like going out. It is literally and I'm not overstating this because people always say literally when they mean figurat figuratively, but is literally one of the last things I would ever ever do in my life. Yeah, I can't think of many. I'd rather go to the d m V then go to a doorbuster the d m V in between North Korea and South Korea. No, no, no, no, that's the

d m Z right, Okay, I always get this. Who confused? Now, I'd rather go take the last ticket from at the d m V and have to wait all day than go to a doorbuster sale. Yeah no, I don't blame you, all right, So that's what we'll get to more hate spewing about this layer, but right, and I should state my opinion. I feel like, if this is your thing, that's awesome. Well true, true, I'm not like cast dispurgence

on people who disparaging remarks. Is dispurgence a word no, it is no though, Uh, you're like your own like an American dictionary, the New Chuck Dictionary. We should make that up. I like it. Yeah, you could have like five or six words already, Chuck is um um, yeah, agreed. I'm not saying like pooping people who do it. If you're into it, great, as long as you conduct yourself in a reasonable manner and you don't turn into a

monster like others do. Right, And but there is like there are obvious criticisms of the day too, which we'll get into. But I think first, Chuck, we should explain what the as you would say, h we're talking about to the people who listen to this podcast and don't live in the United States, because Black Friday is pty much a uniquely American experience. It is I think most

people probably know, but just very quickly. It is the day after Thanksgiving now in the United States is known as Black Friday, and we'll get into the pretty interesting history of it. But um, it's the biggest shopping day of the year. And there are all these crazy specials that they run and we'll get into that as well, but quite simply, it is the busiest shopping day of

the year day after Thanksgiving, right, and um, it's it's origins. Well, the origin of the term black Friday goes back kind of a ways, apparently to the the mid twentieth century, but the idea of going shopping, starting your Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving actually goes back to the

late nineteenth century early twentieth century. Um, thanks to the department stores like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and as a part of those parades, accident Macy's Parade, right exactly, you know, yeah, it's still a good parade though, Um, have you ever been? No, I haven't, Yeah, ever been to the parade, but a couple of times, Emily and I've gone to the day before when they blow up the which is really neat, very cool. You mean I have a friend who's actually holding one of the floats

the balloons. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's fun to do. Although we did it like eight or nine years ago and it was it was really neat and sort of crowded, and then we did it a couple of years ago and it is nuts now, is it. It's yeah, it's kind of gone overboard. The word got out. I think I saw Yeah, I saw something last year in the news. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a place to go if you don't like strollers. Let's just say that. Oh yeah, oh yeah strollers with

all train entires. Ye. Um. So, but the the idea of going starting your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving came from those parades, and they came from those parades because all of those parades, pretty much to a parade featured Santa Claus. Yeah, and usually at the end kind of like bringing up the rear, and that means we're kicking it off. That's the official start of the holiday season.

That's right, Santa Claus has made his first public appearance. So. Um, from the association of those two came going holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving. That was in the late nineteenth century, in the fifties they think, or early sixties. Uh, well, the fifties, calling the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday came about, but it didn't necessarily have anything to do with shopping by then. It was from factory owners who apparently coined

the term. Yeah, and there's also the other competing theory that it was the day that uh stores would go into the black meaning start to show profit. But Um, that's not quite right as it. No, so that's actually a well, it's a made up fallacy to gloss over

the original meaning of black Friday. Um. And it came out of Philadelphia in the sixties, and the cops and the bus drivers and the city workers who worked downtown came up with calling that day black Friday because apparently tons of out of towners would leave their homes on Thanksgive converge on Philadelphia to watch the Army Navy games on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but they had a day to kill, so they all started doing their Christmas shopping

because there were sales in downtown Philly every year and the place would be nuts. Uh. And this was where black Friday came from. Apparently the police department wanted to basically keep people away, so they'd be like, well, you don't want to go to downtown Philly, it's black Friday. And uh. That was the original um reason or origin of the term. Yeah, I see you saw in here article from the AP in nineteen five, a sales manager at Gimbal's UM was quoted as saying, that's why bus

drivers and cab drivers call today black Friday. Uh. They think in terms of the headaches that it gives them. So I learned something new when I read this. Yeah, and then had no idea it spread out of Philly. And then years later the retail lobbies and retailers themselves said, we got to come up with a better, a better origin story for this, because we want this to be a day that people want to get out of their

house and go shopping. You know. But we should point out even though it is not the day that companies go into the black as it were, which, by the way, it comes from when they did accounting by hand, you'd write in red ink or black ink, depending on you were ahead with money or behind red ink. Men you were in the hole. Yeah, black man, everything's good exactly, even though it does not mean that. Um. The holiday shopping season is when stores make up between twenty and

of their retail profits. So it's a lot. Yeah. I mean even emily small business like the I don't know about majority, but a large percentage of her yearly sales or you know, a couple of months, you know. Uh, and it's not just her apparently. Um. In two thousand thirteen, the National Retail Federation is predicting that Americans just in November and December, Chuck, are you ready for this? Yeah, Americans are going to spend six d and two billion

dollars in November and December. That's cray, that's a lot of cash. Yeah, in two months. Yeah. I don't spend like I used to on Christmas. Um. Emily and I sometimes will spend on gifts on each other or do that like a couple things where you like, go in and just do something nice for your house. Uh. And then like the adults on my side of the family,

you don't exchange gifts anymore. Um just dirty looks. Yeah, exchange like my brother, my sister will chip in usually and get my mom something kind of nice or give her offer her a service, like last year we replaced her fireplace with like a gas fireplace, or build her a garden fence, or tile her kitchen like something like that. Why got it? Yeah, she's an easy street is what you call that. But Emily's family that they all still

exchange gifts. I still have my Christmas gift swapping Joan satisfied. You know, yes, you get your Christmas present on Yeah okay, Chuck so um. The the the idea of shopping after Thanksgiving and then Black Friday. That day being called Black Friday. It's been around for a while, um, and it's a really valuable day, you know, it kicks off that two month period where six billion dollars is going to be

spent on stuff. But it was created, like Valentine's Day, it was literally created, and then the myth kind of became reality just because they said everyone's gonna shop to day. It's the busiest day, and it became that. Yeah, it wasn't until two thousand four. Usually the Saturday before Christmas was actually the busiest shopping day of the year thanks to me. But the Retail Federation and all the retailers were like, well, we can't just we can't tout that

is the busiest shopping day of the year. We want to like get people spending over the course of a couple of months, not the Saturday before Christmas. So they basically said Black Fridays the day, and it's, like you said, it just kind of became true just from people's saying

it over time. I'm surprised that they haven't come up with a catchy name for like Procrastinator's Day or something to like pump up that last Saturday again or something right, or to keep you from it, so they call it like Shame of the Nation Day something like that, to make you like go go to Black Friday Saturday. Yeah. Um, so, and there's this website called, um, Black Friday Archive dot com.

It's actually like kind of cool if you like nostalgic ads or whatever, nostalgia going back to two thousand and seven, I should say, but it's just like scans of Black Friday print ads from those years, which you're kind of neat. If you're totally bored out of your mind, go check out Black Friday Archive dot com. So Black Friday became a smashing success, like two thousand and four, two five. It's a relatively recent thing that it became what it is today here in the States, which is an out

of controlled juggernaut shopping and consumeristic frenzy. Right. Um, But so it was so successful overnight that um, the retailer said, well, let's figure out ways to extend this whole week. So they came up with cyber Monday in two thousand five. Yeah, that's pretty recent, and it uh is the online shopping version of Black Friday. Uh, the Monday after Thanksgiving and

that was another thing. They just made up another self fulfilling myth that Um they said, that's the the workers go back to their computer after Thanksgiving on Monday and they do all their online shopping. Well, that wasn't really true, but now it is because the retailer said it was in the media reported it. Uh. And not to be outdone. In two thousand ten, American Express invented Small Business Saturday, which is when you go out and support small businesses

with your money, especially ones that take American Express exactly. Uh. So there's it's interesting. They're literally creating days to tell people basically, if you're not shopping a day, you're missing out on really good deals, right exactly. Um. And the more days the better as far as retailers are concerned. Um. But there's only so many days after Thanksgiving. So they started to think recently like, well, what if we pushed in the other direction rather from Friday on what's behind Friday?

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving? We can't touch that for shame. Well, starting in two thousand and twelve, they started touching it. Walmart actually um opened at eight pm on Thanksgiving in two thousand twelve. Um, and there was there was a general strike called that we'll talk about later because of that. Because these stores are not supposed to be open on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is its own day. It's a day of being with family and celebrating and giving. Up until two thousand

and twelve, it was Sacra Sanc. Yeah, this year, Macy's and J. C. Penny for the first time are opening on Thanksgiving, and Sears and Toys are us as well Thanksgiving evening. Uh. And Kmart is opening at six am on Thanksgiving, basically extending Black Friday through the weekend forty one hours. That's not a day. That's how long Kmart is going to be open. Black Friday at Kmart last

forty one hours. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Uh. And at shopping malls, um, you're gonna have some smaller stores doing the same thing. And estimated will be open at eight pm on Thanksgiving Day and two thirds will open at midnight. So essentially what's happening is Thanksgiving evening is being ruined

by retail you know. Yeah, I think the retailers would say, well, you know, we've seen that people, right, We've seen that people start lining up Thanksgiving afternoon, Thanksgiving evening to wait for us to open like that, you know, the next morning, so why don't we just open? So, I mean I think it's kind of um, it goes both ways, but

I pretty much see where you're coming from. Yeah. Well, this year it's a little trickier too, because Thanksgiving comes on November twenty eight, which is the latest has been in eleven years. Yeah, is that right? Uh? Yeah, so weirdly because they still sort of have to enforce Black Friday, they're actually shortening their own shopping season a little bit this year, right, which is probably why some of them are opening on Thanksgiving. That's exactly why it's it's six

days shorter than usual this year. Um. So just by the very existence by making up Black Friday, they've screwed themselves this year a little bit. They have a week yeah, because there's um in other countries like Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, countries, um that that observe the Christmas holidays like we do in America, meaning everybody gives everybody else presents and things like that, and they spend money. Um, but those countries don't have a Black Friday, a day

that officially kicks off the holiday shopping season. Um, those countries spend more over the course of the holiday season because they have a longer period of time to shop. Um, so without Black Friday in America, the retailers would possibly make more money. So they've definitely painted themselves into a corner by making Black Friday such a thing. And this year it's really kind of pointing out, like we may be shooting ourselves in the foot here, so what can

we do well. Their solution has been, well, we'll just take over Thanksgiving to but that's not necessarily sustainable, and there's a lot of people who are saying Black Friday is going to go the way of the dinosaur. Yeah. I read an interesting article in the New Yorker this

morning finance article. I think it was New Yorker, it might have been New York Times, but um, this financial analyst was basically analyzed sing how the sales go and sort of saying that it's really not financially the smartest approach to take for shoppers or the for the retailers to offer these huge, deep discounts and sort of blow it out in one day. A better, smarter financial approach would be to elongate the seas shopping season at a

and not even discount things, maybe even raise prices. And his contention is that they're shooting themselves in the foot. But um, I think he's right. He probably is. But at the same time, if you were one of those people like um, like me frankly who went to the mall the day after Halloween and saw that the lights were up, the garland was out, Santa's workshop was ready to go like Halloween, the November one, the place was

totally decked out for Christmas with Christmas Carol's piping through. Yeah, see that's that's ridiculous. But see without but that was the great thing about Black Fight. It's like you, you know, you had a month they're just kind of chilling out everything getting ready between between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Then you had Thanksgiving and in the holiday season started without Black Friday. It's kind of like this, um this damn that's holding

back the holiday season from spilling into basically October. But with retailers figuring out that it's an impedence to them making money, it probably won't start the official season any longer. It'll probably be further back from now on. Yeah, well, I think we're in I don't know about well, technically slightly in the minority. Um. In two thousand, thirteen of the population of American adults said they will shop on Black Friday. So fifty three, Yeah, that puts us in

the minority by a bit. And two thousand eleven a hundred and fifty two Americans, uh millions, just a hundred, but they spent five hundred billion dollars. Yeah, hundred fifty two really rich Americans. Uh, A hundred fifty two million shopped on that day for an average of three hours at a time, which is uh not too long, but that's I mean, three hours is like ever. But I saw a woman who did sixteen though, like a sixteen hour stretch of shopping. She better have gotten it all

done at least, I hope. So you know, yeah, like if she's shop for sixteen hours and only got like three gifts, it's not time amost spent. Um. There's also evidence, uh that the internet is basically knocking on Black Friday's door. Thanksgiving days the fastest growing online shopping day. UM. And I think like se of the people who said that they're going to shop on Black Friday said they'll do

some or most of it online. Um. So the Internet is still there for retailers to make money, but the idea of Black Friday in store sales going extinct is probably not going to happen because it's its own thing. Like there's this one consumer psychologist or consumer analysts I think pointed out that it's it's a tradition number one nowadays uh and number two, there's a certain element of like sport to it. It's it's more than just getting

a good deal. It's like, you know, throwing a fist at somebody while you get a good dealers something to it that that transcends the whole thing. So we mentioned

door Busters. It's a central part of the cog that is Black Friday, and it goes back in print, believe it or not, to the year nineteen seventeen in anecdotally, where in a retailer will basically say, you know what, we have one item or usually it's a few now, but some really deep, deep and really super great deals on just a few select items, so like, for example, a good laptop for a hundred and eighty dollars, and like deals like that iPods for half off, for a

TV for like two really really like you said, very good discounts. But here's the deal. It's a scam people, it's a bait and switch. It's it's a bait and switch. They they've only got a very limited amount of these select items, which is why the violence happens, which we'll get to in a minute. Uh. And then after that they're hoping you get in there. You don't get that laptop, but you're like, screw it. I'm at Walmart at five am. I might as well buy some stuff regular priced or

slightly discounted items. Um. And you know that's how they get you in the store. That's how they get you. It is, um, and it is It's true that there these items do exist, and they are for that deal. There there there for that price, I should say, Um, but there's only like ten and in the fine print it's like one person and that deals is for in stock only, like you can't get a rain check or

anything like that. But the the concept that these deals do exist for those items that are in the store, coupled with whoever physically gets their hands on that item first gets that deal. Yeah, um, leads to doors actually being busted. It's called recipe for disaster. Yeah. Um. All right, So before we get to the dark days and the bad stuff that can happen. Truly, let's do a little

message break. All right, let's go back a little bit to two thousand eight and probably the well I was gonna say the darkest incident, but I think the Toys r US may be darker. I think this one's darker because people were involved. Yeah, that's true, all right. Two thousand eight and Valley Stream, Long Island. Uh it was at a Walmart and it was five pm on Thanksgiving. Um, so basically people there the day before. Um it wasn't one of those days where it was open on Thanksgiving.

So they're there to wait until five am. So at least twelve hours ahead of time, there were about a thousand people already set up there. Some people are camping out intents, they're waiting, They got their coffee, they're probably slugging some jim Beam to warm the belly. And uh so the police came out and said, you know what, let's set up a buffer zone, a barricade, which worked till about two am when that was breached and the cops basically said, we're out of here. This isn't part

of our job. Yeah, the crowd had turned angry. Um a little bit after that. Um, so one of the store employees had some family members come and like they took them out of the line and took them in the store. Not a good idea. Yeah, But even even if, even if everyone in the crowd would have been cool with it, I don't think everybody in the crowd realized that they were family members of an employee. So the

crowd actually turned like ugly. Yeah, they broke through the barricade, uh, and we're squeezed against you know how the stores have the entrance and then that little glass in vestibule area before, and then usually a second entrance right to get into the store itself. So there was about by this time, there was about two thousand people waiting for the store

to open. It was four am. The store is gonna open at five, and a couple of hundred were in between this little buffer zone and those front exterior doors and being pressed up, literally crushed to death. And there's this fascinating article in the New Yorker by a guy named John Seabrook called crush Point, and it's about not just this incident, but um uh, just crushings in general. Where somebody. Yeah, we covered that like years ago. It

seems like it, Yeah, totally, but you check out that article. Yeah, people literally yelling, pushed the doors in chanting this, and just before five o'clock, it's it's a pretty bad scene. And uh, workers in that vegetablebule area realized that there was a pregnant lady name uh Leanna Lockley being crushed against the doors, and so they're like, we gotta get this lady in here, opened the doors enough to squeeze

her through. She got in um and then the crowd surged forward and it's just kind of went downhill from there, and they still did the ten, nine eight countdown. Isn't that mind boggling. It's mind boggling that they didn't. Well, first of all, that the cops left, Yeah they said. They said, apparently in a court deposition that the cops when they left said, controlling the crowds not in our job description. Good luck. Walmart had hired a security force

of two for the event. One person hadn't shown up, the other one was inside the store not helping. So they got a bunch of their stock guys, their their biggest dudes that they could find and said come staying as vestibule and help anybody who like falls down or if that's what I would have been, like, dude, that's

not in my job description exactly. Well they didn't say that. Um. And when the doors finally opened after the festive countdown, while these people were being crushed against the front, unbelievable, the doors started to open and right when they opened, they actually gave weight and were literally busted by this wave of humanity. Yeah, and at that point the employees um, their little red rover line was completely ineffective. People are getting knocked down, some of the workers are getting blown

out of the way. Some are jumping on vending machines. It's ridiculous. Well, yeah, a couple of them like climbed up the coke machine, like get out of the way, first, safe harbor. One guy who was in the in the way of the crowd when the doors gave way. Um, this article by John Sebrook puts it that he was blown back. So again, there's a vestibule, there's the outer doors. There's a vestibule, and then there's inner doors, and then

there's the store. This guy got blown from the outer doors all the way through the vestibule through the inner doors into the store by this wave of people, two thousand people. Yeah, just coming in all at once, all trying to get their hands on that doorbuster, you know, like an iPod or something. Yeah, so that's not the end of the story, sadly, Um, people are getting crushed. This pregnant woman trips over some old woman. She's on the ground at this point, pregnant. Yeah. Leanna Lockley in

danger of being you know, trampled to death. Uh. And then she somehow managed to get to her knees and saw an employee, Um, do you know how to pronounce his first name? Uh, Jim ta More, Jim tad More. He uh was assigned to help people in case anyone fell fell down next to her. The doors fell on top of him, and two thousand people trampled over those doors and killed him. Yeah, he was trampled to death. He died of asphyxiation being crushed under the door. And he was a stop guy at six am, six or

three am. He was pronounced dead one hour after the festive countdown to let people get into shop, and that was at the hospital an hour later, so he most likely died on the scene. Um, and pretty awful. What's crazy, Chuck? If that story is not bad enough, tramplings are actually really common and like somebody might not die, You might not be asphyxiated, and he might not have died had he not gotten caught under the door. Um, but the

people getting knocked down. If you want to see this, just go on to YouTube and type in black Friday, not even Black Friday tramplings. Just type in black Friday and you will see tons of compilations of store security footage of people coming in right when the story opens on a Black Friday sale, just climbing over one another, knocking each other down. Some people help other people up or drag them out of the way or whatever, but just as frequently people just climb over the ones who

are down for a sale. It's it's insane. I seriously encourage everybody to go check out some video of it. Yeah, I can't believe that after this incident that there wasn't a law pass outlawing outright black Friday sales. You know that is not happening. Well, but it's ridiculous because there's it's economists and analysts have proven that you can have like even it's not like they'd lose money. They would probably make more money if they didn't have these blockbuster sales.

So it's not like they could say, well, you can't, you're keeping me from doing my business. I don't know. I just can't believe they can't outlaw something like this. So that was That was a pretty horrendous example of a crowd crush and a trampling. Yea. Um, but other things that happen. You mentioned the Toys r Us in Palm Desert, California a couple of years back, right, Yeah, that was in two thousand and eight. These two women got in a fist fight and then their husbands got

into it. And basically, first of all, these two men were carrying guns into a Toys r Us for Christmas shop, which a little weird, uh, And they started a shootout with each other, basically, and not a very skilled one apparently. I read about it like one guy forgot to cocas gun. The other guy like his didn't work either, So they start chasing each other through the store, through the store, shooting at each other. Luckily, no one else died, but

those two gentlemen shot each other and died. Yeah, and the toys are us because of their wife's got in a fist fight on Black Friday at a toys rust during Christmas shopping. I'm surprised no one else if they're running through the store shooting. Uh. I think everybody cleared out of the their way. Yeah, I I know, I wouldn't follow him around and be like, hey, guys, what are you doing? Where's the Doorbusters. In two thousand eleven, a woman at a Los Angeles Walmart uh pepper sprayed

some people in the video games. Initially, the cops saw it while this you know lady was some Black Friday jerk, which would make her a pretty awful, awful person. Yeah, but apparently the real story is and then she actually got out of it. Um was that her children were attacked, uh, punched, kicked, thrown to the ground by shoppers trying to get an Xbox from these children, and so she defended her kids by pepper spraying these jerks. Right, And this thing still

hasn't been settled. The most recent thing I saw was that, Um a year on. So last year, UM, the cops still hadn't filed charges, so I guess they believed her story. But she shopped anyway after that happened and bought her items. So she pepper sprayed a bunch of people, affects twenty people, causes a bit of a trampling pandemonium. Uh. And then two horrible things happened after that. One, like you said, the lady took her kids and her items and went

to the store and checked out, bought her stuff. Uh. Second, the people outside the immediate circle where sher pepper spray, but still in that little area, stuck around, still tried to get their hands on the sale item, and they're like checking out in their eyes and those are watering, and there's like just just ring it up. Let me get home. Yeah. And then of course took there's um the workers as well. Well yeah, I mean, no one

wants to work on Thanksgiving. And and this year, like we said, a lot of retailers are opening on Thanksgiving and there's really not anything they can do about it if they want to keep their job, which is really sad. And Walmart Uh employees planned a strike I think last year in two thousand twelve, and it didn't work. Only twenty six stores reported striking employees. So for fear of

losing their jobs, probably they had to come to work anyway. Well, Camart in particular was criticized this year for opening at six am on Thanksgiving, and Camart said, these people don't have to work, like, we're not forcing them to work, and uh, their critics are saying, well, actually, that's not necessarily true because you're using part time seasonal employees and there's no federal mandate that those people have to have

holidays or time off. So therefore they're in a position where they either work or you can fire them legally. Uh so they kind of do have to work. There's a lot of ugliness on Black Friday, but chuck, if you are just the average normal person, like my brother in law loves to go Black Friday shopping and he'll he'll like, go at midnight, go to the Doorbuster sales.

But he's like, he's not crazy. Well, the majority of them don't end in violence, because this happens all over the country and these are isolated incidents, so it's not like at every Doorbuster sale you're gonna get trampled. But there is a risk there is, and um, the people you want to look out for. Apparently there's a study of consumer behavior at Black Friday sales and it was

a legitimate study. UM it said that you want to look out for the people who have done a lot of planning, because they exhibit the most anti social behavior like shoving, pushing, yelling. They've got their plan in place and nothing's going to alter that, and they feel like they've really put the time in and they're not about to lose that doorbuster who has never done it before and just showed up, who just lucked into into line or whatever. You know that, Like remember the famous Who

concert in the seventies where the people were trampled. Yeah, that's in that UM New York article. They got rid of general emission seating after that, Like, why can't they do something about this? You know, I think the law steps in and said, wait a minute, you can't just open the doors to a concert venue and say first one in gets front row. Um, they still have general admission,

not for big arena shows. Oh yeah, yeah, Well you know that there was like just one door open and like four others locked, and people were getting crushed up against the locked doors, and the people inside who are working at that concert like just never opened the doors even though people were dying. So remember what we cover that in man is so like vivid in my mind from way early on because we studied the the science of crowd surges. I don't know what it was either,

because this article is not that old. It's just like it definitely wasn't about this. I had to do with something else. But um, yeah, dirty bad stuff. Or you can take another approach. Yeah this is this is a different approach, you could say. In the an artist named Ted Dave gave birth to uh what's now called by Nothing Day, wherein the people are encouraged to not buy anything for twenty four hours and to fight the power and consumerism by not showing up at all and not

just fight the power. The guy who created ted ted Dave. He's a Vancouver guy who came up within the nineties. Um, it was also not just to stick it to the man, which I can only imagine if nobody bought anything in America on Black Friday, what kind of crippling effect that would have on the economy. But he was also saying personally, it's that's a good day to not buy anything and be take stock of how much you do maybe waste

or spend or whatever. Just think about your consumer your consumerism for one day and during that time, like don't buy anything, and don't gas up your car the night before, don't get a bunch of milk the night before, like just just be normal. On one day of the year, don't buy anything, and that's Buy Nothing Day. And it's kind of become this big thing ever since Adbusters, the people who gave us Occupy Wall Street kind of found out about it and adopted it and just took the

whole thing worldwide. It's pretty amazing. It is. So if you go to a Black Friday sale and you see a bunch of people dressed as zombies, they're making fun of you. They're making fun of zombie consumers. Same with the people who are dressed as sheep. Yeah. And then there's Zenti clause. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll dress up as a sheep, yeah and just walk around and buy and people's faces. And then if I'm there, might

you know, pick up a laptop right. Um. There's also credit card cut up stations yeah, yeah, where you can get rid of your credit card and just shook his consumerism. Yeah. And then there's the my favorite, the what is it the Worldly gig Congo line. Oh I haven't heard of that is that two disrupt shoppers. The whole the whole point is just kind of it serve as a mirror. I think two people like, look at yourselves. You're ridiculous. You think I look stupid. You're the one that looks stupid.

We're not even buying anything. But yeah, so there's it's kind of a twofold thing. It's one like just kind of reflecting personally slash sticking it to the man as an individual consumer, like realizing your power in the grand scheme of things. It's all kind of hinges on you spending your money and if you're O, then you're taking the power back or pointing out to other people just how ridiculous they're being at consumers. As consumers, people probably like,

whered you get the cheap costume rite? Exactly? What was that on? Um? So I've got one last thing? Uh I noticed the other day. I've never heard of this before. In China? Do you think we liked the shop? Chinese love the shop And they have something that they have created called Singles Day and it is on November eleven, So eleven eleven. The four one's stand for single people and they're basically like, hey, because in China, I think

you're encouraged to marry. So this is like, hey, be single, go out and treat yourself to something online and buy something because it's Singles Day and you should celebrate being single. And it's a huge deal. They spent uh, well, this e commerce platform in China called Ali Baba's the one who really got behind it recently, and they spent five point seven billion dollars on Singles Day this year, which dwarfs Cyber Monday by three times almost and it's the

biggest online shopping day in the world. And in the first six minutes this year, just a couple of weeks ago, they spent a hundred and sixty million dollars in the first six minutes wow online in China, just to celebrate being single, and they're encouraged the shop for themselves, which I don't think. We pointed out a lot of people on Black Friday when um, when I asked, say that they do some of the shopping for themselves, all gifts.

It's like I want that laptop. I think forty forty seven percent or forty one of people who said they're gonna stop on Black Friday said they'll do most of the shopping for themselves. I usually do that whenever I go out, like genuinely Christmas shopping, I'll pick up something for myself. But these people are saying they're mostly shopping for themselves. Now I don't mostly, but I'll just I'll just treat myself. And I want to say, Chuck, we're not.

We don't begrudge anybody going to Black Friday sales. If that's your thing, yeah, enjoy it, that's fine. Just act like a human being. Yeah, don't take anyone's life. No, don't trample over somebody who's fallen down. Uh. And most importantly, I have a very nice Thanksgiving. Enjoy the people you're with, whether they're friends, family, old acquaintances, new acquaintances. Take some time to really enjoy this Thanksgiving day and relax and

and just be I agree, my friend, it's Thanksgiving. Be with your family, turn off your smartphone, maybe even wow, really get crazy and just be in the moment. Yeah, how about that. Um, And we give you permission to shout down anybody who says that trip to fan is what makes you sleepy. That's right, you go ahead and send them straight. Yep. So happy Happy Turkey Day, Americans and uh and other parts of the world. Whatever you're doing, I hope you're will Yeah, nice, Chuck and Chuck. We

should say that as usual. If everyone wants to send us happy Thanksgiving wishes, they can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. UM, they can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know you can um, and if you want to know more about Black Friday, you can go to how stuff works dot com. I think there's like a ten worst moments in Black Friday history an article up there. UM. You can send us an email directly to Stuff Podcast at how stuff

works dot com. And as always, you can join us at our very festive and thankful home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com