Materialism In The Photo Black Friday

Andrew Leonard's "Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization" argues that the Black Friday shopping spree has begun to get out of hand in the previous years. Leonard explains that consumerism is a great thing for America, but showing Americans that it is okay to go crazy when shopping for deals is not the way to approach the buying markets. He mentions a Target advertisement and states that, "The Crazy Target Lady is not a joke. Watch her cannibalize her gingerbread man, or strategize her reverse psychology shopping techniques... she is America. She might be a lunatic, but it's a culturally approved lunacy" (Leonard 166). The author emphasizes how Americans embrace the acts of the target lady as funny and amusing, but during Black Friday shopping, some shoppers will take the night to the extreme like the advertisement does. He does remind us that there is light at the end of the tunnel, by reporting how shoppers are seeing the problems with the night of crazy shopping. I agree with Leonard that there are problems with Black Friday ads, and that consumers are realizing Black Friday shopping is taking away from Thanksgiving.

Black Friday shopping is a controversial issue in the United States; while many believe the day after Thanksgiving is a part of holiday festivities, others view it as destructive. Throughout “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization,” Andrew Leonard argues that the chaos of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in which crowds of Americans shop all night for extremely low prices, lessens the sophistication of Americans and the true meaning of the holidays. People become so consumed in the idea of endless sale prices that they forget to embrace what they already have, such as family, food, and shelter. He believes that Black Friday shopping has become out of control and describes the negative effects of excessive consumerism. he explains how most consumers act completely insane while Black Friday shopping and how society encourages this behavior by creating commercials and advertisements. Furthermore, Leonard states that it hurts the economy and damages one’s mental health. While Leonard is probably wrong when he claims that Black Friday shopping is completely troublesome to America’s well-being, he is right that consumerism overpowers the true significance of Thanksgiving.

The rapper Kanye West stated “She don`t believe in shooting stars but she believes in shoes and cars.” Malls, Outlets and online resources are the most common sources for shopping experiences for many people today. There are also the many food outlets and sales that encourage people to purchase items that may or may not be necessary. In her essay, “American Consumerism,” Jamie Bentley reflecting on Simon Benlow’s essay “An Apology to Future Generations” that expresses concern about consumers’ negative impact on the environment reveals this generation’s obsession with materialism, with the hope that people will learn to do more with less. The many options available to purchase items create a problem for individuals who desire to have what they

Have you ever gone to the store and just had to buy that article of clothing or those sweet Nikes? How about when you’re grocery shopping and those donuts look too good not to buy? How long has it been since you last picked up your phone or other electronic device? That is materialism. People can grow attached to objects and have a very hard time getting rid of things. This can become a serious issue when left unchecked and in some rare cases can lead to a person's death.

Brennan Manning’s says that Americans measure success by one’s pile of possessions. Manning talks about a few articles that he read and he found out that the majority of Americans are fat, exhausted, frustrated, lustful, and dissatisfied with their level of achievement because we care about being overweight, and how to maintain a nice body, and caring a lot about all of these useless things. He states that a lot of Americans’ conversations revolve around consumption, including what we buy/bought, where/what to eat, the price of things, what’s on sale, etc. Americans show a lot of interest in this materialistic items when they won’t even matter when we die. The things that matter in our life should be non-materialistic items and that we should

On Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the United States stock market suddenly and completely collapsed. This event is known as Black Tuesday and is attributed by many historians to be the start of the worst financial crisis in U.S. history, The Great Depression. The Great Crash itself had a devastating impact. Hundreds of banks failed, and because bank deposits were uninsured, their depositors lost some or all of their money. “Frightened customers drew their savings from solvent banks, forcing them to close.”1 And that was just the beginning. Government’s response to the Great Depression changed the lives of non-elite members of society. It changed them negatively at first. Herbert Hoover’s strategies for fixing the economy failed and drove these

While it may be easy to conclude that materialism is a terrible mindset, we must first clarify what the popular but incorrect mindset of materialism brings. A common belief is that materialistic people believe that the acquisition of possessions will lead to happiness and life satisfaction, and that the lack of possessions will lead to dissatisfaction. However, a study (Belk 1984) revealed the contrary. It is actually dissatisfaction in life that results in a materialistic mindset, not a materialistic mindset resulting in

I am glad you chose Black Friday for the topic of your post. Whenever I think of Black Friday, I cringe. I think using a relativist’s perspective is the easiest way to understand why Black Friday is so popular. Relativism asserts that an act can only be defined as deviant if the person witnessing the behavior believes that it is deviant (Adler & Adler, 2016). Deviance, in this example, is dependent on how you view Black Friday. For me, I see Black Friday as a day where all social norms disappear. For instance, common folkways like opening a door for someone, or waiting patiently in line becomes irrelevant. It is considered more normal to trample the person in front of you, and it is not unheard of to read that someone was shot over a “Tickle

Many people don’t like to think of themselves as materialistic or snobbish, even though it’s clear that they are. There’s this disease that’s going around, it’s called Affluenza. Affluenza is something that is, believe it or not considered a disease. “Affluenza is an unhappy condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” Meaning people are unnecessarily spending money on items they don’t really need. In the “Affluenza” video, they talked about how much people spend on materialistic items, and it’s worth millions of dollars. Advertising is the reason why people spend so much money on things they think they need. Especially with all the new gadgets and equipment coming out in 2016, people can’t help but feel the need to spend money on everything new. Society likes to keep up with everything that’s new. No one wants to be perceived as “old fashion.” This is how people become materialistic and begin to overconsume. This could link to a psychological illness, most commonly known as retail therapy. Materialistic people are more likely to

I will open up a few tabs with some of my favorite stores and merely browse around. After hours upon hours of browsing, I will sometimes purchase something small and cheap to assure myself that I did not just waste my time. Lappe says that “buying thing seems to be a common human strategy to ease feelings of insecurity and fear” (Lappe 47). In many movies and TV shoes, you hear about those rich women who shop all day. Although these women do have the resources to do so, it can also be said that they need to shop to make themselves feel better. The typical rich, trophy wife type of woman is typically insecure with their personal relationships with others. The most common is that their husband is not around, therefore, they believe that if they can purchase things, it will fix all their problems in their relationships. In this case, their consumerism directly effects their personal relationships. As well as effecting their direct relationships, the shopping sprees also make these women feel empowered and effect how the other shoppers are perceiving them. I know the feeling of walking around a crowded mall with multiple bags on your shoulders. You feel like you are on a whole different level than those with one or two. As humans, “we focus more on money, image, and status” (Lapee 47). When these trophy wives walk through the malls, on the surface they feel proud and more superior than others when in fact, they are

Materialism certainly can give us a kind of happiness - the temporary thrill of buying something new, and the ego-inflating thrill of owning it afterwards and we use this kind of happiness to try to override - or compensate for - the fundamental unhappiness inside us” which refers to the fact that we use the short amount of satisfaction that we get from buying a new outfit or shoes or any material item to try to hide the fact that we are unhappy. So even though we believe that buying things for ourselves will make us happy it doesn’t

New household appliances that save time, and packaging of foods, makes shopping and cooking quicker and easier. Advances in technology are also affected by labour saving concepts, in that it ends up cheaper to buy a new model of an existing product, then it is to get the old one repaired. Consumption, affluence, and fashion developments feeds the concept of conspicuous consumption, with new designs and symbolic 'high status luxury items' (Hetherington, 2009, p32) in the form of new appliances and technologies, being desirable to the seduced (Bauman, cited in Hetherington, 2009, p25) and more economical then getting the old repaired.

Peter Singer states that “our ordinary patterns of spending money on ourselves are immoral.”; but my response to this is that, as human beings we don’t know any better. Consumerism is the trap that holds us dear and truthfully never lets go. If we see something we enjoy, if it adds a level of comfortability, or gives us the slightly rush of adrenaline; we must acquire it. We thrive off materialism items, although most aren’t necessary needed to live a wholesome life. I believe all you ultimately need is food, water, shelter, and clothing. I’m not including education, healthcare, or anything that follows along these lines. I’m not saying that spending money on materialism items such as makeup is a terrible thing, but it shouldn’t be the first

For our theater project, my group and I decided to focus on showing how much our American culture has become obsessed with obtaining materials, even to the point of hurting others without giving one ounce of thought. In our world today, some people are very focused on getting the latest, greatest object and what better day than Black Friday sums up how materialistic we, as Americans, have become. My group wanted to choose something in our current world that was easy to joke around with, without greatly offending others. We chose to have our story revolve around Black Friday because of the upcoming holiday season and because of how absurd people can act when trying to get the “best” deals. At the beginning of the process, we divided the tasks

What makes the American society American? Is it our big cities? Our adaptations to new technology? Our extravagant shopping opportunities? Is it the convenience of our society? The fast food opportunities? The drive-thrus? It is our emphasis on personal travel and transportation means? Or is it our desire for wealth and success? Many Americans focus on these aspects of our society to be happy in their lives. Americans strive to be the best and often little will stop them on their way. There is an emphasis on money, success, and owning the newest and most popular items. This want and desire for the best material goods can be described as materialism. Moreover, another damaging aspect of American society is the media portrayal of what is