Shopping Is A Popular Pastime For Americans

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.

Shopping, a common activity conducted by almost everyone at least once a month, is such a normal subject in our everyday life, one barely puts any thoughts into the potential semiotic explanations behind it. According to the two essays, “The Signs of Shopping” and “The Science of Shopping,” Shopping has significant impacts on one’s self-identification. It is a two way straight, the consumers’ shopping styles can also influence the economic status of the retails businesses.

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 phenomenon of consumerism is quiet powerful due to the impact on individual’s lives. Society has come to the point, happiness is associated with consumption. However, the way consumerism works, is if the items being purchased gives temporary happiness. There individuals are always buying the latest products to remain happy. In the text, “The Cult you’re in” Kalle Lasn, discusses a cult-like nature of consumer culture on Americans. Lasn uses the work ‘cult’ as a metaphor; he does not mean an actual cult but American consumers seem to be in a cult-like nature. The ideal example of Lasns argument is the text, “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, goes in great depth of the life of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, of

In the introduction of Chapter 1 “Consuming Passions” “The Culture of American Consumption,” it talks about how American popular culture is grounded in consumption. With the media in our hand, it is a huge influence towards the advertising world. With how styles of clothing have been changing over time, this talks about how from the earlier times wearing a simple type of blue jeans can change between who wears them over the years. As stated, “ By the 1950s, however, blue jeans began to bear an additional class significance as “casual wear” for middle-class Americans.” (72). In 1970 these pants have then become a simple fashion wear. They have also been introduced as a hipster type wear. Then in 1980 through the early 2000s, baggy jeans were

A famous writer for the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell has written an article, “The Science of Shopping”, which is based on Paco Underhill’s study of retail anthropology. The intention of a retail store is obvious- that is to attract customers and convince them to perchance as much as they can. There is so much knowledge that we can study, such that how the environment affects people’s thinking. These are tiny details that we don’t usually think about. The reason of how Paco Underhill success is because he notices these details. Details determine success or failure. Paco Undnerhill—a talent and passion environmental psychologist, provides us a new point of view of the science of displaying products,

It is believed that about 6% of Americans have a shopping addiction; of the 6% 90% are women. To a shopping addict trips to the mall become the main way to cope with stress, even when it is having a negative impact on the rest of their life. The addiction will affect their relationships and finances. (Omniomania: Shopping Addiction, 2010) It is a never ending merry-go-round; the stress from relationships and finances just reinforces the urge to shop more in order to feel better.

Shopping has become a daily activity which happens a billion times in America and around the world. We cannot imagine how our lives would be affected if shopping was suddenly stopped. Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Norton both write articles about two sides of modern day shopping: how consumers have impacted the retail industry and how the industry influences consumers. In the article " The Science of Shopping," Malcolm Gladwell, a well-known writer and journalist, analyzes the shopping behaviors of customers and how retailers can lure customers; while Anne Norton, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, in

In the beginning of her essay, she declares that consumerism is a “pernicious problem, an addiction to consumption so out of control that it qualifies as a sickness” (Quindlen 159). The author’s statement could easily offend anyone who is a part of America’s consumer culture and seems very vague in her statement. What qualifies as out of control consumption; buying toys or clothes or is there a limit where it becomes out of control? Quindlen also states that “now much of the country is made up of people with the acquisition habits of a 7-year-old, desire untethered from need, or the ability to pay” (160). This is a very generalized statement that cannot be effectively given because, again, she does not verify exactly what she means. Are the acquisitions of a 7-year-old the desire to buy everything you see? Maybe they are the desires to own every fun new gadget, regardless of need. She also says “much of the country” but leaves her remark at that; how much is “much”? Without any sources, it can easily be assumed she is using her own personal relationships to come to this conclusions which is a biased group and does not represent the country as a whole. Shopping and consumer consumption is a necessary part of the American economy, and Quindlen’s arguments regarding a majority of the country and their reckless spending may only be extreme in a few cases, and reasonable in

This is made very obvious by things like commercials that encourage one to purchase certain products immediately, even though what one may have may be perfectly fine. Buying and repurchasing as many items as you can is strongly encouraged by the media, even if it is not necessary. One can never have enough and things like Black Friday are a proof of this. Every single year, people spend enormous amounts of money on Black Friday–almost putting themselves in debt--to buy what’s new: as if stores are not selling the same things they have been selling all year and that the only good deals that exist are on Black Friday. In America, people are being fooled to believe that what they are buying is always valuable, but what one needs to realize is that value comes from its

In the world buying the things you want compared to buying the things you need is a consist problem for many people in America. Depending on a person’s financial situation, they might never be able to buy the things they want and just focus on the things they need. Most middle class Americans focus on paying for essential things such as: food, water, housing, and transport. My views towards consumerism is that people should focus on quality overbecause there are some moments in life that lower quality things will have negative effects.

For generations, Americans has been brainwashed by the media to believe that what is displayed on television is the ideal perception of what real beauty have manipulated American citizens of what style looks like. Furthermore, with their many brainwashing strategies, that means more and more consumers spending beyond their budget. Our perspectives have been heavily influenced by what they believe is nice, but can we afford it all? With unrealistic combination of goods in store, plazas, and mall, consuming has become a bad behavior of some. In support of my argument of the “Overspending”, author Gladwell’s article “The Science of Shopping” also argues that stores adjust to fit the needs and wants of the shopper are evidently presented. With that being said, we have no idea when we are being manipulated into unrealistic shopping behavior that is influenced by the way the advertisement is presented in visual sight. Author Gladwell gets a “retail anthropologist” and “urban geographer” named Paco Underhill to give breakdown points of how he helps brand name stores influence consumers into persuasion of buying more. However, most of us fall short of that discipline, while being persuaded to overspend during our store visits.

As a country, Americans love to shop. Whether in malls, grocery stores, on the Internet, or elsewhere, the culture of buying is deeply ingrained in American culture. Fueled largely by advertising and the current credit system, America’s consumer culture is depleting our planet’s finite natural resources and polluting our environment. Consumerism has instilled in Americans an artificial, ongoing, and insatiable desire for mass-produced and marketed products, and the money with which to buy them, with little regard to their actual usefulness or necessity. This constant desire to acquire more possessions is poisoning the planet, as it can never be sated and thus results in the never-ending exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources, and

Consumers have certain behavioral tendencies when faced in certain situations. In Why We Buy, the author Paco Underhill details certain behavioral characteristics people tend to have in different types of retail stores. Many consumers don’t think about what their actions mean when checking out or buying products. But to Mr. Underhill, the gender of the person, the people they’re with, the amount of times the person touches an object, the amount of time spent on checking a particular product, the time they came in, and the time they leave, all factor into a database to determine different behavioral trend consumers have. It is these trends that they find in order to correct a problem a store or retailer didn’t know they have to increase sales and create a better flow in the store environment.

The purpose of this paper was to observe the consumers of a retail store of my choice; I chose to observe Victoria’s Secret and Targets consumers, because I myself am consumers of those stores quite often, then to analyze the behavior of the consumers of Victoria’s Secret and Target. Victoria’s Secret and Target consumers differ because of the difference in type of retail they offer and sell. Victoria’s Secret consumers know what they are going to be shopping for women and certain needs or wants they are looking to satisfy. Target consumers shop for any age and any gender,