The Black Friday Shopping Madness Essay

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.

Black Friday is the following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many workers have the day off as part of the Thanksgiving holiday, this increases the number of potential shoppers. Retailers often decorate for the Christmas and holiday season weeks beforehand. Many retailers open extremely early, with most of the retailers typically opening at 5 A.M. or even earlier. Retailers use Black Friday to kick off the holiday season to use much of their products to go from the red to the black.

Quindlen starts her essay by stating that at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York, a worker was trampled to death by a horde of excited shoppers during Black Friday; the day after Thanksgiving when stores hold massive sales for the holiday season (Par. 2). She then goes on to talk about credit card debt and gives various examples of people buying different versions of items they

The 20th century was a time of enormous changes in American life. The history of the United States from 1918 through 1945 was World War I era, the Great Depression, and World War II.

As Black Friday has progressed along with retailors marketing their products and their sales, it has become a national day of shopping to get the best deals. Americans mainly go shopping on this day to get huge deals for Christmas presents. Stores have even taken this great opportunity to open their establishments for 24 hours. Just last year, consumers spent a whopping $57,400,000,000 with each consumer individually spending $410 on average. The #1 retailor customers purchased from and camped out at was Best Buy. All of the statistics are based on 2013 and this year was projected to be an 11% increase.

ok for my last observation i decided to go shopping on black Friday in brentwood. instead of going to my local best buy in Commack i went to brentwood to try and get a xbox one on sale. so i arrived at around 3:40 pm on Thursday to get their before the open at 5:00 pm, when i first arrived i saw a huge line of around forty to fifty people waiting in front of the best buy. and in front of them where metal fences that helped keep the line, and to keep order there where 6 security guards in yellow jackets making sure nothing got out of hand. while i was waiting online i started talking to man about 5’8, looked asian, and had short black hair. the man was wearing a black pea coat and under that a red shirt and a pair of blue jeans. so he initiated

The aftermath of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 went something like this- unemployment rose to twenty-five percent, wages fell to forty-two percent, United States economic growth decreased fifty percent, and world trade plummeted sixty-five percent. The Dow Jones Industry Average dropped twenty-five percent in four days, losing thirty billion dollars in market value. That is equivalent to three hundred ninety-six billion dollars today- more than the total cost of World War I. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. By 1932 stocks were worth only twenty percent of their original value in the summer of 1929. And in less than a year, the Dow dropped ninety percent from its record-high. “In the aftermath of Black Tuesday,

“On October 29,1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward..” (Stock Market Crash of 1929) The Stock Market Crash was significant because it marked the start of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was the biggest economic downturn in American History. It not only caused millions of people to become jobless, but it also caused thousands to lose their life savings. People started to live in horrible conditions and they even began starving.

Even though you can get with your family and be thankful and then go shopping until your legs hurt it can go either way. We should not have Black Friday on thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is for sharing and being thankful and if everybody goes shopping what's the point of even having Thanksgiving then and you should be with your family during all of Thanksgiving not only half of it.

September 11, 2001. I was busy finishing my “Rapport de Stage” in the Mackworth College Library, Derby, England, when a lady came to spread the bad news. Four commercial jetliners were hijacked and diverted from their paths to be used as guided missiles. Two of the jetliners ended up by crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, New York City, around 9:00 a.m. local time. Half an hour later, the third jetliner crashed into the Pentagon, whereas the forth one, supposedly on its way to Washington D.C., crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania. However, the implications of that Black Tuesday were far more complicated than the mere reported facts.

I like this because it has a clear thesis statements and strong three reasons. The first paragraph introduces of the surveillance of retails by retail anthropologists and it claims a certain assertion that it is ethical and it can many benefits. Each body paragraphs stated the main points and used the MEAL plan successfully. This second paragraph suggests the main idea, “The first reason that surveillance benefit is bringing more convenience for consumer.” The convenience for consumer directed to the reducing the customer’s shopping time and the relating evidence support the idea. After the evidence, the writer thoroughly analysis. Especially, I liked the quote, “Thus, they just go straight to the store to grab what they needed and head to the pay counter. The time of a person spends in shopping mall is decreased which affects the slowly growth of businesses’ profit”, because I could relate to my shopping experience. This essay is effective argument essay with clear thesis statement, strong reasons and evidences to support the main ideas, and successfully followed the argumentative structure.

The purpose of this research is to examine consumer behavior on Black Friday. Black Friday is typically the busiest shopping day of the year, and it is all driven by the chance for consumers to save the most amount of money possible while getting their holiday shopping done. Research was done online, and also through personal experiences. By understanding what retailers and consumers hope to accomplish on this day can have a positive impact on everyone. Consumers are able to get what they want with the least amount of turmoil, and retailers are able to turn a profit. This research can be most helpful to merchants, as it will help them to understand what a consumer

Shopping and buying have become an addiction, to consume increasingly of what is not needed. Consumers are compelled to shop and purchase items that are, for a brief time, marketed at a discounted rate.

Shopping is one of the most common social activities in our life. Lingering in one store and another, the customers are looking for the products that meet their requirements and making decisions to purchase while enjoying the leisure time with their families or friends. At the same time, to achieve a better business performance, the retailers try to attract the customers to pay more attention to the products and stay longer in their stores by using various kinds of technologies to surveil the shoppers, such as using cameras to monitor their shopping behavior, tracking their purchased items, and even analyzing these consumers’ background. However, the surveillance of consumers by retail anthropologists is manipulative and unethical