icon.jpgBlack Friday has become commonplace in American culture. Advertisements grace our televisions and flood our mailboxes promoting the annual sales as soon as Halloween season ends. News broadcasts track the year’s hottest deals and roll live coverage of the mile-long lines that begin forming as some families are still gathered around the dinner table finishing off the turkey and stuffing. Black Friday has taken on a role as part of the traditional American holiday season.

However, despite the upbeat Mariah Carey Christmas hits and fluffy, fake white snow, Black Friday does have an ugly side.

The obvious contrast between a day devoted to shopping and the consumption of material things directly following a day that is designed for the giving of thanks is disheartening and a prime example of the issue of consumerism and its prominence in American culture.

“It influences our culture to consume items we don’t need,” said senior sociology major Bertram Hall. “We’re a slave to the deal.”

Black Friday blurs the lines between what people want and what people need; it promotes a notion that because something becomes affordable for a certain amount of time, it thus becomes a necessity.

Unfortunately, the celebration of Black Friday is no longer confined to the 24 hours it was originally intended to occupy. Retailers such as the Disney Store and Sears kicked their Black Friday specials off as early as seven days prior, and many others launched their sales the day of Thanksgiving.

Sophomore liberal studies major Katie Murphy is one of the thousands who participate in Black Friday shopping annually. However, even this avid Black Friday shopper is not pleased with the extension of the previously set time frame.

“The part that bothers me is that they’re starting it during Thanksgiving Day. It’s like they’re sacrificing time with family for deals and material things,” said Murphy. “If they kept it where it’s early on Friday morning, then it wouldn’t be as bad.”

Like all things, Black Friday shopping can be harmless in moderation; moderation in the amount of time devoted to it and moderation in the emphasis placed on participating in it. However, this extension of the sales into Thanksgiving Day and the surrounding days proposes a greater threat. It increases Black Friday’s accessibility, thus creating an even greater false sense of desire to participate that perhaps may have not been there before.

The bottom line is Black Friday already encourages purposeless indulgence and distracts from the reason of the season. Devoting additional time to that indulgence and distraction allows the negative elements of Black Friday to leak into the spirit of giving and thanksgiving that is meant to prevail over all else this time of year. It continues to feed a culture and a society already full.

I’m not condemning any and all who participate in Black Friday shopping; I understand that it can serve good. However, leave this in the back of your mind, and don’t fall victim to the false desires to satisfy yourself with “great” deals on material things that you will forget about by this time next year. This season was meant for counting blessings, not counting dollars or measuring your worth by the things you own or by the type of gifts you give.