November 29, 2025 • 40 mins
On the day after Thanksgiving, Americans go kind of crazy for the deep discount sales that kick off the holiday shopping season in stores. So crazy, in fact, at least four people have lost their lives and as many as 63 others have been injured during Black Friday sales. But as profitable as Black Friday is, some retailers are thinking about discontinuing the tradition to find ways to make even more money. Learn all about this bizarre, uniquely American holiday custom in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, it's been quite a few years since we
dusted off our classic episode on the insanity that is
Black Friday, so we thought we put it out there
for you again. I'm glad we made this episode when
we did, because Black Friday's nearly gone away since then,
so we kind of inadvertently came up with a document
on a fading cultural phenomenon, and I assume historians of
(00:23):
the future will rely heavily on this. In the meantime,
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know Fromhoustuffworks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey, and welcome to 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.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's you just checked to make sure Jerry was there.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
She's very quiet.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You literally turned her head and body right, Yep, she's there.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I did the bigfoot thing like I had to turn
my whole the whole side of my body. Yeah, to
look over my shoulder. That's how you know that was
real footage.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, typically when you know Jerry's here, because you can
just smell like miso soup or something emanating from our
right side, yeah, or my right.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Side, your right side, but it's not emanating from you,
it's coming from Jerry. Yeah. She stinks like miso, which
is actually a very pleasant smell, salty and new mommy.
That's right, So Chuck, Yes, have you ever been to
a Black Friday sale?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
No? No, And I want to say, h no.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Oh yeah, Well, I mean that's not for me. That's
a decent qualifier though, because it's not like an average sale,
and like, if you don't go to a Black Friday sale,
it's a pretty good reason. Why is because you're scared.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
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 at three am.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I think there are people 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
(02:25):
people you know who had bathed in the blood or
their fellow shoppers well sadly, yeah, yeah, we'll see had
already come through and gotten all the best deals.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
But and then there's those of us like us who
are just like going out.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It is literally, and I'm not overstating this because people
always say literally when they mean figured it figuratively. But
it 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 DMV than go
to a doorbuster.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
The DMV, yeah, in between North Korea and South Korea.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, no, no, no, that's the DMZ.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right. I always get this too confused.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Now, I'd rather go take the last ticket from at
the DMV and have to wait all day than go
to a doorbuster sale.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah no, I don't blame you, all right.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So that's what we'll get to more hate spewing about
this layer but.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Right, and I should state my opinion. I feel like,
if this is your thing, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well true, true, I'm not like cast dispergence on people
who disparaging remarks is dispurgence a word.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Nope, it is no though you're like your own like
an American dictionary, the New Chuck Dictionary.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
We should make that up.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I like it. Yeah, you get had like five or
six words already chuckisms.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, agreed. I'm not saying like poopooing 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.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Right, 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
podcasts and don't live in the United States, because Black
Friday is pretty much a uniquely American experience.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
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 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.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right, and it's origin, well, the origin of the term
black Friday goes back kind of a waste apparently, to
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,
(04:46):
thanks to department stores like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Yeah,
and as a part of those parades.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
No accident, it's a Macy's parade.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Right exactly, you know. Yeah, it's still a good parade.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Though. Have you ever been.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, I've never been to the parade, but a couple
of times, Emily, and I've gone to the day before
when they blow up the.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Oh yeah, which is really neat, very cool. You mean,
I have a friend who's actually holding one of the
floats the balloons.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Oh cool.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Here.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The word got out.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I think I saw yeah, I saw something last year
in the news.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah. Yeah, it's not a place to go if you
don't like strollers. Let's just say that.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, strollers with alternating tires. Yeah. So,
but 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.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, and usually at the end kind of like bringing
up the rear, and that means we're kicking it off.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
That's the official start of the holiday season. Santa Claus
has made his first public appearance. So 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, well the fifties, calling the
(06:17):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, and there's also the other competing theory that it
was the day that stores would go into the black
meaning start to show profit. But that's not quite right
as it No, so that's fallacy.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's actually a well, it's a made up fallacy to
gloss over the original meaning of black Friday. 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
(07:00):
on Thanksgiving, Yeah, converge on Philadelphia to watch the Army
Navy game. Sure, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but they
had a day to kill, so they all started doing
their Christmas shopping because there was sales in downtown Philly
every year, and the place would be nuts. And this
was where black Friday came from. Apparently the police department
wanted to basically keep people away, so they'd be like, well,
(07:23):
you don't want to go to downtown Philly, it's black Friday.
And that was the original reason or origin of the term.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, I see you saw in here. An article from
the AP in nineteen seventy five, a sales manager at
Gimbals was quoted of saying, that's why bus drivers and
cab drivers call today black Friday. Yeah, 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.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It spread out of Philly, And then years later the
retail lobbies and retailers themselves said, we got to come
up with a better origin story this because we want
this to be a day that people want to get
out of their house and go shopping. You know.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
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, comes from when they did accounting
by hand. You'd write in red ink or black ink,
depending up that you were ahead with money or behind.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Red ink meant you were in the hole. Yeah, black
meant everything's.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Good, exactly, even though it does not mean that. The
holiday shopping season is when stores make up between twenty
and forty percent of their retail profits. So it's a lot. Yeah,
I mean, even Emily's 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, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And it's not just her. Apparently. In twenty 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 hundred and two billion dollars
in November and December. That'skray, that's a lot of cash. Yeah,
(09:03):
in two months.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah. I don't spend like I used to on Christmas.
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.
And then like the adults on my side of the family,
we don't exchange gifts anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Just dirty looks.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, you exchanged dirty looks now, 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 nice or build her a garden fence or
tile her kitchen like something like that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Wow, your mom's got it. Yeah, she's an easy street
is what you call that.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, but Emily's family they all still exchange gifts, So
I still have my Christmas gift swapping. Joan satisfied.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You know, yes, you get your Christmas present on Yeah, okay, Chuck.
So the idea of shopping after Thanksgiving and then Black Friday,
that day being called Black Friday, it's been around for
a while and it's a really valuable day. Yeah, you know,
it kicks off that two month period where six hundred
(10:17):
and two billion dollars is going to be spent on stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
But it was created like Valentine's Day, it was literally created,
and then the myth kind of became reality. Yeah, just
because they said everyone's going to shop the day, it's
the busiest day, and it became that.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, it wasn't until two thousand and four. Yeah, 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
(10:52):
before Christmas. So they basically said Black Friday's the day. Yeah,
and it, like you said, it just kind of be
came true just from people saying it over time.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
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 do Black Friday Friday Saturday. Yeah. So,
and there's this website called 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,
(11:34):
I should say, but it's just like scans of Black
Friday print ads from those years, which are kind of neat.
If you're totally bored out of your mind, go check
out Black Friday Archive dot com. So Black Friday became
(12:05):
a smashing success, like two thousand and four, two thousand
and 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.
But so it was so successful overnight that the retailer said, well,
(12:27):
let's figure out ways to extend this whole week. Yeah,
so they came up a cyber Monday in two thousand
and five.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yep, that's pretty recent and it is the online shopping
version of Black Friday, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And that was another thing they just made up, another
self fulfilling myth that 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
and the media reported it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And not to be outdone in American Express invented Small
Business Saturday, which is when you go out and support
small businesses with your money.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Especially ones that take American Express exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So there's it's interesting literally creating days to tell people basically,
if you're not shopping to day, you're missing out on
really good deals.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Right exactly. And the more days the better as far
as retailers are concerned. 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 twenty twelve, they
(13:44):
started touching it. Walmart actually opened at eight pm on
Thanksgiving in twenty twelve, and there was there was a
general strike called that we'll talk about later. Yeah, 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 thanks
(14:07):
Up until twenty twelve, it was sacrisanct.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah. This year, Macy's and J. C. Penny for the
first time are opening on Thanksgiving, and Sears and Toys
r Us as well on Thanksgiving evening, and Kmart is
opening at six am on Thanksgiving, basically extending Black Friday
through the weekend.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Forty one hours.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
That's not a day.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
That's how long Kmart's going to be open. Black Friday
at Camart lasts forty one hours. Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And at shopping malls you're going to have some smaller
stores doing the same thing. And estimated twenty to twenty
five percent 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.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I think the retail 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 it goes both ways, but I
pretty much see where you're coming from.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, Well, this year it's a little trickier too, because
Thanksgiving comes on November twenty eighth, which is the latest
suspend in eleven years.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, is that right? Yeah, two thousand and two. Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
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
I am are opening on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
That's exactly why it's six days shorter than usual this year.
So just by the very existence by making up Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
They've screwed themselves this year a little bit.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
They have by a week, yeah, because there's in other
countries like Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, countries that observe
the Christmas holidays like we do in America, meaning everybody
gives everybody else presents and things like that, and they
spend money. But those countries don't have a Black Friday,
a day that officially kicks off the holiday shopping season.
(16:19):
Those countries spend more over the course of the holiday
season because they have a longer period of time to shop.
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
(16:39):
be shooting ourselves in the foot here, so what can
we do well. Their solution has been, well, we'll just
take over Thanksgiving too, 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.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
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 this financial
analy was basically analyzing how the sales go and sort
of saying that it's really not financially the smartest approach
to take for the over shoppers or the retail for
(17:11):
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 Sea's shopping season
at a and not even discount things, maybe even raise prices.
And his contention is that they're shooting themselves in the.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Foot, right, But I think he's right.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
He probably is.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
But at the same time, if you were one of
those people like me Frankly who went to the mall
the day after Halloween, yeah, and saw that the lights
were up, the garland was out, Santa's workshop was ready
to go, like Halloween November one, Wow, the place was
totally decked out for Christmas with Christmas carols piping through.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah. See that's that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
But see without but that was the great thing about
Black Friday. It's like, you, you know, you had a month
of just kind of chilling out everything getting ready between
between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Then you had Thanksgiving, and then
the holiday season started. Without Black Friday, It's kind of
like this this dam that's holding back the holiday season
from spilling into basically October. But with retailers figuring out
(18:21):
that it's an impedance to them making money, it probably
won't start the official season any longer. It'll probably be
further back from now on.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, well, I think we're in I don't know about well,
technically slightly in the minority. In twenty thirteen, fifty three
percent of the population of American adults said they will
shop on Black Friday.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
So fifty three percent.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, that puts us in the minority by a bit.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And in twenty eleven, one hundred and fifty two Americans.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Fifty two million. Oh yeah, just one hundred, but they
spent five hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, one hundred and fifty two. Really rich Americans. One
hundred and fifty two million shopped on that day for
an average of three hours at a time, which is
not too long, but that's I mean, three hours is
like it's longer weever.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
But I saw a woman who did sixteen though, like
a sixteen hour stretch of shopping.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
She better have gotten it all done at least, I hope,
so you know, yeah, like if she shopped for sixteen
hours and only got like three gifts, yeah, it's not
time we'll spend.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
There's also evidence that the Internet is basically knocking on
Black Friday's door. Thanksgiving Day is the fastest growing online
shopping day. Yeah, and I think like seventy percent of
the people who said that they're going to shop on
Black Friday, said they'll do some or most of it online.
So the Internet's still there for retailers to make money.
(19:47):
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 psychologists or consumer
analysts i think pointed out that it's a tradition number
one nowadays and number two, there's a certain element of
(20:09):
like sport to it. It's more than just getting a
good deal. It's like, you know, throwing a fist at
somebody while you're getting a good Dealer's something to it
that transcends the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So we mentioned Doorbusters. It's a central part of the
cog that is Black Friday, and it goes back in print,
believe it or not, to the You're nineteen seventeen and
anecdotally to eighteen ninety five, 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
(20:43):
and really super great deals on just a few select items.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So like, for example, a good laptop for one hundred
and eighty dollars. Yes, then like deals like that iPods
for half off or a TV for yeah, like two hundred,
like really really, like you said, very good discounts.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
But here's the deal. It's a scam people, it's a
bait and switch. It's a bait and switch. 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. 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
(21:22):
as well buy some stuff regular priced or slightly discounted items.
And you know, that's how they get you in the store.
That's how they get you.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It is, and it is. It's true that these items
do exist, and they are for that deal. They're there
there for that price, I should say, but there's only
like ten and in the fine print it's like one
per person, and that deals is for in stock only,
like you can't get a rain check or anything like that. No, no, no,
(21:51):
But 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,
leads to doors actually being busted.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's called recipe for disaster. Yeah. 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.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Okay, fish, fish.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
All right, let's go back a little bit to two
thousand and eight and probably the well, I was going
to say the darkest incident, but I think the Toys
r US may be darker.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I think this one's darker because d yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, that's true, all right. Two thousand and eight and
Valley Stream, Long Island. It was at a Walmart and
it was five pm on Thanksgiving, so basically people there
the day before. It wasn't one of those days where
it was open on Thanksgiving, so they're they're to wait
till five am. So at least twelve hours ahead of time,
there were about one thousand pe already set up there.
(23:02):
Some people are camping out in tents, they're waiting, they
got their coffee, they're probably slugging some jim Beam to
warm the belly. And 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.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, the crowd had turned angry a little bit after that,
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 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. Sure,
(23:43):
so the crowd actually turned like ugly.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, they broke through the barricade and were squeezed against
You know how the stores have the entrance and then
that little glassed and vestibule area before, and then usually
a second entrance right to get into the store itself.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
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's going to open at five,
and a couple 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
(24:19):
crush point, and it's about not just this incident, but
just crushings in general. Where yea a crowd on that
crush somebody.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, we covered that like years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
It seems like it, Yeah, totally, But anyway, you check
out that article.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
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 workers in that vestibule area realized that there was
a pregnant lady named Leanna Lockley being crushed against the doors,
and so they were like, we got to get this
lady in here, open the doors enough to squeeze her through.
(24:55):
She got in, and then the crowd surged forward and
it just kind of went downhill from there, and they
still did the ten, nine to eight countdown.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Isn't that mind boggling?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
It's mind boggling that they didn't. Well, first of all,
that the cops left.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah they said, they said apparently in the court deposition
that the cops when they left said, controlling this crowd's
not in our job description. Good luck. Walmart Hood 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, ye, and said,
(25:31):
come stand as vestibule and help anybody who like falls
down or.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
That's what I would have been liking, dude, that's not
in my job description exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Well, they they didn't say that. 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 way
and were literally busted by this wave of humanity.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, and at that point, the employees, their little roverline
was completely ineffective.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, yeah, a couple of them like climbed up the
coke machine to 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. This
article by John Sebrook puts it that he was blown back.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, like an iPod or something. Yeah, So that's not
the end of the story. Sadly, 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. And then
she somehow managed to get to her knees and saw
(27:05):
an employee. Do you know how to pronounce his first name?
Jim Ta de Moore, Jim T de Moore. He 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.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, he was trampled to death. He died of asphyxiation
being crushed under the door. And he was a stop guy.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
At six am, six oh three am. He was pronounced
dead one hour after the festive countdown to let people
get into shop.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
And that was at the hospital an hour later. So yeah,
he most likely died on the scene, and pretty awful.
What's crazy, Chuck? If that story is not bad enough,
tramplings are actually really common. Yeah, 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.
(28:01):
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
store opens on a Black Friday sale, just climbing over
one another, knocking each other down. Some people help other
(28:23):
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 insane. I seriously
encourage everybody to go check out some video of it.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah. I can't believe that after this incident that there
wasn't a law pass outlawing outright Black Friday sales.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You know that is not happening.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
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, like, 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.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
So that was a pretty horrendous example of a crowd
crush into trampling. Yeah, but other things do happen. You
mentioned the Toys r Us in Palm Desert, California a
couple of years back.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Right, Yeah, that was in two thousand and eight. These
two women got in a fistfight and then their husbands
got into it. And basically, first of all, these two
men were carrying guns into a Toys r Us a
Christmas shop, which a little weird, and they started a
shootout with each other basically, yeah, and not a very
(29:40):
skilled one apparently. I read about it like one guy
forgot to cock his 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. Yeah,
luckily no one else died, but those two gentlemen shot
each other and died, and it Toys r Us because
of their wife's got in a fistfight.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
On Black Friday at a Toys Arrus during Christmas shopping.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I'm surprised anyone else if they're running through the store shooting.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I think everybody cleared out of their way. Yeah, I know,
I wouldn't follow them around and be like, hey, guys,
what are you doing? Where's the Doorbusters.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
In twenty eleven, a woman at a Los Angeles Walmart
pepper sprayed some people in the video games. Initially, the
cops sought, well, this lady was some Black Friday jerk.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Which would make her a pretty awful person.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, But apparently the real story is, and she actually
got out of it, was that her children were attacked, 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.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Right, And this thing still hasn't been settled. The most
recent thing I saw was that a year on. So
last year, the cops still hadn't filed charges, so I
guess they believed her story.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
But she shopped anyway. After that happened, Yeah, and bought
her items.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So she pepper sprays a bunch of people, affects twenty people,
causes a bit of a trampling pandemonium. And then two
horrible things happen after that. One, like you said, the
lady took her at kids and her items and went
to the store and checked out. Yeah, bought her stuff. Second,
the people outside the immediate circle where she pepper spray,
(31:20):
but still in that little area, stuck around, still tried
to get their hands.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
On the sale item and they're like checking out and
their eyes and those are watering. Yeah, there's like just
just ring it up. Let me get home.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, And then of course took there's the workers as well.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Well, yeah, I mean, no one wants to work on Thanksgiving.
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, right,
which is really sad. And Walmart employees planned a strike
I think last year in twenty twelve, Yeah, and it
didn't work. Only twenty six of the forty two hundred
(31:56):
stores reported striking employees. So for fear of losing their jobs.
Probably they had to come to work anyway.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Well, Kmart in particular was criticized this year for opening
at six am on Thanksgiving. Yeah, and Kmart said, these
people don't have to work, like we're not forcing them
to work, and 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
(32:25):
position where they either work or you can fire them legally,
so they kind of do have to work. So 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 a Black Friday shopping and
he'll go at midnight, Yeah, go to the Doorbuster sales.
But he's like, he's not crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Well, the majority of them don't end in violence because
this happens all over the country. He's are isolated incidents,
so it's not like at every Doorbuster sale you're going
to get trampled.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
But there is a risk, there is, and the people
you want to look out for, apparently, is a study
of consumer behavior at Black Friday sales, and it was
a legitimate study. Sure. 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
(33:16):
like shoving, pushing, yelling.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
They've got their plan in place exactly and nothing's going
to alter.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
That, and they feel like they've really put the time
in and they're not about to lose that doorbuster.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Some jerk who's never done it before and just showed up.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Who just lucked into line or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
You know that, Like remember the famous Who concert in
the seventies where the people were trampled.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, that's in that New Yorker article too.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
They got rid of general emission seating after that. Like,
why can't they do something about this? You know, I
think the law stepped 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. They still
have general admission, not for big arena shows.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Oh yeah no, yeah, Well you know that there was
like just one door open and like four others locked. Yeah,
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.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So remember what we cover that in Man. It is
so like vivid in my mind from way early on
because we studied the science of crowd surges.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I don't know what it was either, because this article
is not that old.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
It's just like, no, it definitely wasn't about this. I
had to do with something else. But yeah, dirty bad stuff.
Or you can take another approach.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, this is a different approach, you could say.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
In the nineteen nineties, an artist named Ted Dave gave
birth to what's now called Buy Nothing Day, wherein people
are encouraged to not buy anything for twenty four hours
and to fight the power and consumerism by not showing
up at all.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
And not just fight the power. The guy who created
ted ted Dave, he's a Vancouver guy who came up
with it in the nineties. 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, that's a good day
(35:15):
to not buy anything and be take stock sure of
how much you do maybe waste or spend or whatever. Yeah,
just think about your consumer your consumerism for one day,
dirty hippie, and during that time, like, don't buy anything, man,
don't gass up your car the night before, don't get
a bunch of milk the night before, like, just be normal.
(35:37):
And 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 ab Busters. The people who
gave us Occupy Wall Street kind of found out about
it and adopted it and just took the whole thing worldwide.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
And then there's zenta clause. Maybe I'll do that.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Maybe I'll dress up as a sheep.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah and just walk around and buy in people's faces.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah. And then if I'm there, I might you know,
pick up a laptop. Right.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
There's also credit card cut up stations.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, yeah, where you can get rid of your credit
card and just shoot his consumerism.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah. And then there's the my favorite, the what is
it the wordly gig conga line?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Oh, I haven't heard of that? Is that to disrupt shoppers?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Uh? The whole the whole point is it just kind
of serve as a mirror I think to people like,
look at yourselves.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
You're ridiculous. You think I look stupid. You're the one
that looks stupid.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Right, 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 don't, then you're
taking the power back or pointing out to other people
(37:04):
just how ridiculous they're being at consumers. As consumers, people
probably be like, would you get that cheap costume? Right? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
What all was that on? So I've got one last
thing I noticed the other day. I'd never heard of
this before. In China. You think we like the shop.
Chinese loved the shop and they have something that they
have created called Singles Day, Okay, and it is on
November eleventh, so eleven eleven. The four ones stand for
(37:33):
single people, and they're basically like, hey, cause 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. Really, and it's a huge deal. They
spent well, this e commerce platform in China called ali
(37:53):
Baba is 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 Wow. 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 one hundred
(38:14):
and sixty million dollars in the first six minutes wow
online in China, geez, 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 when asked, say that they do some of the
shopping for themselves. Yeah, all gifts. It's like I want
(38:35):
that laptop.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I think forty forty seven percent or forty one percent
of people who said they're going to stop on Black
Friday so they'll do most of the shopping for themselves.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I usually do that whenever I go out, like genuinely
Christmas shopping, I'll pick up something for myself.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
But these people are saying they're mostly shopping for themselves.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I don't mostly, but I'll just I'll just treat myself
to something modest.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Just act like a human being.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, don't take anyone's life. No, don't trample over somebody
who's fallen down. And most importantly, I have a very
nice Thanksgiving. Enjoy the people you're with, whether they're friends,
family of old acquaintances, new acquaintances. Take some time to
really enjoy this Thanksgiving day and relax and just be I.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Agree, my friend. Yeah, 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.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
And we give you permission to shout down anybody who
says that trip to fan is what makes you sleepy.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Do you go ahead and send them straight?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yep? So Happy Happy Turkey Day Americans in other parts
of the world.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Whatever you're doing, I.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Hope you're well.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, nice, Chuck and Chuck. We should say that as usual.
If everyone wants to send us happy Thanksgiving wishes, you
can send us an email directly to Stuff podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everyone, it's been quite a few years since we
dusted off our classic episode on the insanity that is
Black Friday, so we thought we put it out there
for you again. I'm glad we made this episode when
we did, because Black Friday's nearly gone away since then,
so we kind of inadvertently came up with a document
on a fading cultural phenomenon, and I assume historians of
(00:23):
the future will rely heavily on this. In the meantime,
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know Fromhoustuffworks dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey, and welcome to 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.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's you just checked to make sure Jerry was there.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
She's very quiet.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You literally turned her head and body right, Yep, she's there.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I did the bigfoot thing like I had to turn
my whole the whole side of my body. Yeah, to
look over my shoulder. That's how you know that was
real footage.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, typically when you know Jerry's here, because you can
just smell like miso soup or something emanating from our
right side, yeah, or my right.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Side, your right side, but it's not emanating from you,
it's coming from Jerry. Yeah. She stinks like miso, which
is actually a very pleasant smell, salty and new mommy.
That's right, So Chuck, Yes, have you ever been to
a Black Friday sale?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
No? No, And I want to say, h no.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Oh yeah, Well, I mean that's not for me. That's
a decent qualifier though, because it's not like an average sale,
and like, if you don't go to a Black Friday sale,
it's a pretty good reason. Why is because you're scared.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
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 at three am.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I think there are people 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
(02:25):
people you know who had bathed in the blood or
their fellow shoppers well sadly, yeah, yeah, we'll see had
already come through and gotten all the best deals.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
But and then there's those of us like us who
are just like going out.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It is literally, and I'm not overstating this because people
always say literally when they mean figured it figuratively. But
it 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 DMV than go
to a doorbuster.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
The DMV, yeah, in between North Korea and South Korea.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, no, no, no, that's the DMZ.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right. I always get this too confused.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Now, I'd rather go take the last ticket from at
the DMV and have to wait all day than go
to a doorbuster sale.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah no, I don't blame you, all right.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So that's what we'll get to more hate spewing about
this layer but.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Right, and I should state my opinion. I feel like,
if this is your thing, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well true, true, I'm not like cast dispergence on people
who disparaging remarks is dispurgence a word.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Nope, it is no though you're like your own like
an American dictionary, the New Chuck Dictionary.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
We should make that up.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I like it. Yeah, you get had like five or
six words already chuckisms.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, agreed. I'm not saying like poopooing 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.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Right, 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
podcasts and don't live in the United States, because Black
Friday is pretty much a uniquely American experience.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
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 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.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right, and it's origin, well, the origin of the term
black Friday goes back kind of a waste apparently, to
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,
(04:46):
thanks to department stores like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Yeah,
and as a part of those parades.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
No accident, it's a Macy's parade.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Right exactly, you know. Yeah, it's still a good parade.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Though. Have you ever been.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, I've never been to the parade, but a couple
of times, Emily, and I've gone to the day before
when they blow up the.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Oh yeah, which is really neat, very cool. You mean,
I have a friend who's actually holding one of the
floats the balloons.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Oh cool.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Here.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The word got out.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I think I saw yeah, I saw something last year
in the news.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah. Yeah, it's not a place to go if you
don't like strollers. Let's just say that.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, strollers with alternating tires. Yeah. So,
but 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.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, and usually at the end kind of like bringing
up the rear, and that means we're kicking it off.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
That's the official start of the holiday season. Santa Claus
has made his first public appearance. So 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, well the fifties, calling the
(06:17):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, and there's also the other competing theory that it
was the day that stores would go into the black
meaning start to show profit. But that's not quite right
as it No, so that's fallacy.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's actually a well, it's a made up fallacy to
gloss over the original meaning of black Friday. 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
(07:00):
on Thanksgiving, Yeah, converge on Philadelphia to watch the Army
Navy game. Sure, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but they
had a day to kill, so they all started doing
their Christmas shopping because there was sales in downtown Philly
every year, and the place would be nuts. And this
was where black Friday came from. Apparently the police department
wanted to basically keep people away, so they'd be like, well,
(07:23):
you don't want to go to downtown Philly, it's black Friday.
And that was the original reason or origin of the term.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, I see you saw in here. An article from
the AP in nineteen seventy five, a sales manager at
Gimbals was quoted of saying, that's why bus drivers and
cab drivers call today black Friday. Yeah, 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.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It spread out of Philly, And then years later the
retail lobbies and retailers themselves said, we got to come
up with a better origin story this because we want
this to be a day that people want to get
out of their house and go shopping. You know.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
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, comes from when they did accounting
by hand. You'd write in red ink or black ink,
depending up that you were ahead with money or behind.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Red ink meant you were in the hole. Yeah, black
meant everything's.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Good, exactly, even though it does not mean that. The
holiday shopping season is when stores make up between twenty
and forty percent of their retail profits. So it's a lot. Yeah,
I mean, even Emily's 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, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And it's not just her. Apparently. In twenty 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 hundred and two billion dollars
in November and December. That'skray, that's a lot of cash. Yeah,
(09:03):
in two months.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah. I don't spend like I used to on Christmas.
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.
And then like the adults on my side of the family,
we don't exchange gifts anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Just dirty looks.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, you exchanged dirty looks now, 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 nice or build her a garden fence or
tile her kitchen like something like that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Wow, your mom's got it. Yeah, she's an easy street
is what you call that.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, but Emily's family they all still exchange gifts, So
I still have my Christmas gift swapping. Joan satisfied.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You know, yes, you get your Christmas present on Yeah, okay, Chuck.
So the idea of shopping after Thanksgiving and then Black Friday,
that day being called Black Friday, it's been around for
a while and it's a really valuable day. Yeah, you know,
it kicks off that two month period where six hundred
(10:17):
and two billion dollars is going to be spent on stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
But it was created like Valentine's Day, it was literally created,
and then the myth kind of became reality. Yeah, just
because they said everyone's going to shop the day, it's
the busiest day, and it became that.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, it wasn't until two thousand and four. Yeah, 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
(10:52):
before Christmas. So they basically said Black Friday's the day. Yeah,
and it, like you said, it just kind of be
came true just from people saying it over time.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
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 do Black Friday Friday Saturday. Yeah. So,
and there's this website called 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,
(11:34):
I should say, but it's just like scans of Black
Friday print ads from those years, which are kind of neat.
If you're totally bored out of your mind, go check
out Black Friday Archive dot com. So Black Friday became
(12:05):
a smashing success, like two thousand and four, two thousand
and 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.
But so it was so successful overnight that the retailer said, well,
(12:27):
let's figure out ways to extend this whole week. Yeah,
so they came up a cyber Monday in two thousand
and five.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yep, that's pretty recent and it is the online shopping
version of Black Friday, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And that was another thing they just made up, another
self fulfilling myth that 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
and the media reported it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And not to be outdone in American Express invented Small
Business Saturday, which is when you go out and support
small businesses with your money.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Especially ones that take American Express exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So there's it's interesting literally creating days to tell people basically,
if you're not shopping to day, you're missing out on
really good deals.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Right exactly. And the more days the better as far
as retailers are concerned. 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 twenty twelve, they
(13:44):
started touching it. Walmart actually opened at eight pm on
Thanksgiving in twenty twelve, and there was there was a
general strike called that we'll talk about later. Yeah, 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 thanks
(14:07):
Up until twenty twelve, it was sacrisanct.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah. This year, Macy's and J. C. Penny for the
first time are opening on Thanksgiving, and Sears and Toys
r Us as well on Thanksgiving evening, and Kmart is
opening at six am on Thanksgiving, basically extending Black Friday
through the weekend.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Forty one hours.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
That's not a day.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
That's how long Kmart's going to be open. Black Friday
at Camart lasts forty one hours. Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And at shopping malls you're going to have some smaller
stores doing the same thing. And estimated twenty to twenty
five percent 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.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I think the retail 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 it goes both ways, but I
pretty much see where you're coming from.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, Well, this year it's a little trickier too, because
Thanksgiving comes on November twenty eighth, which is the latest
suspend in eleven years.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, is that right? Yeah, two thousand and two. Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
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
I am are opening on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
That's exactly why it's six days shorter than usual this year.
So just by the very existence by making up Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
They've screwed themselves this year a little bit.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
They have by a week, yeah, because there's in other
countries like Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, countries that observe
the Christmas holidays like we do in America, meaning everybody
gives everybody else presents and things like that, and they
spend money. But those countries don't have a Black Friday,
a day that officially kicks off the holiday shopping season.
(16:19):
Those countries spend more over the course of the holiday
season because they have a longer period of time to shop.
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
(16:39):
be shooting ourselves in the foot here, so what can
we do well. Their solution has been, well, we'll just
take over Thanksgiving too, 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.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
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 this financial
analy was basically analyzing how the sales go and sort
of saying that it's really not financially the smartest approach
to take for the over shoppers or the retail for
(17:11):
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 Sea's shopping season
at a and not even discount things, maybe even raise prices.
And his contention is that they're shooting themselves in the.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Foot, right, But I think he's right.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
He probably is.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
But at the same time, if you were one of
those people like me Frankly who went to the mall
the day after Halloween, yeah, and saw that the lights
were up, the garland was out, Santa's workshop was ready
to go, like Halloween November one, Wow, the place was
totally decked out for Christmas with Christmas carols piping through.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah. See that's that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
But see without but that was the great thing about
Black Friday. It's like, you, you know, you had a month
of just kind of chilling out everything getting ready between
between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Then you had Thanksgiving, and then
the holiday season started. Without Black Friday, It's kind of
like this this dam that's holding back the holiday season
from spilling into basically October. But with retailers figuring out
(18:21):
that it's an impedance to them making money, it probably
won't start the official season any longer. It'll probably be
further back from now on.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, well, I think we're in I don't know about well,
technically slightly in the minority. In twenty thirteen, fifty three
percent of the population of American adults said they will
shop on Black Friday.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
So fifty three percent.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, that puts us in the minority by a bit.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And in twenty eleven, one hundred and fifty two Americans.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Fifty two million. Oh yeah, just one hundred, but they
spent five hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, one hundred and fifty two. Really rich Americans. One
hundred and fifty two million shopped on that day for
an average of three hours at a time, which is
not too long, but that's I mean, three hours is
like it's longer weever.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
But I saw a woman who did sixteen though, like
a sixteen hour stretch of shopping.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
She better have gotten it all done at least, I hope,
so you know, yeah, like if she shopped for sixteen
hours and only got like three gifts, yeah, it's not
time we'll spend.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
There's also evidence that the Internet is basically knocking on
Black Friday's door. Thanksgiving Day is the fastest growing online
shopping day. Yeah, and I think like seventy percent of
the people who said that they're going to shop on
Black Friday, said they'll do some or most of it online.
So the Internet's still there for retailers to make money.
(19:47):
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 psychologists or consumer
analysts i think pointed out that it's a tradition number
one nowadays and number two, there's a certain element of
(20:09):
like sport to it. It's more than just getting a
good deal. It's like, you know, throwing a fist at
somebody while you're getting a good Dealer's something to it
that transcends the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So we mentioned Doorbusters. It's a central part of the
cog that is Black Friday, and it goes back in print,
believe it or not, to the You're nineteen seventeen and
anecdotally to eighteen ninety five, 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
(20:43):
and really super great deals on just a few select items.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So like, for example, a good laptop for one hundred
and eighty dollars. Yes, then like deals like that iPods
for half off or a TV for yeah, like two hundred,
like really really, like you said, very good discounts.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
But here's the deal. It's a scam people, it's a
bait and switch. It's a bait and switch. 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. 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
(21:22):
as well buy some stuff regular priced or slightly discounted items.
And you know, that's how they get you in the store.
That's how they get you.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It is, and it is. It's true that these items
do exist, and they are for that deal. They're there
there for that price, I should say, but there's only
like ten and in the fine print it's like one
per person, and that deals is for in stock only,
like you can't get a rain check or anything like that. No, no, no,
(21:51):
But 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,
leads to doors actually being busted.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's called recipe for disaster. Yeah. 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.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Okay, fish, fish.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
All right, let's go back a little bit to two
thousand and eight and probably the well, I was going
to say the darkest incident, but I think the Toys
r US may be darker.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I think this one's darker because d yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, that's true, all right. Two thousand and eight and
Valley Stream, Long Island. It was at a Walmart and
it was five pm on Thanksgiving, so basically people there
the day before. It wasn't one of those days where
it was open on Thanksgiving, so they're they're to wait
till five am. So at least twelve hours ahead of time,
there were about one thousand pe already set up there.
(23:02):
Some people are camping out in tents, they're waiting, they
got their coffee, they're probably slugging some jim Beam to
warm the belly. And 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.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, the crowd had turned angry a little bit after that,
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 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. Sure,
(23:43):
so the crowd actually turned like ugly.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, they broke through the barricade and were squeezed against
You know how the stores have the entrance and then
that little glassed and vestibule area before, and then usually
a second entrance right to get into the store itself.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
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's going to open at five,
and a couple 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
(24:19):
crush point, and it's about not just this incident, but
just crushings in general. Where yea a crowd on that
crush somebody.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, we covered that like years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
It seems like it, Yeah, totally, But anyway, you check
out that article.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
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 workers in that vestibule area realized that there was
a pregnant lady named Leanna Lockley being crushed against the doors,
and so they were like, we got to get this
lady in here, open the doors enough to squeeze her through.
(24:55):
She got in, and then the crowd surged forward and
it just kind of went downhill from there, and they
still did the ten, nine to eight countdown.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Isn't that mind boggling?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
It's mind boggling that they didn't. Well, first of all,
that the cops left.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah they said, they said apparently in the court deposition
that the cops when they left said, controlling this crowd's
not in our job description. Good luck. Walmart Hood 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, ye, and said,
(25:31):
come stand as vestibule and help anybody who like falls
down or.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
That's what I would have been liking, dude, that's not
in my job description exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Well, they they didn't say that. 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 way
and were literally busted by this wave of humanity.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, and at that point, the employees, their little roverline
was completely ineffective.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, yeah, a couple of them like climbed up the
coke machine to 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. This
article by John Sebrook puts it that he was blown back.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, like an iPod or something. Yeah, So that's not
the end of the story. Sadly, 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. And then
she somehow managed to get to her knees and saw
(27:05):
an employee. Do you know how to pronounce his first name?
Jim Ta de Moore, Jim T de Moore. He 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.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, he was trampled to death. He died of asphyxiation
being crushed under the door. And he was a stop guy.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
At six am, six oh three am. He was pronounced
dead one hour after the festive countdown to let people
get into shop.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
And that was at the hospital an hour later. So yeah,
he most likely died on the scene, and pretty awful.
What's crazy, Chuck? If that story is not bad enough,
tramplings are actually really common. Yeah, 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.
(28:01):
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
store opens on a Black Friday sale, just climbing over
one another, knocking each other down. Some people help other
(28:23):
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 insane. I seriously
encourage everybody to go check out some video of it.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah. I can't believe that after this incident that there
wasn't a law pass outlawing outright Black Friday sales.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You know that is not happening.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
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, like, 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.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
So that was a pretty horrendous example of a crowd
crush into trampling. Yeah, but other things do happen. You
mentioned the Toys r Us in Palm Desert, California a
couple of years back.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Right, Yeah, that was in two thousand and eight. These
two women got in a fistfight and then their husbands
got into it. And basically, first of all, these two
men were carrying guns into a Toys r Us a
Christmas shop, which a little weird, and they started a
shootout with each other basically, yeah, and not a very
(29:40):
skilled one apparently. I read about it like one guy
forgot to cock his 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. Yeah,
luckily no one else died, but those two gentlemen shot
each other and died, and it Toys r Us because
of their wife's got in a fistfight.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
On Black Friday at a Toys Arrus during Christmas shopping.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I'm surprised anyone else if they're running through the store shooting.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I think everybody cleared out of their way. Yeah, I know,
I wouldn't follow them around and be like, hey, guys,
what are you doing? Where's the Doorbusters.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
In twenty eleven, a woman at a Los Angeles Walmart
pepper sprayed some people in the video games. Initially, the
cops sought, well, this lady was some Black Friday jerk.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Which would make her a pretty awful person.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, But apparently the real story is, and she actually
got out of it, was that her children were attacked, 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.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Right, And this thing still hasn't been settled. The most
recent thing I saw was that a year on. So
last year, the cops still hadn't filed charges, so I
guess they believed her story.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
But she shopped anyway. After that happened, Yeah, and bought
her items.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So she pepper sprays a bunch of people, affects twenty people,
causes a bit of a trampling pandemonium. And then two
horrible things happen after that. One, like you said, the
lady took her at kids and her items and went
to the store and checked out. Yeah, bought her stuff. Second,
the people outside the immediate circle where she pepper spray,
(31:20):
but still in that little area, stuck around, still tried
to get their hands.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
On the sale item and they're like checking out and
their eyes and those are watering. Yeah, there's like just
just ring it up. Let me get home.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, And then of course took there's the workers as well.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Well, yeah, I mean, no one wants to work on Thanksgiving.
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, right,
which is really sad. And Walmart employees planned a strike
I think last year in twenty twelve, Yeah, and it
didn't work. Only twenty six of the forty two hundred
(31:56):
stores reported striking employees. So for fear of losing their jobs.
Probably they had to come to work anyway.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Well, Kmart in particular was criticized this year for opening
at six am on Thanksgiving. Yeah, and Kmart said, these
people don't have to work, like we're not forcing them
to work, and 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
(32:25):
position where they either work or you can fire them legally,
so they kind of do have to work. So 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 a Black Friday shopping and
he'll go at midnight, Yeah, go to the Doorbuster sales.
But he's like, he's not crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Well, the majority of them don't end in violence because
this happens all over the country. He's are isolated incidents,
so it's not like at every Doorbuster sale you're going
to get trampled.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
But there is a risk, there is, and the people
you want to look out for, apparently, is a study
of consumer behavior at Black Friday sales, and it was
a legitimate study. Sure. 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
(33:16):
like shoving, pushing, yelling.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
They've got their plan in place exactly and nothing's going
to alter.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
That, and they feel like they've really put the time
in and they're not about to lose that doorbuster.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Some jerk who's never done it before and just showed up.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Who just lucked into line or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
You know that, Like remember the famous Who concert in
the seventies where the people were trampled.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, that's in that New Yorker article too.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
They got rid of general emission seating after that. Like,
why can't they do something about this? You know, I
think the law stepped 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. They still
have general admission, not for big arena shows.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Oh yeah no, yeah, Well you know that there was
like just one door open and like four others locked. Yeah,
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.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So remember what we cover that in Man. It is
so like vivid in my mind from way early on
because we studied the science of crowd surges.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I don't know what it was either, because this article
is not that old.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
It's just like, no, it definitely wasn't about this. I
had to do with something else. But yeah, dirty bad stuff.
Or you can take another approach.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, this is a different approach, you could say.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
In the nineteen nineties, an artist named Ted Dave gave
birth to what's now called Buy Nothing Day, wherein people
are encouraged to not buy anything for twenty four hours
and to fight the power and consumerism by not showing
up at all.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
And not just fight the power. The guy who created
ted ted Dave, he's a Vancouver guy who came up
with it in the nineties. 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, that's a good day
(35:15):
to not buy anything and be take stock sure of
how much you do maybe waste or spend or whatever. Yeah,
just think about your consumer your consumerism for one day,
dirty hippie, and during that time, like, don't buy anything, man,
don't gass up your car the night before, don't get
a bunch of milk the night before, like, just be normal.
(35:37):
And 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 ab Busters. The people who
gave us Occupy Wall Street kind of found out about
it and adopted it and just took the whole thing worldwide.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
And then there's zenta clause. Maybe I'll do that.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Maybe I'll dress up as a sheep.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah and just walk around and buy in people's faces.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah. And then if I'm there, I might you know,
pick up a laptop. Right.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
There's also credit card cut up stations.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, yeah, where you can get rid of your credit
card and just shoot his consumerism.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah. And then there's the my favorite, the what is
it the wordly gig conga line?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Oh, I haven't heard of that? Is that to disrupt shoppers?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Uh? The whole the whole point is it just kind
of serve as a mirror I think to people like,
look at yourselves.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
You're ridiculous. You think I look stupid. You're the one
that looks stupid.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Right, 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 don't, then you're
taking the power back or pointing out to other people
(37:04):
just how ridiculous they're being at consumers. As consumers, people
probably be like, would you get that cheap costume? Right? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
What all was that on? So I've got one last
thing I noticed the other day. I'd never heard of
this before. In China. You think we like the shop.
Chinese loved the shop and they have something that they
have created called Singles Day, Okay, and it is on
November eleventh, so eleven eleven. The four ones stand for
(37:33):
single people, and they're basically like, hey, cause 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. Really, and it's a huge deal. They
spent well, this e commerce platform in China called ali
(37:53):
Baba is 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 Wow. 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 one hundred
(38:14):
and sixty million dollars in the first six minutes wow
online in China, geez, 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 when asked, say that they do some of the
shopping for themselves. Yeah, all gifts. It's like I want
(38:35):
that laptop.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I think forty forty seven percent or forty one percent
of people who said they're going to stop on Black
Friday so they'll do most of the shopping for themselves.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I usually do that whenever I go out, like genuinely
Christmas shopping, I'll pick up something for myself.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
But these people are saying they're mostly shopping for themselves.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I don't mostly, but I'll just I'll just treat myself
to something modest.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Just act like a human being.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, don't take anyone's life. No, don't trample over somebody
who's fallen down. And most importantly, I have a very
nice Thanksgiving. Enjoy the people you're with, whether they're friends,
family of old acquaintances, new acquaintances. Take some time to
really enjoy this Thanksgiving day and relax and just be I.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Agree, my friend. Yeah, 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.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
And we give you permission to shout down anybody who
says that trip to fan is what makes you sleepy.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Do you go ahead and send them straight?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yep? So Happy Happy Turkey Day Americans in other parts
of the world.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Whatever you're doing, I.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Hope you're well.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, nice, Chuck and Chuck. We should say that as usual.
If everyone wants to send us happy Thanksgiving wishes, you
can send us an email directly to Stuff podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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