I’m one of those wierd-os who wants to know the actual meaning of words. Black Friday is a very strange phrase we batter around in America, generally to mean the Biggest Shopping Day of the year, and as the kick-off of the Christmas spending season.
So where does the term come from?
Three Theories I have to offer to you.
First, in Philadelphia in the 50s and 60s the day after Thanksgiving was a day of huge crowding and chaos for for the local cops. The Army-Navy game brought in many extra folks, there was crowding and general chaos and a greatly increase incidence of shoplifting. The local cops called it Black Friday, as it was just a bad, bad day for them.
Second, in the 80s there was a HUGE stock market crash. (2nd biggest, after the Great Crash of Oct 1929.) This was known as Black Friday, since it happened on a Friday. The following Monday the market was about to do the same thing and they closed the market. By Tuesday the “panic” was over and things began their recovery(1). I remember a reporter asking Bill Gates what he thought of Black Friday and he said (essentially, don’t recall his precise words) that it really didn’t affect him; he already had more money than he could ever possibly spend.
Third, there’s a theory that the term Black Friday is the one day of the year in which businesses can actually run “in the Black,” meaning at a profit. The underlying explanation is that the government, competition and other outlandish expenses so generally drain a business that the rest of the year they are really not profitable. (I don’t really buy this — or, let’s say that if a business is running at a loss the other 364 days then they need to revised, revamp and rethink.)
OK… that’s the three origins of the term Black Friday that I know of.
Which of them has to do with “let’s go out and brave the crowds and buy every dang thing we can reach and that our over-burdened credit cards can handle!”
Also, people die on this day, every year. Shopper stampedes and such and even deliberate violence in deciding who gets the last of an item on display in some store. Madness… absolute insanity.
I don’t get it…
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(1) The stock market is always subject to panic and such. Excuse me, but why would anyone put their money on a roulette wheel subject to such outbursts of emotion? I mean, really? Why? In 2016, after Donald Trump won the election, the stock market went up the next day a huge amount, though nothing had changed. Same thing in 2024, day after the election, and again, nothing had changed. This can be taken as an indicator of confidence of childish-enthusiasm maybe, but why would you put your money into such a venue, at least not without realizing the gamble that it is?
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