Everyone knows what Black Friday is; it basically marks the end of Thanksgiving and the start of the Holiday season. It is also the one day of the year where every single store has some sort of criminally high sales. The truth is—you either love or hate it—whether people choose to admit it or not. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that Black Friday is a retail holiday driven by status, fear, and thrill.
The number of people who participate in the ominous Black Friday can be intimidating. Everyone floods their favorite stores and participation seems almost mandatory. People begin to ask themselves, “If I don’t go and have the latest thing, then what am I doing? What will people think of me if I can’t follow the latest trends?”
We live in a world driven by materialism where status can be spotted in a bottle of Dior perfume, the new Louis Vuitton bag, or as useless as it sounds, a 24k gold Labubu. People like watching people with status, power, and money—it’s fascinating. Everyone chases the new, hot product, where we all aspire to be the next Clara Bow. Black Friday uses this to their advantage, it manipulates the general public and instills fear in their minds, because who are you, truly, if you don’t push and shove your way into a Sephora for the new Rare Beauty blush. When you finally get your hands on it, does it ever really fulfill you like you’d imagined? Society continues to fill their bottomless hole of insecurity and self-doubt with the latest trends and the truth is, stores use Black Friday to abuse that. Black Friday won’t ever fade away, because neither will a lack of self-confidence in society. Desire for status and wealth will always be present in modern-day society, it’s always a race of who can get to the top. In reality, there is no top. To be ahead of every latest trend is an unachievable goal. This year, shop online instead, or avoid the anxiety altogether and enjoy the Thanksgiving leftovers with your family and friends.
