As I was idly browsing the internet at the airport today, I came across a piece of news from BBC that got my attention. The title read: “Police issue Black Friday warning to retailers”. What has the police got to do with it? Apparently, during last year’s Black Friday, at a supermarket chain in England, there was such a great chaos between customers that the police had to be called. Mind you, these are people fighting over TV sets, computers or stereo systems.
If you live in a happy world and has no idea what I am talking about, then I give you two choices: (1) stop here and go on being happy or (2) continue reading and become a little less happy and a little more disappointed on human kind.
You decided to continue, I admire your courage.
Black Friday is one Friday in the end of November (presumably after Thanksgiving — yes, it’s an American thing, surprise, surprise!) when retailers give ridiculous discounts (50, 60,… even 90% off) on their products. So far so good… kinda. But when people hear crazy discounts, people apparently go crazy themselves. Black Fridays are characterized by long lines in front of shops, with people arriving as early as 3am, the chaos inside shops, with people filling up their carts with whatever only because it might be sold out on the next 5 minutes, and eventual arguments between customers over who will get that last washing machine at 70% off. Things can get pretty ugly, as some videos show.
The news at BBC only briefly explained the situation, and the fact that the police asked stores to be better prepared, and then went on saying that the concerning supermarket chain decided not to participate on Black Friday this year and what would be the consequences for their Christmas sales. As if this is the thing we should be focusing on… For me this is like saying, yeah, there is this war somewhere and a bunch of people are dying, but let’s see how this affects the missile market. Granted, it was BBC Business… What else can you expect? I cannot avoid the disappointment though.
First of all, I am disappointed at people (big news) that became so much consumerist as to reach this point of savageness (is this a word?) for getting products they don’t actually need. Only because they are on sale. How often do you need to change your TV set, mobile phone, mp3 player, headphones, laptops, tablets, screen projectors, suitcases, refrigerators, toasters, and so on? The new rule seems to be: as often as new models are released (or maybe half that frequency, which would still be too much, in my opinion). And companies many sure of having brand new stuff for you every year. They need the revenue, keep the economy active and the money circulating and everybody is happy, right? Wrong! I, for one, am not happy at all, and I have a feeling I am not alone.
Have you ever thought where your unused gadgets end up? Maybe you are lucky to have a big enough house, with a basement to dump all the stuff for now. But in the long run, your space will end, as it is finite, or you have to move. Then you might have a garage sale or sell some things online, but by then, a big part of it will be so undervalued (mobile phones that cost as much as 300 euros 2 years ago can be bought by 30 euros today) that it is not worth the trouble. You will throw most of them away, polluting the environment with all the silicon, lithium, plastic and a bunch of other crap that will take hundreds of thousands of years to decompose. Ok. Maybe I am being unfair. Maybe you are a pseudo-ecological person that takes your useless stuff to the next electronics’ recycling center. You know all the silicon, lithium and plastic are still there, right? People at these centers will separate the materials to facilitate recycling, a process which itself consumes energy and other resources. If you were really ecological, you would not have accumulated so many useless things in the first place.
My second disappointment is with the news itself, a narrow-minded article that makes a silly economical analysis of shops adhering or not to Black Friday and misses *entirely* the bigger and more important picture. I don’t mind BBC having a business section. I mind that a huge newscast corporation, responsible for shaping the opinions of millions of people, has an article saying how Christmas sales are affected by Black Friday and does *not* have an article discussing the more worrying consequences of such event. Consequences that will only be felt after a few years, on the climate, nature and society itself (if you think about it, 10 years ago is not that far and already so many things have changed), and not on next month’s profit. Why are these fundamental questions not worthy of a front page news? Do newspapers have an agenda? Or are they simply run by people that don’t care? Or is it too disturbing? I am sure there are competent people out there, thinking, researching and writing about the important things. Where are these people? Why are they not writing articles for the BBC? You really should…