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Show Mr `This line moves faster,' why black Friday is a good day By FELICIA JOY Assistant Opinions Editor Orem is a pretty boring place. I know that because I live here. It's one reason why the frenzy of Black Friday is one of my favorite winter traditions. To watch some of the normally demure Mormon mothers scramble like offensive lineman for pallets of discounted goods, and to see them express so much excitement over their purchases, is like witnessing what Happy Valley would be like if it were actually happy. The adage "Money can't buy happiness" must have been invented by the "One Percent" to deter the rest of us from getting in on their merriment. I say that only half-facetiously. Maybe money can't buy happiness, but spending and saving some in the process is satisfying. Some people on the interweb have scorned these crowds of shoppers, referring to them as "sheep" or "the lumpen masses." They subscribe to the misconception that these early bird shoppers wage war over items that can be bought a few months later for the same price in a more "humane" fashion. But in the United States, it's almost impossible to buy anything humanely. Most goods are shipped from developing countries and produced in factories where working conditions are deplorable all year long. By contrast, Black Friday's endless lines and materialistic mob violence come once a year. Frankly, that's not enough. Black Friday ought to be what excessive consumer culture is always like. It is not with ease or privilege that these things are produced; it shouldn't be with ease that we buy them. There's been controversy over the woman who Maced people in order to acquire an Xbox. Yes, her measures were certainly extreme in a moment of chaos. However, policemen have been using pepper spray against peaceful civilians with state sanction for several months. In fact, the Black Friday Macing is perhaps more justifiable than recent incidents involving alleged keepers of the peace. People will use this singular occurrence to condemn the entire practice. "Black Friday is so disgraceful, did you hear about that lady with the Xbox?" But that sort of thinking unfairly dismisses the fact that thousands of stores hosted millions of people who spent billions of dollars in the course of a couple of days with minor mishaps. It's actually pretty brilliant. For those who have not participated in Black Friday, it's hard to properly describe the mélange of emotions in the air. We don't often acknowledge the sense of community that permeates the day. Living in a valley that goes to bed at nine o'clock, it's always refreshing and surprising to watch one's neighbors be so alive in the wee hours. Sing-alongs spontaneously erupt. Supplies are shared. Friends are made. Women thumb through their ads and share their strategies with others. Contrary to sheep in a pasture without direction or purpose, these crowds are rife with the most informed consumers you'll ever meet. In fact, I've often wondered if Black Friday gets such a bad rap because it's a day that women do something they're known to be really good at. The threat of women nationwide adeptly performing a task will always be called "crazy" or "ridiculous." Men act this way about sports all year long and somehow it's totally normal. There are those who criticize holiday commercialization. There are those who wish that Christmas was about Jesus and not presents , Thanksgiving about gratitude and not shopping. I don't understand what any of that means. It is trite to think that Jesus and presents can't be symbolically germane to one another. Jesus gave his life for the world. We don't give our lives literally but we give our money that we spend most of our lives working for to share with people that we love. Are not the most touching Christmas stories the ones where someone gets exactly what they wanted because someone else sacrificed for it? My mother sets aside a certain amount of her income every month so that when Christmas comes, she has enough. When I think about those midnight shoppers, many of whom are trying to survive the bad economic conditions, I'm convinced that the money they are spending is a bit of a sacred fund. Sacred because of how hard they've worked to earn it and because of what it expresses to the people receiving what was purchased with it. Maybe some people think that it's sad that it takes a good bargain to wake a community at four in the morning. But it's not just about stuff, and I'm merely glad that something can rouse them. Does Black Friday bring people together or drive them apart? Staff writer Lindsey Nelson and Assistant Editor Felicia Joy battle it out. Christina Ruth/UVU Review The land of the greedy and the home of the depraved By LINDSEY NELSON Staff Writer America has created a sickening new holiday. Black Friday may not be officially recognized yet, but it symbolizes the most significant aspect of any American celebration: it's commercially driven. Candy and costumes for Halloween; boxes of chocolate and roses for Valentine's Day; stuffed turkeys, stuffed stockings, loaded Easter Eggs ... and then you have to run down to Hallmark to buy a gift card for Mother's Day, Father's Day and even Secretary's Day! Black Friday doesn't try to hide its money-hungry agenda behind Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. It's a young holiday and each year it becomes more outrageous and more dangerous. It's like Na- tional Sadism Day. Let's come together as Americans and Mace each other for a $2 DVD. Let's Taser a teenage girl for trying to grab the last iPad 2. Come one, come all. Bring your guns, throw your elbows into people's faces and party! You'd think an Xbox game contained the cure for AIDS. I might camp for days in freezing weather outside Walmart if there was a fountain of youth inside, but not for a 64inch plasma flat screen TV, especially not when that unbelievable bargain price is going to be the standard selling price within the next year, anyway. American culture is exposing itself as the greedy, materialistic, capitalist monster that the rest of the world sees it as. How else can you justify that line of tents wrapping around the outside walls This is what we think, but what do you think? Share your opinion by writing a LETTER TO THE EDITOR. of Walmart and Best Buy four or five days before the most ominous Friday of the year? How else can you explain the relentless annual increase of disturbing, almost pathological violence each year the morning after the turkey and pie holiday? One Thanksgiving morning, I was forced to go to Walmart to purchase some last minute eggnog. Enormous displays of the most coveted new products decked the aisles with signs posted on them that said "10 p.m." or "12 a.m." indicating the exact time these hot items would become fair game for the raging hordes. All, of course, to be sold at tantalizingly low prices. I don't deny that many holidays - mainly Christmas, Hanukkah and Easter - are embedded in spiritual traditions that have significant religious meaning. I'm simply saying that their sacred aspects are marred by the root of all evil: money. Black Friday is the highest holy day when it comes to worshipping the Almighty Dollar, and it's only going to keep gaining momentum each year. To its credit, Black Friday does give the national economy a much-needed jolt of fiscal electroshock therapy. According to William Axford from The Tri-County Times, this year's Black Friday sales were higher than last year. He also cites The National Retail Federation with an estimate that the average shopper spent somewhere around $400 that day. In economic times like these, the revenue Black Friday rakes in could be seen as a bit of national life support. But at what cost? CNN reports that there were violent LETTER REQUIREMENTS: -Letters should be between 100 and 300 words long. -Letters must include full name. incidents in California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, New York, Alabama and Connecticut, and perhaps more. The majority of them occurred at or near a Walmart store. We've all heard about the lady that pepper-sprayed almost a dozen people in the video game section. We've read about people being trampled to death or shot. Maybe you've heard about the 54-year-old man who was hurled to the tile floor by overzealous police officers. The man observed his young grandson had fallen to the ground, prey to thousands of pairs of shoes stomping around. He tucked the video game into his waistband in order to free up his hands to save his son. The police officers flung him down facefirst where he lay in a quickly spreading pool of blood. He was unconscious for several minutes before being arrested. The incident can be seen on YouTube, but you have to click a disclaimer button affirming that you are 18 years or older because it's quite a bloody scene. There are people wall-to-wall, making a Disneyland line look like the express checkout at a grocery store at midnight. Events like Black Friday are reflections of how Americans are shaping our national identity. That we will viciously attack each other with the self-control of frenzied gorillas over toys speaks volumes about our values. As my friend Jose Audelo put it, "In war and in shopping; that is when Americans become dangerous." Do we want materialism, commercialism and selfishness to become our cultural norms? -Letters can be emailed to us at uvureview.studentvoice@gmail.com . -Or bring letters into our office, at SC 220. |