Black Friday? Black Friday? @#$£!

[Guy Profumo]

It's not Black Friday tomorrow

"Black Friday" aka "Stab Friday" isn't until 22nd December.

[Etienne]

It makes sense in an American context, but it is an absolute nonsense in a country which doesn't have Thanksgiving this week. Just stop buying crap you don't need.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

It's not Black Friday tomorrow

"Black Friday" aka "Stab Friday" isn't until 22nd December.

"Black Eye Friday" round here, we're more old fashioned in our casual drunken violence see.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Mad Friday in my corner of West Cumbria.

Although how you differentiate between "the last Friday before Christmas when blue-collar people stopped working, and went out and got hammered" and "any given Friday in Cumbria" is a mystery to me.

[ad hoc]

It's been Black Friday in Romania since last Friday and it's still going on. I guess if you're going to take the names of other countries' events and leave them described in English you can do what you want with it

[JVL]

It's everywhere in Germany too. Black Friday this, Black Week that, online and in stores. And I just had a translation job for a customer all about 'maximising revenue with Black Friday'. So I am indirectly profiting from this nonsensical 'tradition' as well, I suppose...

[ad hoc]

"Black Friday" appears to just mean "sales" here. This week more or less coincides with the US original but there is Black Friday in the spring too

[G-Man]

Today some shops here have Red Thursday, to go before Black Friday.

Awful name, "Black Friday". It sounds like the sort of name one gave to a day on which an awful massacre or terror attack took place. "Remember Black Friday? Awful thing with those seven dead people," we'd say. "Three people have been arrested in connection with the 'Black Friday' attack which claimed seven lives," the news would report. Black denoted sorrow and death.

Now that massacres are as common as Fridays of any hue in the US and terror attacks barely rate headlines unless they are in Western Europe or the US, there's no point in calling those acts anything evocative.

Maybe the rampant commercialism of "Black Friday" deserves that moniker.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Mad Friday in my corner of West Cumbria.

Although how you differentiate between "the last Friday before Christmas when blue-collar people stopped working, and went out and got hammered" and "any given Friday in Cumbria" is a mystery to me.

Surprised this hasn't turned up on the maps thread, an infographic of localised usage of the terms 'Mad Friday' and 'Black Eye Friday' in Cumbria. This year the chaos is spread (as it has been the last couple of years) - a lot of places 'break up' on the 15th, so that and the 22nd will both be busy, but not overwhelmingly so. It's when you get Christmas falling on a Thursday or a Friday that things get really out of hand, on the preceding Friday.

Like many things, it's not like it used to be (thankfully in this case) - back in the day in Carlisle the factories would kick out at lunchtime and the nightclubs opened at 12 noon, kicked out to tidy up at about 6pm, and then opened again at 9pm. Peak violence came between 6-9.

[Sean of the Shed]

Today some shops here have Red Thursday, to go before Black Friday.

Awful name, "Black Friday". It sounds like the sort of name one gave to a day on which an awful massacre or terror attack took place. "Remember Black Friday? Awful thing with those seven dead people," we'd say. "Three people have been arrested in connection with the 'Black Friday' attack which claimed seven lives," the news would report. Black denoted sorrow and death.

Now that massacres are as common as Fridays of any hue in the US and terror attacks barely rate headlines unless they are in Western Europe or the US, there's no point in calling those acts anything evocative.

Maybe the rampant commercialism of "Black Friday" deserves that moniker.

Apparently they say you can't even call it "Black" Friday anymore in case it offends someone. It's political correctness gone mad if you ask me.

[Various Artist]

I think calling it African-American Friday is about the only thing that could make it more nonsensical in the UK.

Course, back in the day we used to just call it N****r Friday and nowt were at all bothered.

[andrew7610]

My current work contract is with a well-known fashion retail location which is normally very busy, but it is absolutely fucking mental here today.
And it isn't Black Friday here because the marketing wonks deem that too common, so they came up with 'Magical Savings Weekend' instead which just makes me think of 6 rugby league games back to back.

[WOM]

In the 'people getting excited over not much...and lining up for the privilege' category, I offer you people lining up for hours at the opening of The Cheesecake Factory.

Now, I'll admit I'm not normally charitable about the dead-eyed drones you see 'seeing and being seen' walking around Yorkdale Mall, but this subset takes the (cheese)cake.

"Hey, I have absolutely nothing better to do on a Wednesday morning...let's go line up with thousands of other morons for the opening of a [fucking] restaurant."

http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2017...g-day-toronto/

[ursus arctos]

I have a theory that the Cheescake Factory is inordinately popular among Trump voters. It caters to their idea of what wealth looks like while feeding them massive quantities of crap.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, this piece focuses on their design

The Wiki has a useful list of disasters that merited the moniker long before it became commercialised

[WOM]

Exactly. Or, as I say about stretch limousines, 'the poor person's idea of how rich people live'.

The second picture on that blog.to link says it all: the kind of people who spend more money on gaudy handbags than you spend on rent. Four of them....all in a row.

[NickSTFU]

It's 'Builders Friday' around Shrewsbury, like.

Thankfully, our works do is on the 15th, so I won't have to witness a bloke in a Christmas jumper glass a bloke in a Santa hat.

Unless the simmering tension between two colleagues boils over. Been building for a couple of months that.

[Third rate Leszno]

[ad hoc]

Having arrived yesterday I can confirm that Vietnam is also in the grip of an extended Black Friday. Though some shops are already taking down the advertising and installing Christmas (the next global capitalist retail festival)

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Basically, what Etienne said (which I think everyone else also agrees with).

One thing that puzzles me though is why, given the irrelevance of the Thanksgiving week outside North America, retailers in other places (in particular, the UK) would *want* to ape the US "Black Friday" retail thing. I mean, we're coming into the peak Christmas shopping season already, so why the hell lower prices at this point in the annual cycle? I thought sales were supposed to be for when turnover would otherwise be very low, as in the month or two after Christmas. Odd (but not particularly interesting).

[ad hoc]

I suspect the research has revealed that if you get people shopping earlier for Christmas they think more about it and consequently spend more

[WOM]

Indeed. And then the "I'm already in this deep, so I may as well buy this too" philosophy takes over. It's the same thinking that has people spending great gobs of money on gaudy jewelry, paintings, fragrances and whatnot while they're on a cruise. Or buying bling on 'duty-free' islands. Or any manner of garbage in airport duty-free shops. Once you get people spending, it's pretty easy to keep the ball rolling.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I got an extra £14.80 off my Rail Magazine subscription for Black Friday.

[Gerontophile]

I got an extra £14.80 off my Rail Magazine subscription for Black Friday.

It's almost like being in love.