Once upon a time, “Black Friday” meant something. It was the day after Thanksgiving, a chaotic 24-hour ritual where Americans fought each other for discounted microwaves.[1] It was a single moment in the calendar, a lightning strike of consumer frenzy. You’d finish your turkey, sleep badly, and wake up at 4 a.m. to stand in the cold for a shot at a $29 TV.
Now? Now Black Friday begins whenever Amazon feels like it.
Seriously: the “Black Friday Week” sales began the week before Thanksgiving this year. I’m looking at this madness from Japan, so I’m limited in seeing what is online. It could be worse in person for all I know. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear some places quietly rolled theirs out the first week of November.
Others, I’m sure, might wait until Thanksgiving Day itself, presumably out of respect for tradition, if that word still means anything. And once Black Friday actually arrives, the sales just keep going straight into “Cyber Monday,” then “Cyber Week,” and then, for some retailers, “Last Chance Deals,” “Extended Last Chance Deals,” and “We Swear This Is the Final Last Chance Unless You Missed It.”
It’s hard to call something “Friday” when it’s a three-week event.
Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy — none of them even pretend anymore. They’re basically saying: Time is fake. Calendars are a suggestion. Linear chronology is for people who don’t need a 15% discount on an air fryer.
The irony is that the deals are often identical across the entire month. That $49 gadget you’re eyeing? It’ll probably still be $49 next Tuesday. Or the Tuesday after that. Or the Tuesday after Christmas. So the urgency feels… synthetic. Manufactured scarcity without the scarcity. A sale without the moment. An event stretched so thin it barely has a pulse.
And that’s the harmless ones. “Harmless”. Also common is the item getting a price boost a week before, only to be “discounted” back to their original price for Black Friday. Dishonesty at its finest.
And maybe that’s fine. I mean, I don’t know, maybe the old Black Friday, with people throwing elbows over a game console, wasn’t exactly a cultural high point. Maybe the modern, month-long sale season is just capitalism admitting it prefers to be a soft blanket rather than a contact sport. Or late-stage capitalism trying to squeeze every last penny out of us. Take your pick.
Still, I can’t help feeling like something has been lost. Not the chaos: that can stay gone. But the meaning. The rhythm of the calendar. The idea that a thing happens when it happens instead of happening continuously until morale improves.
Anyway, happy Black Friday Month. Or Season. Or Quarter. Hard to tell anymore. But if you missed any deals, don’t worry. There’s always next week’s Black Friday.
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To now-Americans: I mean it. Fistfights breaking out and people being injured were common. ↩
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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |
