I'm going to bring it down a notch here fellas, and I'm talking to you America.
Halfway through a post combining the various threads of economic crisis, Ted Haggard, male prostitution, truckstops, OKC megachurch pastors, and methamphetamine, I felt a compulsion, or a conviction as they say in these God-fearing parts, to write on something a bit less personal. Like many, I was disturbed by the news reports last week of the senseless violence, irrational fighting between normally peaceful groups, and accounts of innocent citizens and tourists fearing for their lives in public places ordinarily reserved for commerce and capitalism. A commentary on the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, perhaps? I wish it was something so pertinent. Instead, I'm sitting here thinking about the most contrived, unnecessary, and blatantly manufactured of all modern American events – “Black Friday.”
A seasonal worker at a Wal-Mart in Long Island, New York was killed when an overly aggressive crowd of early morning shoppers trampled him, one can assume, in order to save an additional $50.00 on a soon-irrelevant Blue Ray, $20.00 on an always-relevant crock pot, and $2.50 on an eternally-licentious Hannah Montana poster. This wasn't 60,000 ticket-holding soccer hooligans trying to get into a stadium designed to hold 40,000 people. This was a few hundred soccer moms and dads standing in line since 2am because advertisements, websites, and news reports had been whipping their consumer minds into a frenzy for weeks prior to that night. And lest we think that this only happens among rude New Yorkers, a friend of mine said that two women were escorted out of the Norman, Oklahoma Wal-Mart when fisticuffs erupted over quilts, linens, or something of that nature in the bedding aisles (when will these women learn, you fight over things that matter: perceived insults, verbal disagreements over meatloaf, and who’s too drunk to drive). Ordinarily, I like to leave the declensionist jeremiads to Ol' Grumpy Bastard-in-Chief, Butch Bagwell, but last Friday's news was proof once again that while Man in the state of nature might very well be free, Man in modern America is a mindless, selfish, and inconsiderate douche bag. And as melodramatic as microcosms tend to be, I think this incident serves to remind us of where this country’s passions, values, and problems lie.
We are first and foremost a consumer nation. Faith, politics, and patriotism are all subject to the consumer impulse and the guidance of marketing. The fastest growing Christian churches model themselves around the latest sales-oriented corporate models and “sell” a Christianity that is a synthesis of Biblical principles, self-help-Alpha-male mantras, and brand identity. Detroit is reaping the benefits from years of influencing politicians to bend regulations on SUVs in order to compensate for lost market shares to more fuel efficient foreign cars. The Cold War was a triumph of capitalism and consumerism over communism, and we celebrated by spending. For the last 20 years, the upwardly mobile American middle class displayed its accomplishment, wealth, and love of country by buying Japanese sedans and SUVs; in turn, the upper class (and overly-ambitious lower middle) sought the German and British variety. Even though America's unique penchant for consumerism dates to the early 20th Centuty, the last 15 years witnessed an unprecedented explosion of conspicuous consumption - you've got the credit cards to prove it.
I believe the low point of this trend came with the repackaging and re-marketing of a day that already had a title, a purpose, and marketability. Back when I was a kid in the 1980s, it was called the day after Thanksgiving, and people always went shopping. It didn't need a catchy name, advertising "leaks," or Euler circuits describing the quickest way to get from the Best Buy to the Wal-Mart to The Container Store (Side note: a f***ing Container Store? Way too reminiscent of
"Spatula City" from the always enjoyable film UHF).
The first time I heard the term “Black Friday” was 2006 and it came from a particularly unimpressive coworker whose only joy in life came from buying. I honestly thought he or she made it up. Little did I know that, seeing an opportunity to dupe people like my coworker, marketers took a negligible term and twisted it into an ominous sounding land run of potential consumer winners and losers – thereby tapping into another key component of the American psyche, the need to be first.
Quick review of our recipe:
1 part rampant consumer culture
2 parts aggressive marketing
½ part hyper-competitive culture
¼ part disposable goods
- Something’s missing. Much like the formula on
Heroes, we need a catalyst of some sort… ah yes!
I blame the people who decide to open stores extra early. This decision simply goes against long-standing good advice. Whether you’re hitting the night clubs with Plaxico Burress, the strip clubs with Pacman Jones, or waiting outside the doors of JC Penny’s with your Aunt Judy, your chances of being involved in a violent act increases by 500% between midnight and 5am. And we’re not talking about people who have been up all night having a good time. We’re talking about people who crawled out of bed hours before they’re used to doing so, and expecting to get something out of their efforts. It’s amazing that more people haven’t been hurt or killed. Try waking up Butch or Dusty at 3am and you're most likely going to wind up shot by one of their "Constitutionally protected" semi-automatic assault rifles - you can wake up Max too, but he'll be too drunk to care. I sincerely hope that corporations move the store openings back to a more reasonable 8am, but I know they won't.
A man is dead because of Holiday marketing, hype, and stupidity. It’s Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa season (or the secular Holiday season, if you prefer), maybe this unfortunate accident on an unnecessarily-named occasion shifts some people’s perspective away from the rabid consumerism that Charles Schultz nailed when he wrote Sally saying, "All I want is what I... I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share," in
A Charlie Brown Christmas. This was meant to read as more of a condemnation of consumer culture than a monologue on the meaning of Christmas - since I'm sure Max would agree that Christmas's meaning can be just as arbitrary as an Angel's earthy purpose. So I don’t care if you believe in Jesus or not (or Jesus the Angel of Salsa for that matter), but let’s try to remember the “Peace on Earth” and “Goodwill to Men” parts when walking alongside people who have been supplying the demands of holiday shoppers for 10-hour days. Or failing that, at least watch the last 15 minutes of the Bill Murray semi-classic “Scrooged,” a nice reminder that Bobcat Goldthwait - when motivated by the Christmas spirit - was one of our finest actors.
