The Dark Side of Black Friday

Photo Courtesy: Danijel-James Wynyard via Flickr

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The term ‘Black Friday’ possesses a rather bleak origin. Before having any ties to shopping, it was the title given to the mass financial crisis of 1869 caused by the U.S. gold market conspiracy. ‘Black Friday’ was later re-adopted as police terminology, in the 1950s, referring to the uncontrollable hordes of shoppers and tourists that would visit Philadelphia for their annual post-Thanksgiving football game.  

Many myths and conspiracies have since circulated regarding the origin of the term, but it essentially became linked to shopping through its strain on police services. It has since turned into a four-day mass-sale shopping event.

‘Black Friday’ has managed to escape its original, negative connotations and the term has stuck despite attempts at rebranding it. However, the question arises: has mass consumerism and unethical shopping habits returned the term back to its bleak origins?

While the day has always been plagued by a history of rioting and looting, the retailers themselves have always presented ‘Black Friday’ as a day for shopper convenience, lowering prices at an opportune time before Christmas. 

One might argue that the truly bleak factor here is that ‘Black Friday’ has become less about shopper convenience and more about retailers bidding against each other, reducing prices to horrifyingly low, and obviously unethical, figures. As a result, fast-fashion brands have involved themselves in discount culture – with brands like ‘Shein’, notoriously exploitative, and already proud of its incomprehensibly low prices – rolling out large-scale campaigns and celebrating the holiday season by offering discounts of ‘up to 90%’. 

The exploitative labour force behind ‘Shein’ is the retail industry’s worst-kept secret. The offer of a ‘90%’ reduction should raise eyebrows, however, the culture created by ‘Black Friday’ makes absurdities such as these seem normal. 

‘Black Friday’ fosters this primal idea that shopping should be about competition. Whether it be rioters competing to reach the final item on a shelf, or ‘Cyber Monday’ shoppers competing to find the largest discount, the day encourages rivalry of all kinds. Therefore, seeing such a disgusting figure as ‘90% off’ becomes normal. There might even be a sense of pride in finding these high discounts on such a competitive day. 

Since only fast-fashion brands are able to attain this level of discount, they ultimately win the bidding war against other retail companies. This year in particular, ‘Shein’ and ‘Temu’ have made it more difficult for other brands to market ‘Black Friday’ sales by monopolising keyword searches. 

By corralling countless shoppers to a single site, cultures of mass consumerism are further encouraged and these sites are incentivised to produce excess quantities of items. At any given time, ‘Shein’ has approximately 600,000 items available for purchase, dwarfing other high-street brands, and providing a whole new meaning to the term ‘mass’ consumerism. 

The culture fostered by ‘Black Friday’ has meant that intense discounts and mass production are expected to continue year-round. In a post on their Instagram page, a “customer” writes: ‘Shein always encourages their discounts and offers so you never miss out on saving money.’ When prices are lowered by such significant amounts, the customer isn’t at deficit, and neither is the company. Who is making a loss?