Journal Entry 8

Mingdong Chen

Freshman composition

Ms. Nargiza Matyakubova

2 November 2013

Journal Entry # 8

                                                  

                     Black Friday, its name comes from the retailers’ consideration, since it is the day after the festival of Thanksgiving, people will begin to plan to shop to prepare for the festival of Christmas, and the retailers hope the income to be increasing since lots of customers’ purchase bring the consumerism, the retailers use the black ink to record the profit, whereas they use the red ink to record the loss. So retailers surely hope the Black Friday can bring the high profit. On the contrary, the employee use the Black Friday to self-mockery, because that day is the busiest day of the year while someone are enjoying the shopping time. Three articles “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization” by Andrew Leonard, “For Black Friday First-Timer, Not a Night of Conversion” by Stephanie Clifford and Christopher Maag, and “Friday’s Deals May Not Be the Best” by Stephanie Clifford, all demonstrate what the quality of Black Friday influences bother the development of society and human beings’ realization, and hidden little-known story .

                     In the both articles “For Black Friday First-Timer, Not a Night of Conversion” and “Friday’s Deals May Not Be the Best”, both Stephanie Clifford and Christopher Maag describe those consumers’ the outer behavior of going shopping in the midnight of Thanksgiving, they are willing to spend time waiting outside the stores in the cold autumn night(Stephanie 10), and their rough behavior of pushing and squeezing each other when as song as the door is open(Stephanie 11), and most of the first time shopper consider that their first experiences of shopping in midnight of Thanksgiving are not as nice as what they expect, they cannot get what they plan to get, consumers may fight against each other over the products they like(Stephanie 25), and there are some unpredictable accident of fire case happening because of wrangle of products(Stephanie 2). What’s more, authors expose that the price of the discounted products are not cheapest in that day, whereas ironically the lower price may emerges before or after the Black Friday. Even though the price of product is lowest, its quality is relatively low as well. So what price, what goods( Stephanie 18).

                      In contrast with Stephanie Clifford and Christopher Maag describe, Andrew Leonard’s article emphatically intends to depict how the consumerism create influences on the inner psychological behaviors of consumers. Author thinks that the excessive shopping behaviors in Black Friday are insanity. He acknowledges the increasing consumerism will benefit the development of economy of society, but it is violent to humankinds, consumers become numb and easily persuaded by the ways used by the retailers to attract consumers, which is evident by the example of the Crazy Target Lady models her shopping utility belt,

                     In conclusion, the Day of Black Friday is traditional custom in American society, it actually help the development of society, make people enjoy its coming, anyway, it has its meaning, and consumerism emerges in human daily life and being decided by commoners.