Black Friday starts with Grey Thursday
As many people as there are sleeping off a turkey-and-gravy-induced overdose, there seem to be an equal number getting in line outside of a store at an ungodly hour.
This is how Black Friday begins, yet, amidst this nearly feral setting, a new and thoroughly disturbing trend is rearing its ugly head: Grey Thursday.
An article by Dominic Rushe for The Guardian in the U.K. tackles the topic of Grey Thursday, with certain department stores like Kmart, Sears, Toys R Us and Walmart opening at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving.
Yes, you read that correctly, dear reader: 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving.
It’s often accepted that Americans can be greedy, and at times downright crazy come the holiday shopping season, but this is a whole new height of crazy consumerism.
According to the article, last year’s frenzy produced 28.7 million shoppers before midnight on Thanksgiving, up from 22 million in 2010, whereas there were approximately 86 million shoppers on Black Friday proper.
The sad part about this is that it’s not entirely these companies’ fault as they simply are providing a service to a certain demographic.
If there were no demand for a store to open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, then none of the aforementioned stores would be opened. However, the roaming packs of soccer-moms-turned-wolves and desperate dads-turned-alpha males have descended to a new low in this shocking Grey Thursday trend.
Let us only hope that it gets no worse, heaven forbid Grey Thursday grows to conflict with Thanksgiving itself. No one needs to have to choose between gorging on stuffing and the like, or shivering in line with only an energy drink.
The idea of standing in line to get inside a store and shop on Thanksgiving makes me shudder. It also makes me sad. What happened to watching football with your family after a nice Thanksgiving meal, or playing games?
The level of consumerism in America right now is frightening. I also wrote about the 8 p.m. madness ( http://blogs.baylor.edu/jim_roberts/), but you mentioned a point that I failed too: that the demand from the consumers must be there for stores to open on Thanksgiving. We love to shake our finger at Wal-Mart or Target, but they wouldn’t be there if people weren’t showing up, which makes the whole situation even more alarming.