Black Friday

From Wikipedia:

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many British Commonwealth countries. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but most non-retail employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005, although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.

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Black Friday is also very strong evidence of the fact that America has become both narcissistic and hyper-materialistic. I mean, I hope that's changing, you know, what with all the economic troubles and Occupy Wall Street. But I assume that many Americans continue to fall prey to the consumer-conditioning they have endured for many decades, believing that self-satisfaction and happiness can be obtained through the purchase of stupid shit they don't need or really even want. In other words, Black Friday is a day of sadness: America has become a vapid shallow nation, doing itself in with its own irresponsible behavior.

Personally, I greatly prefer this "Black Friday":



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