Before you hit play, I must preface this with a disclaimer that the video gets awfully preachy towards the end (it’s the product of a survivalist group). I wish they would have just used the old footage vs. Black Friday in 2013 to make their point. That’s all it needed. Maybe someone else will follow this video’s lead and make a more impactful version.

It’s still really eye-opening, though to see how attitudes towards materialism, consumerism and oh how the times have changed since then. Just observe how fucking batshit crazy people are now. We were comparatively a genteel people thirty years ago buying things we didn’t need. These days we’ll cheerfully stomp on someone’s neck at a Walmart for a shot at a $100 PlayStation®4.

 
via reddit

Design by This Is My Name

Here’s a lovely video montage illustrating why Black Friday is so freakin’ disgusting awesome. Extreme hysteria at its finest.

What’s wrong with people?
 

 
(via TDW)

 
Never underestimate the sales potential of kittens. Especially hypnotic, psychedelic ones. Something tells me this video is gonna get passed around.

AdFreak reports:

Martin/Williams encourages Payless customers to sleep in on Black Friday, and still get discounts via a special text coupon, in this video, which features an annoying “You’re getting sleepy” hypnotist voiceover and, oddly, dozens of snoozing kittens. “We’ve decided to turn the Black Friday tradition on its ear this year and do it in a manner that’s really fun and totally unique,” says Tom Moudry, the agency’s CEO and chief creative officer. I’m sure plenty of consumers will love the yawning kitties. Still, the clip drones on for a long 1:35, and some viewers might nod off before its conclusion. Given the run-of-the-mill stuff they sell at Payless, however, even if folks slip into catnaps and neglect to take advantage of the offer, they won’t be missing much.

(AdFreak: Nap with the Payless kitties on Black Friday)

 
Of course today is Friday the 13th, but there is another Friday coming soon that more Americans seem to be interested in: “Black Friday,” the ominously named sales event that takes place the day after Thanksgiving. And no, Black Friday doesn’t refer to the possibility of being stampeded to death by throngs of impatient shoppers; it’s the day when retailers hope to get “in the black” financially, as opposed to being “in the red.” For many stores, Black Friday is the day they reach profitability for the entire year, so the holiday shopping propaganda promoting big sales events is a serious matter, indeed.

Google Trends has been showing strong public interest in Black Friday sales events since Halloween, and with Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and other stores seeing their big sales details “leaked” (yeah, right!) on websites like Black-Friday.net and others, this interest seems to be reaching a fever pitch. According to various studies, up to 50% of all shopping done during the holiday season is not for gift-giving, but rather purchases made on the bargain shopper’s own behalf. Of course it only makes sense to put off purchases of big-ticket items like flat-screen TVs and laptops until they are the cheapest they’ll be all year. This season, like Christmas 2008, the sales story that many seem to be interested in is how low Blu-ray DVD players will go in price, with predictions of several retailers offering the players for as little as $49. Target and Wal-Mart are also expected to sell Blu-ray discs for as low as $8.99.

Target seems willing to make the deepest discounts, offering shockingly low prices on many appliances, with items like pressed sandwich makers, coffee machines and slow roasters getting a markdown to—are you ready for this?—$3! The idea is to get as many shoppers as possible into stores with these low, low prices and hope that they’ll be susceptible to make many more purchases. Sounds good in theory, but $3 for a coffee maker? Clearly Target would be losing money on each and every sale. A savvy shopper would simply buy one or two items in one store and mosey on over to the next price-slashing emporium to pick up a few more, avoiding the temptation to spend money on anything he or she didn’t specifically come for.

This may sound, er, un-American, but if household penny-pinching this season is anything like 2008’s totally bust Christmas shopping spree, there may be a different meaning for Black Friday this year after all the dust settles.

 
Cross posting this from Brand X