Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and with
Speaker 1: me is always this Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there,
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff you should have. So you
Speaker 1: just checked to make sure Jerry was there. She's very quiet.
Speaker 1: You literally turned her head and body right, Yep, she's there.
Speaker 1: I did the big foot thing like I had to
Speaker 1: turn my whole the whole side of my body to
Speaker 1: look over my shoulder. That's how you know that was
Speaker 1: real footage. Well, typically when you know Jerry's here, because
Speaker 1: you can just smell like miso soup or something emanating
Speaker 1: from our right side or my right side, you're right side,
Speaker 1: but it's not emanating from you. It's coming from Jerry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she stinks like mi so, which is actually a very
Speaker 1: pleasant smell, salty and new mommy. That's right, uh so, Chuck. Yes,
Speaker 1: have you ever been to a Black Friday sale? No? No,
Speaker 1: And I want to say, h no. Oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not for me. That's a decent qualifier though,
Speaker 1: because it's it's not like an average sale, and like,
Speaker 1: if you don't go to a Black Friday sale, uh,
Speaker 1: it's the pretty good reason why is because you're scared.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and I think this is one of those
Speaker 1: very divisive topic. You're probably either really into going or
Speaker 1: it's the last thing on earth you would rather do.
Speaker 1: I don't know a lot of people are like, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll go check out a doorbuster at three am. I
Speaker 1: think there are people who who do have that kind
Speaker 1: of that idea, but maybe not at three am. Sure,
Speaker 1: there's it's almost like a multifaceted creature like it is
Speaker 1: for some people, like just in the middle of a
Speaker 1: normal shopping day on the Friday after Thanksgiving, they'll go
Speaker 1: to a store and it's fine and there's some sales
Speaker 1: or whatever. But then you know, hours earlier, these hardcore
Speaker 1: people you know who would bay in the blood or
Speaker 1: their fellow shoppers well sadly, yeah, um had had already
Speaker 1: come through and gotten all the best deals. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: and then there's those of us like us who are
Speaker 1: just like going out. It is literally and I'm not
Speaker 1: overstating this because people always say literally when they mean
Speaker 1: figurati figuratively, but is literally one of the last things
Speaker 1: I would ever ever do in my life. I can't
Speaker 1: think of many. I'd rather go to the d m
Speaker 1: V than go to a doorbuster the d m V
Speaker 1: in between North Korea and South Korea. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's the d m Z. Right, Okay, I always get
Speaker 1: this too confused. Now, I'd rather go take the last
Speaker 1: ticket from a the d m V and have to
Speaker 1: wait all day than go to a doorbuster sale. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I don't blame you, all right, So that's what we'll
Speaker 1: get to. More hate spewing about this layer. But right,
Speaker 1: and I should state my opinion. I feel like, if
Speaker 1: this is your thing, that's awesome. Well true, true, I'm
Speaker 1: not like cast dispurgence on people who disparaging remarks. Is
Speaker 1: dispurgence the word? No it is now though you're like
Speaker 1: your like an American dictionary the New Chucky. We should
Speaker 1: make that up. I like it. Yeah, you could have
Speaker 1: like five or six words already. Um. Yeah, agreed. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying like poopooing people who do it. If you're
Speaker 1: into it, great, as long as you conduct yourself in
Speaker 1: a reasonable manner and you don't turn into a monster
Speaker 1: like others do. Right, And but there is, Like there
Speaker 1: are obvious criticisms of the day too, which we'll get into,
Speaker 1: but I think, first, Chuck, we should explain what the
Speaker 1: as you would say, h we're talking about to the
Speaker 1: people who listen to this podcast and don't live in
Speaker 1: the United States, because Black Friday is pretty much a
Speaker 1: uniquely American experience. It is I think most people probably know,
Speaker 1: but just very quickly. It is the day after Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: now in the United States is known as Black Friday.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into the pretty interesting history of it.
Speaker 1: But um, it's the biggest shopping day of the year,
Speaker 1: and there are all these crazy specials that they run,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into that as well, but quite simply,
Speaker 1: it is the busiest shopping day of the year, day
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving, right, and um, it's it's origins. Well, the
Speaker 1: origin of the term Black Friday goes back kind of
Speaker 1: a ways, apparently to the the mid twentieth century, but
Speaker 1: the idea of going shopping, starting your Christmas shopping on
Speaker 1: the day after Thanksgiving actually goes back to the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century early twentieth century. Um, thanks to the department
Speaker 1: stores like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and as a
Speaker 1: part of those parades. Accident Macy's Parade, right exactly, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still a good parade though, Um, have you ever been, No,
Speaker 1: I haven't. Yeah, I've never been to the parade, but
Speaker 1: a couple of times, Emily, I've gone to the day
Speaker 1: before when they blow up the which is really neat,
Speaker 1: very cool. You mean, I have a friend who's actually
Speaker 1: holding one of the floats the balloons. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: fun to do. Although we did it like eight or
Speaker 1: nine years ago and it was it was really neat
Speaker 1: and sort of crowded, and then we did it a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago and it is nuts. Now it's Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of gone overboard. The word got out. I
Speaker 1: think I saw, Yeah, I saw something last year in
Speaker 1: the news. Yeah, it's not a place to go if
Speaker 1: you don't like strollers. Let's just say that. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: strollers with altering entires um. So, but the the idea
Speaker 1: of going starting your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: came from those parades, and they came from those parades
Speaker 1: because all of those parades, pretty much to a parade
Speaker 1: featured Santa Claus. Yeah, and usually at the end kind
Speaker 1: of like bringing up the rear, and that means we're
Speaker 1: kicking it off. That's the official start of the holiday season.
Speaker 1: That's right, Santa Claus has made his first public appearance.
Speaker 1: So Um, from the association of those two came going
Speaker 1: holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving. That was in the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, in the fifties they think, or early sixties. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: the fifties, calling the day after Thanksgiving black Friday came about,
Speaker 1: but it didn't necessarily have anything to do with shopping
Speaker 1: by then. It was from factory owners who apparently coined
Speaker 1: the term. Yeah, and there's also the other competing theory
Speaker 1: that it was the day that uh stores would go
Speaker 1: into the black meaning start to show profit. But um,
Speaker 1: that's not quite right as it No, So that's actually
Speaker 1: a well, it's a made up fallacy to gloss over
Speaker 1: the original meaning of black Friday. Um. And it came
Speaker 1: out of Philadelphia in the sixties, and the cops and
Speaker 1: the bus drivers and the city workers who worked downtown
Speaker 1: came up with calling that day black Friday because apparently
Speaker 1: tons of out of towners would leave their homes on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving converge on Philadelphia to watch the army Navy games
Speaker 1: on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but they had a day
Speaker 1: to kill, so they all started doing their Christmas shopping
Speaker 1: because there were sales in downtown Philly every year, and
Speaker 1: the place would be nuts. Uh. And this was where
Speaker 1: black Friday came from. Apparently the police department wanted to
Speaker 1: basically keep people away, so they'd be like, well, you
Speaker 1: don't want to go to downtown Philly, it's black Friday.
Speaker 1: And uh. That was the original um reason or origin
Speaker 1: of the term. Yeah, I see you saw in here
Speaker 1: article from the AP in nineteen five, a sales manager
Speaker 1: at Gimbal's um was quoted as saying, that's why bus
Speaker 1: drivers and cab drivers call today black Friday. Uh. They
Speaker 1: think in terms of the headaches that it gives them.
Speaker 1: So I learned something new when I read this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I had no idea it spread out of Philly.
Speaker 1: And then years later the retail lobbies and retailers themselves said,
Speaker 1: we've got to come up with a better, a better
Speaker 1: origin story for this, because we want this to be
Speaker 1: a day that people want to get out of their
Speaker 1: house and go shopping, you know. But we should point
Speaker 1: out even though it is not the day that companies
Speaker 1: go into the black as it were, which by the way,
Speaker 1: comes from when they did accounting by hand. You're write
Speaker 1: in red ink or black ink, depending on you were
Speaker 1: ahead with money or behind red ink. Men, you were
Speaker 1: in the hole. Yeah, black man, everything's good exactly, even
Speaker 1: though it does not mean that. Um. The holiday shopping
Speaker 1: season is when stores make up between of their retail profits.
Speaker 1: So it's a lot. Yeah. I mean even Emily small
Speaker 1: business like the I don't know about majority, but a
Speaker 1: large percentage of her yearly sales or you know a
Speaker 1: couple of months, you know. Uh, and it's not just
Speaker 1: her apparently. Um. In two thousand thirteen, the National Retail
Speaker 1: Federation is predicting that Americans just in November and December, Chuck,
Speaker 1: are you ready for this? Americans are going to spend
Speaker 1: six and two billion dollars in November and December. That's cray,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of cash. Yeah, in two months. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't spend like I used to on Christmas. Um.
Speaker 1: Emily and I sometimes will spend on gifts on each
Speaker 1: other or do that like a couple of things where
Speaker 1: you like go in and just do something nice for
Speaker 1: your house. Uh, and then like the adults on my
Speaker 1: side of the family. You don't exchange gifts anymore, Um,
Speaker 1: just dirty looks. Yeah, exchange dirty looks. Like my brother
Speaker 1: my sister will chip in usually and get my mom
Speaker 1: something kind of nice or give her offer her a service,
Speaker 1: like last year we replaced her fireplace with like a
Speaker 1: gas fireplace, or build her a garden fence, or tile
Speaker 1: her kitchen like something like that. Why your mom's got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's an easy street is what you call that. But
Speaker 1: Emily's family that they all still exchange gifts, So I
Speaker 1: still have my Christmas gift swapping Joan satisfied. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: you get your Christmas present on Yeah, okay, chuck. So um.
Speaker 1: The the idea of shopping after Thanksgiving and then Black Friday,
Speaker 1: that day being called Black Friday. It's been around for
Speaker 1: a while. Um, and it's a really valuable day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it kicks off that two month period where
Speaker 1: siwo billion dollars is going to be spent on stuff.
Speaker 1: But it was created like Valentine's Day, It was literally
Speaker 1: created and then the myth kind of became reality just
Speaker 1: because they said everyone's gonna shop today. It's the busiest
Speaker 1: day and it became that. Yeah, it wasn't until two
Speaker 1: thousand four. Usually the Saturday before Christmas was actually the
Speaker 1: busiest shopping day of the year thanks to me. But
Speaker 1: the Retail Federation and all the retailers were like, well,
Speaker 1: we can't just we can't tout that is the busiest
Speaker 1: shopping day of the year. We want to like get
Speaker 1: people spending over the course of a couple of months,
Speaker 1: not the Saturday before Christmas. So they basically said Black
Speaker 1: Fridays the day. And it's, like you said, it just
Speaker 1: kind of became true just from people saying it over time.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that they haven't come up with a catchy
Speaker 1: name for like Procrastinator's Day or something to like pump
Speaker 1: up that last Saturday again or something, or to keep
Speaker 1: you from it. So they call it like Shame of
Speaker 1: the Nation Day something like that to make you like
Speaker 1: go go to Black Friday Saturday. Yeah. Um so, and
Speaker 1: there's this website called, um Black Friday archive dot com.
Speaker 1: It's actually like kind of cool if you like nostalgic
Speaker 1: ads or whatever. Nostalgic going back to two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: I should say, but it's just like scans of black
Speaker 1: Friday print ads from those years, which you're kind of neat.
Speaker 1: If you're totally bored out of your mind, go check
Speaker 1: out Black Friday archive dot com. But um, so Black
Speaker 1: Friday became a smashing success, like two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: two five, it's a relatively recent thing that it became
Speaker 1: what it is today here in the States, which is
Speaker 1: an out of controlled juggernaut shopping in consumeristic frenzy. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: But so it was so successful overnight that um, the
Speaker 1: retailer said, well, let's figure out ways to extend this
Speaker 1: whole week. So they came up with cyber Monday in
Speaker 1: two thousand five. Ye, that's pretty recent and it uh
Speaker 1: is the online shopping version of Black Friday. Uh, the
Speaker 1: Monday after Thanksgiving. And that was another thing they just
Speaker 1: made up, another self fulfilling myth. It Um, they said,
Speaker 1: that's the the workers go back to their computer after
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving on Monday and they do all their online shopping. Well,
Speaker 1: that wasn't really true, but now it is because the
Speaker 1: retailer said it was in the meeting reported uh. And
Speaker 1: not to be outdone, in two thousand and ten, American
Speaker 1: Express invented Small Business Saturday, which is when you go
Speaker 1: out and support small businesses with your money, especially ones
Speaker 1: that take American Express exactly. Uh. So, there's it's interesting
Speaker 1: that literally creating days to tell people basically, if you're
Speaker 1: not shopping the day, you're missing out on really good deals,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Um. And the more days the better as
Speaker 1: far as retailers are concerned. Um. But there's only so
Speaker 1: many days after Thanksgiving. So they started to think recently, like, well,
Speaker 1: what if we pushed in the other direction rather from
Speaker 1: Friday on what's behind Friday? Oh, yeah, Thanksgiving? We can't
Speaker 1: touch that for shame, Well, it's starting in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve, they started touching it. Walmart actually UM opened
Speaker 1: at eight pm on Thanksgiving in two thous twelve, UM,
Speaker 1: and there was there was a general strike called that
Speaker 1: we'll talk about later because of that, because these stores
Speaker 1: are not supposed to be open on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is
Speaker 1: its own day. It's a day of being with family
Speaker 1: and celebrating and giving up. Until two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 1: it was Sacro SANCD. Yeah. This year, Macy's and J. C.
Speaker 1: Penny for the first time are opening on Thanksgiving, and
Speaker 1: Sears and Toys r Us as well. Thanksgiving evening. Uh.
Speaker 1: And Kmart is opening at six am on Thanksgiving, basically
Speaker 1: extending Black Friday through the weekends. That's not a day.
Speaker 1: That's how long Kmart is going to be open. Black
Speaker 1: Friday at Kmart last forty one hours. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Uh.
Speaker 1: And at shopping malls, um, you're gonna have some smaller
Speaker 1: stores doing the same thing. And estimated will be open
Speaker 1: at eight pm on Thanksgiving Day and two thirds will
Speaker 1: open at midnight. So essentially what's happening is Thanksgiving evening
Speaker 1: is being ruined by retail you know. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: the retailers would say, well, you know, we don't We've
Speaker 1: seen that people, right, We've seen that people start lining
Speaker 1: up Thanksgiving afternoon, Thanksgiving evening to wait for us to
Speaker 1: open like that, you know, the next morning, So why
Speaker 1: don't we just open? So, I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of um, it goes both ways, but I pretty
Speaker 1: much see where you're coming from. Yeah, well, this year
Speaker 1: it's a little trickier two because Thanksgiving comes on November
Speaker 1: twenty eight, which is the latest to spend in eleven years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that right? Uh? Yeah, so weirdly because they still
Speaker 1: sort of have to enforce Black Friday. They're actually shortening
Speaker 1: their own shopping season a little bit this year, which
Speaker 1: is probably why some of them are opening on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: That's exactly, it's it's six days shorter than usual this year. Um.
Speaker 1: So just by the very existence by making up Black Friday,
Speaker 1: they screwed themselves this year a little bit. They have
Speaker 1: a week yeah, because there's um in other countries like Canada,
Speaker 1: the UK, the Netherlands, countries, um that that observed the
Speaker 1: Christmas holidays like we do in America, meaning everybody gives
Speaker 1: everybody else presents and things like that, and they spend money. Um,
Speaker 1: but those countries don't have a Black Friday, a day
Speaker 1: that officially kicks off the holiday shopping season. Um. Those
Speaker 1: countries spend more over the course of the holiday season
Speaker 1: because they have a longer period of time to shop. Um.
Speaker 1: So without Black Friday in America, the retailers would possibly
Speaker 1: make more money. So they've definitely painted themselves into a
Speaker 1: corner by making Black Friday such a thing. And this
Speaker 1: year it's really kind of pointing out like we may
Speaker 1: be shooting ourselves in the foot here, so what can
Speaker 1: we do? Well. Their solution has been well, we'll just
Speaker 1: take over Thanksgiving to but that's not necessarily sustainable, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people are saying Black Friday is
Speaker 1: going to go the way of the dinosaur. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: read an interesting article in the New Yorker this morning,
Speaker 1: finance article. I think it was New Yorker, it might
Speaker 1: have been New York Times. But this financial analyst is
Speaker 1: basically analyzing how the sales go and sort of saying
Speaker 1: that it's really not financially the smartest approach to take
Speaker 1: forever shoppers or the retail for the retailers to offer
Speaker 1: these huge, deep discounts and sort of blow it out
Speaker 1: in one day. A better, smarter financial approach would be
Speaker 1: to elongate the seas shopping season at a and not
Speaker 1: even discount things, maybe even raise prices. And his contention
Speaker 1: is that they're shooting themselves in the foot, But um,
Speaker 1: I think he's right. He probably is. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, if you were one of those people like um,
Speaker 1: like me frankly, who went to the mall the day
Speaker 1: after Halloween and saw that the lights were the garland
Speaker 1: was out, Santa's workshop was ready to go like the
Speaker 1: November one. The place was totally decked out for Christmas
Speaker 1: with Christmas carols piping through. See that's that's ridiculous. But
Speaker 1: see without but that was the great thing about Black Friday.
Speaker 1: It's like you, you you know, you had a month of
Speaker 1: just kind of chilling out everything getting ready between between
Speaker 1: Halloween and Thanksgiving. Then you had Thanksgiving and in the
Speaker 1: holiday season started without Black Friday. It's kind of like this,
Speaker 1: um this damn that's holding back the holiday season from
Speaker 1: spilling into basically October. But with retailers figuring out that
Speaker 1: it's an impedence to them making money, it probably won't
Speaker 1: start the official season any longer. It'll probably be further
Speaker 1: back from now on. Yeah, well I think we're in
Speaker 1: I don't know, but well, technically slightly in the minority.
Speaker 1: Um In two thousand of the population of American adults
Speaker 1: said they will shop on Black Friday, So fifty that
Speaker 1: puts us in the noority by a bit and two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven A hundred and fifty two Americans, uh millions,
Speaker 1: just a hundred, but they spent five hundred billion dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two really rich Americans. A hundred fifty two million shopped
Speaker 1: on that day for an average of three hours at
Speaker 1: a time, which is uh, not too long, but that's
Speaker 1: I mean, three hours is like ever. But I saw
Speaker 1: a woman who did sixteen though, like a sixteen hour
Speaker 1: stretch of shopping. She better have gotten it all done
Speaker 1: at least, I hope. So you know, yeah, like if
Speaker 1: she shopped for sixteen hours and only got like three gifts,
Speaker 1: it's not time a well spent um. There's also evidence,
Speaker 1: uh that the internet is basically knocking on Black Friday's door.
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving days the fastest growing online shopping day. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think like seventy of the people who said that
Speaker 1: they're going to shop on Black Friday said they'll do
Speaker 1: some or most of it online. Um. So the internet
Speaker 1: still there for retailers to make money. But the idea
Speaker 1: of Black Friday in store sales going extinct is probably
Speaker 1: not going to happen because it's its own thing. Like
Speaker 1: there's this one consumer psychologist or consumer analysts I think
Speaker 1: uh pointed out that it's it's a tradition number one,
Speaker 1: uh and number two, there's a certain element of like
Speaker 1: sport to it. It's it's more than just getting a
Speaker 1: good deal. It's like you know, throwing a fist at
Speaker 1: somebody while you get a good dealers something to it
Speaker 1: that that transcends the whole thing. So we mentioned door Busters.
Speaker 1: It's a central part of the cog that is Black Friday,
Speaker 1: and it goes back in print, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: to the year nineteen seventeen in anecdotally, where in a
Speaker 1: retailer will basically say, you know what, we have one
Speaker 1: item or usually it's a few now, but some really deep,
Speaker 1: deep and really super great deals on just a few
Speaker 1: select items, so like, for example, a good laptop for
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty dollars, and like deals like that,
Speaker 1: iPods for half off, for a TV for like really
Speaker 1: really like you said, very good discounts. But here's the deal.
Speaker 1: It's a scam people. It's a bait and switch. It's
Speaker 1: it's a bait and switch. They they've only got a
Speaker 1: very limited amount of these select items, which is why
Speaker 1: the violence happens, which we'll get to in a minute. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then after that they're hoping you get in there.
Speaker 1: You don't get that laptop, but you're like, screw it.
Speaker 1: I'm at Walmart at five am. I might as well
Speaker 1: buy some stuff regular priced or slightly discounted items. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know that's how they get you in the store.
Speaker 1: That's how they get you. It is, um, and it
Speaker 1: is It's true that there these items do exist and
Speaker 1: they are for that deal. There there there for that price,
Speaker 1: I should say, um, But there's only like ten and
Speaker 1: in the fine print and it's like one person and
Speaker 1: that deals is for in stock only, like you can't
Speaker 1: get a rain check or anything like that. But the
Speaker 1: the concept that these deals do exist for those items
Speaker 1: that are in the store, coupled with whoever physically gets
Speaker 1: their hands on that item first gets that deal, um,
Speaker 1: leads to doors actually being busted. It's called recipe for disaster. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: All right, So before we get to the dark days
Speaker 1: and the bad stuff that can happen, truly, Uh, let's
Speaker 1: do a little message break. All right, Let's go back
Speaker 1: a little bit to two thousand eight, and probably the
Speaker 1: well House could say the darkest incident, but I think
Speaker 1: the Toys r US may be darker. I think this
Speaker 1: one's darker because the people were involved. Yeah, yeah, that's true,
Speaker 1: all right, two thousand eight in Valley Stream, Long Island. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was at a Walmart and it was five pm
Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving, So basically people there the day before. Um
Speaker 1: it wasn't one of those days where it was open
Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving, so they're there to wait until five am.
Speaker 1: So at least twelve hours ahead of time, there were
Speaker 1: about a thousand people already set up there. Some people
Speaker 1: are camping out intents, they're waiting, they got their coffee,
Speaker 1: they're probably slugging some jim Beam to warm the belly.
Speaker 1: And uh so the police came out and said, you
Speaker 1: know what, let's set up a buffer zone a barricade,
Speaker 1: which worked till about two am when that was breached
Speaker 1: and the cops basically said, we're out of here. This
Speaker 1: isn't part of our job. Yeah, the crowd had turned angry.
Speaker 1: Um a little bit after that. Um so one of
Speaker 1: the store employees had some family members come and like
Speaker 1: they took them out of the line and took them
Speaker 1: in the store. Not a good idea. Yeah, But even
Speaker 1: even if, even if everyone in the crowd would have
Speaker 1: been cool with it, I don't think everybody in the
Speaker 1: crowd realized that they were family members of an employee.
Speaker 1: So the crowd actually turned like ugly. Yeah, they broke
Speaker 1: through the barricade. Uh and we're squeezed against you know
Speaker 1: how the stores have the entrance and then that little
Speaker 1: glass in vestibule area before and then usually a second
Speaker 1: entrance right to get into the store itself. So there
Speaker 1: was about, um by this time, there was about two
Speaker 1: thousand people waiting for the store to open. It was
Speaker 1: four am. The store is gonna open at five, and
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred were in between this little buffer
Speaker 1: zone and those front exterior doors and being pressed up,
Speaker 1: literally crushed to death. And there's this fascinating article in
Speaker 1: the New Yorker by a guy named John Seabrook called
Speaker 1: crush Point, and it's about not just this incident, but
Speaker 1: um uh just crushings in general, where somebody, yeah we
Speaker 1: covered that like years ago, it seems like it. Yet
Speaker 1: you check out that article. Yeah, people literally yelling, pushed
Speaker 1: the doors in chanting this, and just before five o'clock,
Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty bad scene. And uh, workers in
Speaker 1: that vegetablebule area realized that there was a pregnant lady
Speaker 1: name uh Leana Lockley being crushed against the doors, and
Speaker 1: so they're like, we gotta get this lady in here,
Speaker 1: opened the doors enough to squeeze her through she got in, um,
Speaker 1: and then the crowd surged forward and it just kind
Speaker 1: of went downhill from there, and they still did the
Speaker 1: ten nine eight countdown. Isn't that mind boggling. It's mind
Speaker 1: boggling that they didn't. Well, first of all, that the
Speaker 1: cops left, Yeah, they said, they said, apparently in the
Speaker 1: court deposition that the cops when they lets said controlling
Speaker 1: this cards not in our job description. Good luck. Walmart
Speaker 1: had hired a security force of two for the event.
Speaker 1: One person hadn't shown up, the other one was inside
Speaker 1: the store not helping. So they got a bunch of
Speaker 1: their stock guys, their their biggest dudes that they could find,
Speaker 1: and said come staying as vestibule and help anybody who
Speaker 1: like falls down or That's when I would have been like, dude,
Speaker 1: that's not in my job description exactly. Well, they didn't
Speaker 1: say that. Um. And when the doors finally opened after
Speaker 1: the festive countdown, while these people were being crushed against
Speaker 1: the front, unbelievable, the doors start it to to open, and
Speaker 1: right when they opened, they actually gave weight and were
Speaker 1: literally busted by this wave of humanity. Yeah. And at
Speaker 1: that point the employees um their little red rover line
Speaker 1: was completely ineffective. People are getting knocked down, some of
Speaker 1: the workers are getting blown out of the way. Some
Speaker 1: are jumping on vending machines. It's ridiculous. What. Yeah, A
Speaker 1: couple of them like climbed up the coke machine to
Speaker 1: like get out of the way first safe harbor. One
Speaker 1: guy who was in the in the way of the
Speaker 1: crowd when the doors gave way. Um. This article by
Speaker 1: John Sebrook puts it that he was blown back. So again,
Speaker 1: there's a vestibule, there's the outer doors. There's a vestibule,
Speaker 1: and then there's inner doors, and then there's the store.
Speaker 1: This guy got blown from the outer doors all the
Speaker 1: way through the vestibule, through the inner doors into the
Speaker 1: store by this wave of people. Two thousand people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just coming in all at once, all trying to get
Speaker 1: their hands on that door buster like an iPod or something.
Speaker 1: So that's not the end of the story, sadly, Um,
Speaker 1: people are getting crushed. This pregnant woman trips over some
Speaker 1: old woman. She's on the ground at this point, pregnant,
Speaker 1: yea Leanna Lockley in danger of being you know, trampled
Speaker 1: to death. Uh, And then she somehow managed to get
Speaker 1: to her knees and saw an employee. Um, do you
Speaker 1: know how to pronounce his first name? Uh, Jim ta more,
Speaker 1: Jim t de more. He uh was assigned to help
Speaker 1: people in case anyone fell fell down next to her.
Speaker 1: The doors fell on top of him, and two thousand
Speaker 1: people trampled over those doors and killed him. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was trampled to death. He died of asphyxiation being crushed
Speaker 1: under the door. And he was a stop guy at
Speaker 1: six am, six or three am. He was pronounced dead
Speaker 1: one hour after the festive countdown to let people get
Speaker 1: into shop, and that was at the hospital an hour later,
Speaker 1: so he most likely died on the scene. Um, and
Speaker 1: pretty awful. What's crazy, Chuck? If that story is not
Speaker 1: bad enough, tramplings are actually really common, and like, somebody
Speaker 1: might not die, you might not be asphyxiated, and he
Speaker 1: might not have died had he not gotten caught under
Speaker 1: the door. Um, but the people getting knocked down. If
Speaker 1: you want to see this, just go on to YouTube
Speaker 1: and type in black Friday, not even Black Friday tramplings.
Speaker 1: Just type in black Friday and you will see tons
Speaker 1: of compilations of store security footage of people coming in
Speaker 1: right when the store opens on a Black Friday sale,
Speaker 1: just climbing over one another, knocking each other down. Some
Speaker 1: people help other people up or drag them out of
Speaker 1: the way or whatever, but just as frequently people just
Speaker 1: climb over the ones who are down for a sale.
Speaker 1: It's it's insane. I seriously encourage everybody to go check
Speaker 1: out some video of it. Yeah. I can't believe that
Speaker 1: after this incident, that there wasn't a law pass outlawing
Speaker 1: outright Black Friday sales. You know that is not happening. Well,
Speaker 1: but it's ridiculous because there's it's economists and analysts have
Speaker 1: proven that you can have like even it's not like
Speaker 1: they'd lose money. They would probably make more money if
Speaker 1: they didn't have these blockbuster sales. So it's not like
Speaker 1: they could say, well, you can't, you're keeping me from
Speaker 1: doing my business. I don't know. I just can't believe
Speaker 1: they can't outlaw something like this. So that was that
Speaker 1: was a pretty horrendous example of a crowd crush and
Speaker 1: a trampling um. But other things that happen. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the toys r us in Palm Desert, California a couple
Speaker 1: of years back, right, Yeah, that was in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. These two women got in a fist fight
Speaker 1: and then their husbands got into it. And basically, first
Speaker 1: of all, these two men were carrying guns into a
Speaker 1: Toys r Us for the Christmas shop, which is the
Speaker 1: weird uh, And they started a shootout with each other,
Speaker 1: basically and not a very skilled one apparently. I read
Speaker 1: about it like one guy forgot to cock his gun.
Speaker 1: The other guy like his didn't work either. So they
Speaker 1: start chasing each other through the store through a store,
Speaker 1: shooting at each other. Luckily, no one else died, but
Speaker 1: those two gentlemen shot each other and died. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the toys are us because of their wife's got in
Speaker 1: a fistfight on Black Friday at the toys arrest during
Speaker 1: Christmas shopping. I'm surprised no one else if they're running
Speaker 1: through the store shooting, uh. I think everybody cleared out
Speaker 1: of the their way. Yeah, I I know. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: follow them around and be like, hey, guys, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? Where's the Doorbusters? In two thousand eleven, a
Speaker 1: woman at a Los Angeles walmart, uh Pepper sprayed some
Speaker 1: people in the video games. Initially, the cops saw it
Speaker 1: while this you know lady was some Black Friday jerk,
Speaker 1: which would make her a pretty awful awful person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but apparently the real story is and and she actually
Speaker 1: got out of it. Um was that her children were attacked, uh, punched, kicked,
Speaker 1: thrown to the ground by shoppers trying to get an
Speaker 1: xbox from these children. And so she defended her kids
Speaker 1: by pepper spraying these jerks. Right, And if this thing
Speaker 1: still hasn't been settled, the most recent thing I saw
Speaker 1: was that, Um, I year on so last year, Um,
Speaker 1: the cops still hadn't filed charges, so I guess they
Speaker 1: believed her story. But she shopped anyway after that happened
Speaker 1: and bought her items. So she pepper sprays a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, affects twenty people, causes a bit of a
Speaker 1: trampling pandemonium. Uh. And then two horrible things happened after that. One,
Speaker 1: like you said, the lady took her kids and her
Speaker 1: items and went to the store and checked out, bought
Speaker 1: her stuff. Uh. Second, the people outside the immediate circle
Speaker 1: where she pepper spray, but still in that little area
Speaker 1: stuck around, still tried to get their hands on the
Speaker 1: sail item and they're like checking out in their eyes
Speaker 1: and those are watering, and there's like just just ring
Speaker 1: it up, let me get home. Yeah, and of course
Speaker 1: took there's um the workers as well. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: no one wants to work on Thanksgiving, and and this year,
Speaker 1: like we said, a lot of retailers are opening on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and there's really not anything they can do about
Speaker 1: it if they want to keep their job, which is
Speaker 1: really sad. And Walmart uh employees planned a strike I
Speaker 1: think last year in two thousand twelve, and it didn't work.
Speaker 1: Only twenty six stores reported striking employees, so for fear
Speaker 1: of losing their jobs, probably they had to come to
Speaker 1: work anyway. Well, camartin particular was criticized this year for
Speaker 1: opening at six am on Thanksgiving, and Camart said, these
Speaker 1: people don't have to work like that, we're not forcing
Speaker 1: them to work, and uh, their critics are saying, well, actually,
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily true because you're using part time seasonal
Speaker 1: employees and there's no federal mandate that those people have
Speaker 1: to have holidays or time off. So therefore they're in
Speaker 1: a position where they either work or you can fire
Speaker 1: them legally. Uh, so they kind of do have to work.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ugliness on Black Friday. But chuck,
Speaker 1: if you are just the average normal person, like my
Speaker 1: brother in law loves to go Black Friday shopping and
Speaker 1: he'll he'll like, go at midnight go to the Doorbuster sales,
Speaker 1: but he's like, he's not crazy. Well, the majority of
Speaker 1: them don't end in violence, because this happens all over
Speaker 1: the country and these are isolated incidents, so it's not
Speaker 1: like at every Doorbuster sale you're gonna get trampled. But
Speaker 1: there is a risk there is, and um, the people
Speaker 1: you want to look out for. Apparently there was a
Speaker 1: study of consumer behavior at Black Friday sales and it
Speaker 1: was a legitimate study. Um it said that you want
Speaker 1: to look out for the people who have done a
Speaker 1: lot of planning, because they exhibit the most anti social
Speaker 1: behavior like shoving, pushing, yelling. They've got their plan in
Speaker 1: place and nothing's going to alter that, and they feel
Speaker 1: like they've really put the time in and they're not
Speaker 1: about to lose that Doorbusters who has never done it
Speaker 1: before and just showed up, who just lucked into into
Speaker 1: line or whatever. You know that like remember the famous
Speaker 1: Who concert in the seventies, where the people were trampled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's in that um New York article. They got rid
Speaker 1: of general emission seating after that, Like, why can't they
Speaker 1: do something about this? You know, I think the law
Speaker 1: stepped in and said, wait a minute, you can't just
Speaker 1: open the doors to a concert venue and say first
Speaker 1: one in gets front row. Um, are they still like
Speaker 1: general admission not for big arena shows. Yeah, well you
Speaker 1: know that there was like just one door open and
Speaker 1: like four others locked, and people were getting crushed up
Speaker 1: against the locked doors, and the people inside who are
Speaker 1: working at that concert like just never opened the doors
Speaker 1: even though people were dying. So remember what we cover
Speaker 1: that in Man, it is so like vivid in my
Speaker 1: mind from way early on because we studied the the
Speaker 1: science of crowd surges. I don't know what it was either,
Speaker 1: because this article is not that old. It's just like
Speaker 1: it definitely wasn't about this. I had to do with
Speaker 1: something else. But um, yeah, dirty bad stuff. Or you
Speaker 1: can take another approach, Yeah this is this is a
Speaker 1: different approach, you could say. In the n an artist
Speaker 1: named Ted Dave gave birth to what's now called by
Speaker 1: Nothing Day, wherein people are encouraged to not buy anything
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours and to fight the power and
Speaker 1: consumerism by not showing up at all, and not just
Speaker 1: by the power. The guy who created Ted Ted Dave,
Speaker 1: he's a Vancouver guy who came up within the nineties. Um,
Speaker 1: it was also not just to stick it to the man,
Speaker 1: which I can only imagine if nobody bought anything in
Speaker 1: America on Black Friday, what kind of crippling effect that
Speaker 1: would have on the economy. But he was also saying personally,
Speaker 1: it's that's a good day to not buy anything and
Speaker 1: be take stock of how much you do maybe waste
Speaker 1: or spend or whatever. Just think about your consumer your
Speaker 1: consumerism for one day and during that time, like don't
Speaker 1: buy anything, and don't guess up your car the night before,
Speaker 1: don't get a bunch of milk the night before, Like
Speaker 1: just just be normal on one day of the year,
Speaker 1: don't buy anything and that's buy nothing Day. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of become this big thing ever since Adbusters. The
Speaker 1: people who gave us Occupy Wall Street kind of a
Speaker 1: found out a about it and adopted it and just
Speaker 1: took the whole thing worldwide. It's pretty amazing. It is.
Speaker 1: So if you go to a Black Friday sale and
Speaker 1: you see a bunch of people dressed as zombies. They're
Speaker 1: making fun of you. They're making fun of zombie consumers.
Speaker 1: Same with the people who are dressed as sheep. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there's Zenti clause. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll dress up as a sheep, yeah and just walk
Speaker 1: around and buy and people's faces and then if in there,
Speaker 1: might you know, pick up a laptop right. Um. There's
Speaker 1: also credit card cut up stations, yeah, yeah, where you
Speaker 1: can get rid of your credit card and just shook consumerism.
Speaker 1: And then there's the my favorite, the what is it,
Speaker 1: the Worldly gig Congo line. Oh I haven't heard of that?
Speaker 1: Is that two disrupt shoppers? Uh, the whole the whole
Speaker 1: point is it just kind of it serve as a mirror.
Speaker 1: I think two people like, look at yourselves. You're ridiculously
Speaker 1: You think I look stupid. You're the one that looks stupid.
Speaker 1: We're not even buying anything. But yeah, so there's it's
Speaker 1: kind of a twofold. It's one like just kind of
Speaker 1: reflecting personally slash sticking it to the man as an
Speaker 1: individual consumer, like realizing your power in the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things. It's all kind of hinges on you spending
Speaker 1: your money and if you don't, then you're taking the
Speaker 1: power back or pointing out to other people just how
Speaker 1: ridiculous they're being at consumers. As consumers, people probably like,
Speaker 1: where'd you get that cheap costume? Write exactly what was
Speaker 1: that on? Um? So I've got one last thing. Uh
Speaker 1: I noticed the other day. I've never heard of this
Speaker 1: before in China. Do you think we liked the shop?
Speaker 1: Chinese love the shop And they have something that they
Speaker 1: have created called Singles Day and it is on November eleven,
Speaker 1: so eleven eleven. The four ones stand for single people
Speaker 1: and they're basically like, hey, because in China, I think
Speaker 1: you're encouraged to marry, so this is like, hey, be single,
Speaker 1: go out and treat yourself to something online and buy
Speaker 1: something because it's Singles Day and you should celebrate being single.
Speaker 1: And it's a huge deal. They spent uh, well, this
Speaker 1: e commerce platform in China called Ali Baba's the one
Speaker 1: who really got behind it recently, and they spent five
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars on Singles Day this year, which
Speaker 1: dwarfs Cyber Monday by three times almost and it's the
Speaker 1: biggest online shopping day in the world, and in the
Speaker 1: first six minutes this year, just a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: they spent a hundred and sixty million dollars in the
Speaker 1: first six minutes online in China just to celebrate being
Speaker 1: single and their churches shop for themselves, which I don't think.
Speaker 1: We pointed out a lot of people on Black Friday
Speaker 1: when um when asked, say that they do some of
Speaker 1: the shopping for themselves, not all gifts. It's like, I
Speaker 1: want that laptop. I think forty forty seven percent or
Speaker 1: forty one of people who said they're gonna stop on
Speaker 1: Bike Friday so they'll do most of the shopping for themselves.
Speaker 1: They usually do that. Whenever I go out, like genuinely
Speaker 1: Christmas shopping, I'll pick up something for myself. Were these
Speaker 1: people were saying they're mostly shopping for themselves. Now I
Speaker 1: don't mostly, but I'll just I'll just treat myself. And
Speaker 1: I want to say, Chuck, we're not. We don't begrudge
Speaker 1: anybody going to Black Friday sales. If that's your thing,
Speaker 1: enjoy it, that's fine. Just act like a human being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't take anyone's life no, don't trample over somebody who's
Speaker 1: fallen down. Uh. And most importantly, I have a very
Speaker 1: nice Thanksgiving. Enjoy the people you're with, whether they're friends, family,
Speaker 1: old acquaintances, new acquaintances. Take some time to really enjoy
Speaker 1: this Thanksgiving day and relax and and just be I agree,
Speaker 1: my friend, it's Thanksgiving. Be with your family, turn off
Speaker 1: your smartphone, maybe even wow, really get crazy and just
Speaker 1: be in the moment. Yeah, how about that? Um, And
Speaker 1: we give you permission to shout down anybody who says
Speaker 1: that trip to fan is what makes you sleepy. That's
Speaker 1: right to you. Go ahead and set them straight. Yep.
Speaker 1: So happy Happy Turkey Day, Americans and uh and other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. Whatever you're doing, I hope you're
Speaker 1: will Yeah, nice, Chuck and Chuck. We should say that
Speaker 1: as usual. If everyone wants to send us happy Thanksgiving wishes,
Speaker 1: they can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. UM.
Speaker 1: They can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff.
Speaker 1: You should know you can, um and if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about Black Friday, you can go to
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. I think there's like a
Speaker 1: ten worst moments in Black Friday history. An article up there. Um,
Speaker 1: you can send us an email directly to Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com, and as always, you can join
Speaker 1: us at our very festive and thankful home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
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