Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow, get back. This one's
Speaker 1: my You're ready to die for this flat screen because
Speaker 1: I am Hello, my shopoholics, Maxinista's, mall rads, coupon clippers,
Speaker 1: bargain bitches, capitalism warriors, and sales slugs. It's the holidays
Speaker 1: and that means one thing family. No, I'm kidding, that
Speaker 1: means shopping. Family, what the fun? Like many of you,
Speaker 1: I too will be going out on Black Friday, one
Speaker 1: of America's most treasured excuses to buy ship and Black
Speaker 1: Friday seems like something that's been around forever. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't remember a time when Black Friday didn't exist.
Speaker 1: Then again, my memory is a little fuzzy from all
Speaker 1: the head trauma from previous Black Fridays. The history of
Speaker 1: Black Friday is actually quite interesting. It started in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties when retail stores wanted to set a clear
Speaker 1: beginning to the Christmas shopping season. Of department stores like
Speaker 1: Macy's created grand parades to signal to Americans it's time
Speaker 1: to start spending cash. Although back then parade balloons weren't
Speaker 1: as cute as it once today. You know classics like
Speaker 1: puff the Meth Field Dragon, Whimsical Drifter, Murderer, and Thick
Speaker 1: Daddy's Superman. They were hoping to scare people to run
Speaker 1: inside the stores. I don't know. The point is, retailers
Speaker 1: dependent on a big Christmas shopping season, and we're willing
Speaker 1: to do whatever it took to make it as long
Speaker 1: as possible. In fact, during the Great Depression, they even
Speaker 1: lobbied President Franklin Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving a week earlier
Speaker 1: to allow for more Christmas shopping, and after his cousin
Speaker 1: finished giving him a hand job, fdr agreed. Eventually they
Speaker 1: moved Thanksgiving back, But the retailers got what they wanted,
Speaker 1: because over the next few decades, more and more people
Speaker 1: began their Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. But the
Speaker 1: first time the day was called Black Friday was in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. It was actually coined by the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Police Department because the day brought tons of traffic and chaos,
Speaker 1: and for show opping to cause chaos in Philadelphia, it
Speaker 1: has to really be chaos. I once set fire to
Speaker 1: a mannequin at a Tzara in Philadelphia, and they didn't
Speaker 1: even kick me out at the store. They just threw
Speaker 1: it in the burnt mannequin pile. Sorry. It was in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties that Black Friday finally went nationwide, and
Speaker 1: it was all thanks to America's obsession with the adorable
Speaker 1: little vegetable human monster hybrids known as the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Speaker 1: I got this one for three thousand dollars and I
Speaker 1: had to get punched by a lot of grandmas to
Speaker 1: get it, but it was worth it. The toys were
Speaker 1: in such high demand that it caused literal riots across America.
Speaker 1: People fought their neighbors tooth and nail to pay for
Speaker 1: some lettuce shaped plastic. But all the violence was worth
Speaker 1: it for that precious Christmas morning when their kids would
Speaker 1: open the box, see the Cabbage Patch Kid, and then
Speaker 1: play with the box. The Cabbage Patch Kids set the
Speaker 1: standard for all sorts of Black Friday crazes throughout the nineties,
Speaker 1: from furbies to Beanie Babies, to Tickle Me Elmos to
Speaker 1: countless other toys by newly divorced dads trying to buy
Speaker 1: their way into their kids hearts. By two thousand two,
Speaker 1: nearly three quarters of all shoppers were in stores over
Speaker 1: Black Friday weekend. It was paradise for people looking for
Speaker 1: deals and robbers looking for unguarded homes. Black Friday was
Speaker 1: so successful that stores started pushing the start time back
Speaker 1: from Friday morning to Friday at midnight, and then all
Speaker 1: the way back to Thanksgiving night itself. They called the
Speaker 1: new holiday Gray Thursday, as a tribute to the moral
Speaker 1: gray area of abandoning your family on Thanksgiving to choke
Speaker 1: out a stranger for an instant pot Oh, that's ready.
Speaker 1: And throughout this time, Black Friday doorbuster sales became more
Speaker 1: dangerous as consumers turned every big box store into a
Speaker 1: big octagon arena. It got so bad then in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, you were statistically more likely to be injured
Speaker 1: in a Black Friday sale than from a shark attack,
Speaker 1: unless that shark is also at the Black Friday sale,
Speaker 1: and then it depends on whoever wants that blender more goat.
Speaker 1: But sadly, the good times and horrific injuries couldn't last forever.
Speaker 1: With the dawn of online shopping, Black Friday became less
Speaker 1: relevant than the newer, shinier, two day primier holiday that
Speaker 1: took its place. Along came Cyber Monday, an easier way
Speaker 1: to score deals while avoiding the mobs at in person
Speaker 1: stores just another way technology has pulled us further apart.
Speaker 1: I mean, sure, it's more convenient, but think of what
Speaker 1: we lose when we no longer have that one on
Speaker 1: one air frior to skull contact sad. Also, in recent years,
Speaker 1: retail employees have begun pushing back on so called holiday creek,
Speaker 1: which is a term for stores expanding their holiday shopping
Speaker 1: periods into Thanksgiving. Not what happens when you're weird cousin
Speaker 1: hits the egg not too hard and tries to go
Speaker 1: f DR on your underparts. But even as it's golden
Speaker 1: days are behind it, Black Friday is still an American institution,
Speaker 1: standing tall beside Thanksgiving and the super Bowl and the Purge.
Speaker 1: And now that you know its history, don't for get
Speaker 1: to keep it in perspective. Sure, saving money is great,
Speaker 1: but this season isn't about fighting some stranger at a store.
Speaker 1: It's about gathering your family and fighting with them. So
Speaker 1: happy shopping season now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta
Speaker 1: start practicing for the big day. Hey, step away from
Speaker 1: that Dyson. You think I won't pull out this pen, Well,
Speaker 1: guess what TikTok? Motherfucker? Wat's the daily Show weeknights at
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