I think we can all agree that atomized materialism is doing wonders to create a healthy society. One need look no further than our proud "Black Friday" traditions to see these forces of good in action. No, I'm not referring to the totally righteous 1940 Boris Karloff film where a gangster's brain takes over a scientist's body and seeks revenge, although having a set of proud folkways that revolve completely around that bit of cinematic brilliance would be totally understandable and laudable. Instead, I'm talking about the mad dash for various foreign-made products that coincides roughly with our secular, non-denominational, this ain't religious so stop asking, end of the year buying and gifting bender. It might seem clunky, but this amorphous blob of cultural soup is the only thing keeping our economy from completely collapsing (more so, I mean) so we need to accept it.
But what about the injuries and mayhem resulting from this completely church-separate dash for little glow screens and big glow screens? Today we'll examine it in the most rigorous and thoroughgoing fashion imaginable by watching a crudely edited video from five years ago and trying to draw some sort of lesson from what, on the surface, is an impenetrable and deeply nuanced issue.
"You're not gonna believe what Donald Trump did this time..."
Like any great moral lesson it starts with an anchor bunny rapidly inhaling, as if in preparation to churn out some bars in a Top 40 song about love or whatever topic is popular these days. Instead, she launches into a rapid-fire exposition dump, I guess so that the "NEW footage" will exist in some context and as such be mostly parseable. It turns out the Friday madness is over, leaving only broken bodies to cart off and tears to dry up. The Sop-Up Saturday "atmosphere" has been damaged, we are told, after the chaos that unfolded the previous evening. Specifically, one man got stuck under "crazed shoppers" and earned a trip to the Obama Card Motel. With that, we abruptly cut to the actual promised footage. Thanks News Four, I feel ready to fully comprehend the coming visual and auditory stimuli.
Three Stooges door humor isn't funny, people get hurt.
Poorly defined blobs of protoplasm rush past a fixed camera, a sort of American version of the Running of the Bulls, just with the bulls replaced with the worst human specimens available and the running an awkward jog toward the waking dreamland of assorted technology as magic from distant, mystical Cathay. I have as much aficionado as the next bro-ham, but can't help but notice that the door is blocked by entangled flesh and bone. There's various shrieking and general biological malfunction while the dazed shoppers that somehow negotiated this consumerist Brandenburg Gate walk off as if nothing is going wrong.
Someone else will deal with this problem, just like everything. This sort of depraved indifference toward suffering bipeds made in the image of GOD is perhaps more understandable when you remember there's a 20% discount on the new line of moron boxes.
"Oh my God!" is the highly original sentiment that breaks through the confused babble. Meanwhile, the people getting paid to solve these sort of problems are deploying themselves, no doubt eager to end this eight hour shift nightmare and drink this entire sad episode into oblivion. Also, there's some profanity, but thankfully it gets censored because watching the dregs of humanity tear themselves apart is one thing and hearing someone say "shit" is quite another.
The reason for the season.
A forceful order to "Back up!" is issued and someone actually has the stones to say "No!" in response. Man, the nihilist conspicuous consumption month sure brings out the best in us. More shoppers trickle in like drops from a stuck faucet and some of the philosopher kings in this door-crashing cult express dismay at the actions of their fellow Morlocks, using deleted four-letter vocabulary to do so, of course.
Finally the victims are freed from their predicament, allowing them to display their all-American beer guts and collapse against barriers while showing signs of distress. Would another 10% off selected items make you feel better?
Just fall into those carts, that's the best place to heal.
To grind in additional indignity to an already pathetic situation some captions are edited in, including "Tom in obvious pain" with an arrow pointing toward him in case it wasn't clear and "Tom getting trampled at Target on Black Friday 2010." Precious memories, the seeds we plant in our hearts that grow in this fertile soil and bear beautiful flowers as we age and reflect on a life well-lived.
More shoppers enter, swearing, jumping around and generally displaying the lack of remorse or basic human empathy that is to be expected when a phone is marked down slightly. Then, as ironic counterpoint, the Target logo appears, as if this was a commercial. Sure, some guy who could stand to lose a few pounds has foot-shaped bruises on his back, but consider the value. The maker of the video then blames Target for the every person against every other person we just witnessed, which I guess is fair. It's their fault for making us want the products so much that we commit crimes, that's logical.
We close with a close-up shot of some rando who I guess might have been the guy in the video or whatever. It's got a very saccharine "Save the pets" feel to it, that's for sure. For only a dollar a day this man could have just bought that electronic toilet whenever. Won't you help by agreeing to pay those higher prices and maybe shopping in a month that isn't December?
My reasoning is so sound I don't need proper formatting.
Komment Korner
I wanna punch these people in the faces
I would carry a gun if i were dumb enough to even go out on black friday
Stores like this should be sued for neglecting to provide crown control
I hope they ALL BURN IN HELL!!!!!!!!!
0:45 to 0:50 HEY THAT's ME Wearing a sabres jersey
Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.
