One of our yearly traditions since we began this website back in 1999 was the imagery and pageantry of Black Friday madness! Brawls and fights.. people going out to shop but landing in a coma, all while old terrible quality cell phone videos caught the rampage..
None of that this year.
NOTHING.
It was quite quaint and orderly. We did not even get sent one fight, one punch… one scream.. The masks kept those who actually shopped quite quiet!
The AP captured the event for history like this, with Alexandra Olson writing,
The raging coronavirus pandemic kept crowds thin at malls and stores across the country on Black Friday, but a surge in online shopping offered a beacon of hope for struggling retailers after months of slumping sales and businesses toppling into bankruptcy.
Talk about depressing!
But is it all the virus?
For years, we have seen spending habits changing.
Big box chains have been slowly bleedings for years, and “local Saturday” shops have been closing.. Cyber Monday has immersed from the shuffle with the grand prize!
A graphical representation:
This year, Black Friday is a story of the haves vs the everyone else!
People in line for a Playstation 5 may have been equipped with the hundreds to spend to get it, but were shocked to hear their local game stop only had 2 per store for the most part!
Meanwhile, the rest of the country is seeing a spike in hunger and food lines..
While you may not see in on the American media cable channel of your choice, the world is watching a nation spiral out of control..
In what is traditionally a season of celebration, less than half of US households with children feel “very confident” about having enough money to afford the food needed over the next month, according to the US Census Bureau’s latest pandemic survey. A staggering 5.6m households struggled to put enough food on the table in the past week.
Families of color are suffering disproportionately with 27% of black and 23% of Latino respondents with children reported not having enough to eat sometimes or often over the past week – compared with 12% of white people.
Overall food insecurity has doubled since last year due to record unemployment and underemployment rates. For families with children, hunger is three times higher than in 2019, according to analysis by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, director of the non-partisan Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.
Another British publication, the UK DAILY MAIL, is showcasing a starving nation during pandemic
A staggering 5.6 million people struggled to put enough food on the table in the past week according to US Census survey data, while an estimated two million people are expected to go hungry in New York this holiday season.
From New York to California, people waited for hours on end to claim their parcels for the holidays and celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Tyler Perry and Tracy Morgan have lent a hand.
So yes..
This year we miss images like this:
Because now all we see are images like this:
