Shopocalypse Now: Black Friday Blitzkrieg

In Michigan, a Buy Nothing Day foot soldier poses Target shoppers with a pressing question (Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press)

A recession, two wars, and record unemployment numbers did little — it appears — to spoil America’s appetite for shopping this past weekend. But for the first time in recent memory, in what can only be explained as a convoluted sign of progress, nobody was killed. There were, however, plenty of near-riots and fistfights to prove that human idiocy remains a constant year-round — and even more so at the holidays.

After reading about scuffles over discounted GPS units at a Walmart SuperCenter in Shiboygan, Wisconsin, and fights breaking out over limited supplies of Zhu Zhu Pets in Indianapolis and Greenwood, Indiana, I was reminded of my youth and the Cabbage Patch Wars of the 1980s.

Some things don’t change, it seems, namely human behavior and the mental instability that dwindling quantities of goods can create. If this were America, post-apocalypse, and humans were engaged in bloodsport over canned goods, firewood, or water, it would make sense. But when everyday people threaten line jumpers with tasers, like they did at a Toys ‘R’ Us in Memphis, Tennessee, it feels like our collective race to the bottom is complete.

Though I rarely have a use in quoting the words of Reverend Billy from the Church of Life After Shopping, and I am a nonbeliever when it comes to all-things religion, I felt a certain kinship when reading his Buy Nothing Day rant this year, this passage in particular:

What are the basics of this gift idea. At Christmas we want to delight a loved one with that gift, Amen? We want the face to light up, the embrace to follow… The “sunshine of your love,” as the song says. The simple handing over of a gift has that seed of light in it. I might seem a bit odd to look at our loved one and say, “I love you, Life. I love you, Earth.”  Yet isn’t that the kind of love we need at this point in this emergency we face?  The sweet nothing for our gift should be more like “I love you like I love ALL of life.”  This year we shouldn’t give any gift that isn’t also a gift to the Earth. (via Reverend Billy)

What’s interesting here is a point that Reverend Billy brings up but doesn’t elaborate on, the idea that we give a gift with the expectation of what we’ll receive in return. This is not a novel idea. But it is one worth repeating. The chaos surrounding the holiday buying frenzy is a trap we’ve designed for ourselves — a reflection of our selfishness, our self-fascination, our collective narcissism. Swirling in small, insular worlds we each believe all these things that we populate our lives with will add value to our human experience in some small way. I am just as guilty of this as are most people I know. It’s an illusion, and deep down we know it. But we continue to buy into it, literally.

There is, at least, one largely redeeming aspect of Cyber Monday: Nobody is getting punched or tasered while they shop. And I suppose that’s something.