Comments

1
Yes, but to see deaths or have guns pulled you, you still need to be at a really 'black' Friday.

Nice try....not.
2
These stores should be required to hire crowd control and have line management. Can you imagine a large concert venue getting away with this if they just opened the doors and let people run to a general admission concert?
If they aren't sued, fined or otherwise penalized they will never stop.
3
Why did you link to a consumerist post dated 2006?
4
@3: Good question.
5
The Spirit of the Season Compels Them!
6
My favorite thing about Black Friday is the Monday morning blog posts about tramplings that descend into racist comments about poor people from stupid (and possible poor) people.
7
Wow, everyone in that video is fat, fat, fat.
8
Anyone stupid enough to wait in a line for hours to get into a Target at midnight to save a few bucks on a TV deserves whatever happens to them.
9
Buffalo stampede!
10
Christmas is stupid. Buffalonians are fat.
11
there is so much wrong with america and this is just one small, pathetic example.
12
@2,

I'm sure the stores that see these kinds of incidents get the pants sued off of them, but they'll continue as long as the slight risk of trampling is far outweighed by the benefit of the hype and the cost savings of not providing adequate security.

I doubt anything short of government regulation will put a stop to this.
13
@11 "there is so much wrong with america"

Must be fun  being you.

BTW most of these 'people' are from the lower classes...so I agree, there is so much wrong with the lower classes in America. They need to be kept on shorter leashes.
14
@9- Doug, that's going help me get through my Monday.

Thank you.
15
Shopping is politics.

Welcome to The New World of GOP/TP. This is how their politics work: those with the most money, brass, brutality and guile get all the prizes.

The analogy holds up perfectly, and I couldn't resist the comparison.

These visions of crazed shoppers pale in comparison to the way the "new" congress will work when lobbyists descend on "The Other Washington," treated to the sight of inexperienced, gullible legislators who are ignorant know-it-alls.

The same strategy, tactics and skills these shoppers use are how the GOP/TP supplicants will do their dirty work.
16
2/tacomagirl: Can you imagine a large concert venue getting away with this if they just opened the doors and let people run to a general admission concert?

Time was when large concert venues did just that. In December 1979, 11 people were killed while a crowd was rushing to get into Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati to see The Who. My best friend & I had seen The Who at the St. Paul Civic Center just a month or so prior to that. It was general admission. When they began to open the doors, outward, there was a huge surge toward them and the people in front got pinned against the doors. People in front ended up punching people who where shoving them from the rear. My friend and I were close enough to get crushed but, fortunately, not up against the doors. I was amazed no one died that time and wasn't surprised at all when I read about Cincinnati happening.

Crowds + greed = scary.
17
@15 "the New World of GOP/TP. This is how their politics work: those with the most money, brass, brutality and guile get all the prizes."

I'm sorry, this is utter bullshit. Most of these people at these scrums are working class and poor. Do you think upper middle class professionals and the investor class stand in line all night at Target at 4am  to save $100 on a  DVD player?

You're so stupid you don;'t even know what you supposed to be flailing at.
18

How can you look at that and not think less of them?
19
@12 and 16
Yes. That is what I'm talking about. Government regulation.
I don't think concert venues started line control after those scary, and deadly, incidents without some local government regulation.
20
Expect much moaning and whining from business interests about how we're not pro-business enough for them, even if retail sales are ALREADY ahead of original projections for GDP growth this year.

Oh, and I did Buy Nothing Day - bought a $526 quad core computer on Grey Thursday and bought the OEM Win7 on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for a job, start cold calling local firms with 5 to 100 employees - they say they'll be doing about 90 percent of the hiring this coming year, and most (2/3 to 3/4 depending on rank and location) are HIRING.

Phone employers you were on the waitlist for. Again. Send em a Holiday card or - better - drop it off in person.
21
You notice how several shoppers are calling people assholes and showing disgust on their faces as they come in. Yet every one of them is just as guilty as those doing the pushing.
Even the people who got trampled choose to line up a 4am and took part in creating a sick sense of urgency and panic. And, I bet those same people will do it again next year.
23
I loved the shots of empty Sears Parking lots on Grey Thursday on the local TV channels.

Much ado about Hype.
24
Thank you,President Eisenhower, Victor Lebow. We do not know when and where to stop. We no longer believe in deffered consumption.
25
Hey grandma in colorado! I've seen your act before - 'I'm an old senile woman wandering around near the front of the line OHSHITNOWIMINFRONTWHENTHEYOPENTHEDOOR'! You're not fooling anyone! You're lucky they don't start throwing elbows next time you try it!
26
Exactly why I refuse to partake in any kind of Black Friday shenanigans. I'd only be contributing to the mess and consumerism at its ugliest.

Please wait...

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