Black Friday, how much are these deals worth?

By Josephine McLaughlin

Are these deals that great if we may have to pay for the environmental and fiscal repercussions later?

Friday, November 29th. The day after Thanksgiving, famously known as Black Friday. For years this has been an event that causes the uprise of many opinions. Many love the day, many hate it. It is right after Thanksgiving, a day we are supposed to be thankful and reflect on all we have. Then the next day we go and splurge and indulge in a frenzy for things we most likely don’t need. A valid reason to cause some to look down on the day.

The National Retail Federation had expected 165 million people to shop in stores and online this Black Friday shopping weekend. They then reported it was actually it was more than 174 million Americans that shopped through Cyber Monday. This information beating their original prediction. This means that 70 percent of American adults were shopping this Thanksgiving weekend.

To reference Americans and their heightened case of the “gimmes” in relation to this day after Thanksgiving, it was said that the average person spent $335 on their shopping ventures.  Not including millennials whose averaged a $419.52 per person according to The Washington Post. These stats definitely would fuel the fire for anyone who feels any negativity towards this shopping event. Grandmothers around the world are reading these numbers and shaking their heads and saying “you should have stayed at home” to their grandchildren, don’t you think?

However, this year, there is another reason to boycott this “shopping holiday” that seems to be screaming louder than the others.

Sustainability.

As much as these sales beckoned any and all deal seekers, they also caused an uprising in environmental activist. According to NBC News, even in France, there were protests against this weekend shopping event. They were calling out Amazon and other companies. They protested outside Amazon’s main facility in Paris.

Some people in Germany that work for Amazon even went on strike for better pay!

The reasoning behind these nationwide protests from New York to Paris was due to the belief that consumerism is destroying the planet. Many think that as great as the deals are from this weekend holiday shopping event are, the negative impact is much greater.

These factors bring us to wonder, are these amazing Black Friday deals at a greater cost? We may be getting things at a cheap price now, but then we might be paying for them later in the possible repercussions.