It’s the most wonderful time of the year, where the days draw in, we prepare to spend time with our loved / hated ones, start decorating our homes with the same decorations used for 10 generations and then camp outside shops at midnight, to then run over to shelves and hit each other with TVs. It’s at this point the guy on the PA system in Asda yells out “Finish him!”

Yes friends, countrymen and Romans, Black Friday has come and gone within these sunny isles, in the biggest campaign of the year, and inevitably comes with it, all the stupidity and madness that we previously witnessed and laughed at on the news when pictures came through from America, where this proud tradition was imported from.

This is a post with a good deal of moaning, so all hands, brace for impact.

Starting over in the UK after it had caught on in the US back in 2003, it was a silent but deadly event (much like after I’ve had a curry) which started to really make an impression thanks to our supreme online overlords such as Amazon but this year, all retailers decided to get in on the act, and suddenly the level of silliness previously laughed at, was now on our front door step. This is not a good thing.

Of course before we get truly serious, the media always loves this type of event as it makes for some excellent television, mainly as you can just sit back and judge everyone for doing so. After all, we’ve been doing this for ages on most things when bad things happen to stupid people. Go on, enjoy this video below with some popcorn which was 66% off;

The lies, treachery and deceit didn’t stop on the shop floor with the countless people who held onto their precious like Golem either. The online marketplace where you would have expected everything to continue swimmingly, didn’t quite work as intended.

All save a few major players like our supreme overlords of Amazon (all hail our masters of super saver free delivery with order over £10) to come crashing down to various notices stating “due to unprecedented demand, our services are struggling, please check back later.”

Or in marketing speak, let’s make ourselves look more popular than we actually are.

Many sites were choosing to place a queue system in front of their TVs they were selling for £12 or whatever it was and at times the queue was up to an hour. Game just didn’t even bother and left their website down the whole weekend instead.

You love us so much, you broke the website!

In essence, many fighters / bargain hunters were determined to get something on the cheap, in some cases, they didn’t care what it was. One woman remarked on the fact she bought a hoover but didn’t know if she was going to use it. Another man, bought lots of everything but didn’t know how much he had spent. It’s all here in black and white.

It seems that when facing “cheaper” prices for things we cannot help ourselves but buy into it.

Of course some of us just lay down on the sofa and tap away for bargains galore. There are countless Steam sales where my poor old wallet has been destroyed, left crying for mercy and yet year after year, countless people (of which I am one sadly) will sit in front of various machines, buy games they think are a bargain and then never touch them again. We are in essence slaves to the whole practice of “it’s cheap, we’ve got to have it and maybe save money.”

Except we don’t. We’ve still spent money in the first place which we wouldn’t have done otherwise.

One of them only came in for pie and chips…. (Taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30241459)

Let’s have a look at the main point of why these sales exist.

And despite what some people have written about the tragic event, this is not about social class, inequality, stereotyping or whatever other bulls*it you managed to pull of out your hat. It’s taking advantage of basic human behavior and lack of self-control i.e. the marketing has worked.

Say there was something that you really wanted, and it cost a lot of money. You say to yourself, “I’ll wait for the sale, let’s sleep for 6 months and then wake up to sleep outside the doors.” You proceed to do said thing, but you actually find that in the sale that the one thing you wanted hasn’t actually reduced that much. Oh dear.

You see, if it’s a good selling product, then the company is not going to be as keen to get rid of it without making a good chunk of cash. Therefore, the price doesn’t really change too much until there is a newer version of the same thing and even then, you may not see the drop you expect.

They only heavily discount the crap which they couldn’t sell otherwise.

Half the time, you can get the items cheap most of the year. By shopping second hand, I picked up Seasons 1-3 of Mad Men (another series yet to be watched properly so stay tuned for the moanings about that) for £10-ish on Blu-Ray.

No sale, no special deals, they were just second hand, that’s all.

Now we face all sorts of ridiculous events, like Cyber Monday, yet another US marketing fun time, where this year just after spending untold amounts, we’re to apparently spend another £650 million on stuff according to someone’s mate (probably Dave).

Just this time we do it from the IPad that was so 5 minutes ago to get another 12 IPads as they were £10 less than they were a few minutes earlier. For those retailers, they also get the first deals in on Christmas Day where having just gotten things, we then go online to get more things!

Charities are now getting in on the branding action; Giving Tuesday. That’s right friends, the 2nd of December has now apparently been classed as time to give more money to something else in case you didn’t give any money to the poor multinationals who needed it too; And you can guess where it started, can’t you? The USA of course, in 2012.

OK, enough. This has got to calm down.

By all means, feel free to spend or give your money as you see fit. Just for the love of various powers / evil villains that be, don’t do it when everyone else tells you to by way of over the top imported marketing…