Only In America

[Krusha]

wow

Wal-Mart worker dies in rush; two killed at toy store - CNN.com



Two people were killed in a shooting at a Palm Desert, California, Toys "R" Us store on Friday.

[tiedye]

Consumerism is literally killing people now.

[robyn]

wheeee i love america

[GSG9]

so i know about the whole "xmas starts after thanksgiving day" thing in the usa.... but why do they all need to instantly start shopping the next day? mad sales or soemthing?
like. the sales better be better than 70% off, cause i would rather spend the extra cash than go into a crowded mall full of materialistic consumers fighting for tickle me elmos. maybe thats what makes me canadian? i dno.

[NinjaBoy]

Originally Posted by tiedye

Consumerism is literally killing people now.

Sacrafices have to be made for low low prices!

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by GSG9

so i know about the whole "xmas starts after thanksgiving day" thing in the usa.... but why do they all need to instantly start shopping the next day? mad sales or soemthing?

Basically yeah. Doorcrashers and whatnot... It's like boxing day but more intense because people want to get gifts BEFORE Christmas this time around.

It's because of the mad consumer rush that adbusters started the whole Buy-Nothing-Day.



CONSUME

[b0ld]

Driver said God ordered 100-mph wreck

[EPID3MIK-7]

Originally Posted by GSG9

so i know about the whole "xmas starts after thanksgiving day" thing in the usa.... but why do they all need to instantly start shopping the next day? mad sales or soemthing?
like. the sales better be better than 70% off, cause i would rather spend the extra cash than go into a crowded mall full of materialistic consumers fighting for tickle me elmos. maybe thats what makes me canadian? i dno.

Yeh they all have mad sales and discounts are like our boxing day prices.

[NinjaBoy]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

It's because of the mad consumer rush that adbusters started the whole Buy-Nothing-Day.

I never got this though. Most of the people who read adbusters are young anti corporate students.

Not really going to make a dent in the market when they don't buy anything for one day.

Especially when the next day they go and buy what they would have bought that day.

[mithridate]

but you know.. it just takes THAT many people to say, im not going to buy anything
and every year more and more people do it.
and eventually it becomes not just young people, but lots of different people from all walks of life.

and i think its meant more for a reflection on your own consumerism, than a complete halt of it.

there are groups out there who choose not to buy ANYTHING new for the entire year! :) they trade and barter with other people and they buy only used things (except basics like toilet paper, etc)

Originally Posted by NinjaBoy

I never got this though. Most of the people who read adbusters are young anti corporate students.

Not really going to make a dent in the market when they don't buy anything for one day.

Especially when the next day they go and buy what they would have bought that day.

[ebbomega]

Honestly I'd be a lot more behind Buy Nothing Day if Adbusters weren't a bunch of douchebags. Personally I think the Consumerist accomplishes everything they set out to do, only better.

[Grapes]

Hope all those douchebags are proud of themselves.

I was saddened to learn it was an employee that got crushed, and not one of those empty-headed bargain addicts.

[diva]

You should probably look into the demographic that shops at Walmart. This tragedy was caused by empty wallets and desperation, not empty heads.

"A 2000 study by Andrew Franklin, then an economist at the University of Connecticut, showed that Wal-Mart operated primarily in poor and working-class communities"

"Only 6 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers have annual family incomes of more than $100,000. A 2003 study found that 23 percent of Wal-Mart Supercenter customers live on incomes of less than $25,000 a year. More than 20 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers have no bank account, long considered a sign of dire poverty. And while almost half of Wal-Mart Supercenter customers are blue-collar workers and their families, 20 percent are unemployed or elderly."

Wal-Mart: Helping Lower-Income Consumers Dig Their Own Grave
Wal-Mart's women -- employees and customers -- in unhealthy relationship

Here's another Only in America story.

[fritz]

ahhhhh Jed I'm starving out here in the Ozarks!
I heard them Walmart have a 4am Black Sunday sale on bread, I'll tell you what.

maybe i'm being obtuse, people dont doorcrash walmart and toys r us because they're starving, it's because they want cheap crap for some shitty holiday. The stats listed above are pretty close to stats for America, so what's the point imo?

Household income in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[diva]

Originally Posted by fritz

ahhhhh Jed I'm starving out here in the Ozarks!
I heard them Walmart have a 4am Black Sunday sale on bread, I'll tell you what.

maybe i'm being obtuse, people dont doorcrash walmart and toys r us because they're starving, it's because they want cheap crap for some shitty holiday. The stats listed above are pretty close to stats for America, so what's the point imo?

Household income in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I didn't read the toys r us thing, but I think that stores like walmart offer poor people stuff they need for really cheap. Like buy one get one free socks and stuff like that on Black Friday. And yes, even bread, milk, and eggs--at the supercentres. Black Friday just makes stuff even cheaper for them, making standing in ridic lineups even more enticing.

People are also Christmas shopping of course, which is shitty but whatever, it's not going to change. Poor kids want toys under the tree and clothes from Santa too. No parent wants their child to go without.

Here are some of the doorcrasher items: Walmart Black Friday Ad and Walmart.com Black Friday Deals for 2008 A lot of children's clothes, toys, and household appliances on sale.

[Grapes]

Spending what little disposable income you have on a (discounted) flat screen TV as opposed to saving the money or spending it on education strikes me as pretty empty headed.

The one instance where I might allow some leeway is if they're trying to get toys for their kids for Xmas that they otherwise couldn't afford. Anyone in the family above the age of 14 should be old enough to understand the following:

"Money's tight, we can't afford to spend a lot of money on stupid bullshit, and if you think I'm risking life and limb to engage in gladiator battles with 300 pound Wal-Mart shoppers, you're out of your tiny mind"

[Grapes]

Why did they name it Black Friday? Was that before or after people started dying, because if it was before that's becoming more ironic year by year.

[se7en]

^^ they named it black friday because the the term 'we're in the black represents we're making a profit in business terms'


2 Dead In Black Friday Toys 'R' Us Shooting

A shooting inside a Toys "R" Us on the busiest shopping day of the year killed two people in Palm Desert, Calif., authorities said.

The violence erupted on Black Friday, the traditional post-Thanksgiving start of the holiday shopping surge, but accounts of what occurred inside the store were fragmentary or second hand and it was not clear whether it involved any shopping frenzy.

The Palm Desert Police Department received calls of shots fired around 11:35 a.m., Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said. He said officers were still investigating what prompted the gunshots.

Palm Desert Councilman Jim Ferguson says police told him two men with handguns shot and killed each other, reports CBS station KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. An argument reportedly broke out between two female shoppers just before the shooting.

A witness reportedly yelled, "He's got a gun," as a man who was with one of the two women opened fire.

Daniel Watson rushed to the scene when he received a frantic call from his wife, who was inside the store at the time of the shooting.

Immediately after the shooting, about 20 people rushed into the World Gym across the street from Toys "R" Us, the gym's assistant manager Glenn Splain told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"They were crying, tearing and shaking," Splain said, adding that one woman came in cradling a baby.

cbs11tv.com - 2 Dead In Black Friday Toys 'R' Us Shooting May Have Fought Over Toy

[Grapes]

Originally Posted by se7en

^^ they named it black friday because the the term 'we're in the black represents we're making a profit in business terms'

Well, then.

I just realized me and Ebbo made back to back "douchebag" comments. God we're predictable

[miss.myra]

only in America? Yeah in Canada we just shoot innocent bystanders in the Foot Locker lineup on Boxing Day.

[Krusha]

well come on, 'american culture' myra ... we are fucking america

[NinjaBoy]

Originally Posted by mithridate

but you know.. it just takes THAT many people to say, im not going to buy anything
and every year more and more people do it.
and eventually it becomes not just young people, but lots of different people from all walks of life.

But the point is, they buy everything anyways. Just on on a different day.

Sorry, but any social movement founded by adbusters is a joke.

[GSG9]

yea ninja same deal with poeples "stop buying gas for a day".
the problem is people dont stop USING gas for a day, they just postpone when they pumped, meaning the stations cashed in the next day instead.
if people want to make a difference in it, they need to not purchase all together... which will end up fucking them in the ass anyway after causing an economy fluctuation.