My Black Friday plans didn’t even include my wallet. I decided to hitch around the area and see the crowds, as well as the inside action taking place at the registers and sales floors. My loop of stores included some of the more popular retailers: Target, Best Buy, Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, and even the Orange Park Mall (to my surprise). I was only able to actually go inside two of them, Wal-Mart and the OP Mall, as the other ones had lines that would have taken two hours to get through. But since those stores were only letting about fifty people through at a time, the action I was looking for wasn’t going to take place. Wal-Mart and the mall, on the other hand, had open doors. Wal-Mart was of course the most hectic, as they simply place palettes of merchandise our and have the customers fend for themselves, creating the most turmoil.
Though the store I visited was fairly sane, there have been reports of violence throughout the country at this retailer. This just tops everything we already know about Wal-Mart.
That aside, this post’s image shows one of the highlights of most Black Friday “Deals,” typically television sets. When I first entered this store, there were already checkout lines filled with TVs. TVs everywhere. These electronics are one of the cornerstones of consumerism. Buy this electronic that will be outdated in a couple years, sit on your couch and watch reruns of Friends. That’s an extreme example, but we spend on average 2.7 hours per day watching TV according to the US Bureau Labor Statistics (source under Leisure activities).
I have many other documentary photos posted on this blog. Here’s a tag with a list of articles, most of which are of in the series, The American Theme Park.
More to come.
Tags: Black Friday, documentary, street