Officials Concerned over Possible Underground Boycott of Black Friday

Economists cringe as evidence rolls in

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

POOP News Service: Top Story: The big chain’s stores noted a drop in retail revenue after the historically lucrative Black Friday — the shopping holiday that occurs the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Given that most retailers rely on the Christmas holiday market to go from red to black — hence the moniker, Black Friday — a dip in sales could be a crushing blow for our supercalafragilistic capitalistic system and Wall Street is worried.

Political economists are wondering out loud if this is a socialist plot. Or at least a democratic socialist plot hatched by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to boost their status among the disenfranchised for the 2020 election. Or maybe just to hog the media spotlight.

“Some folks will stop at nothing to get more press — including undermining the very foundations of our supercalafragilistic capitalistic system,” ranted an unnamed reporter on Fox News. “It’s so unconscionable.”

So we at POOP — Procrastinators Organic Original Publications sent scouts out around the country to probe a bit into the situation. We posed the question: Is this a conspiracy or just a major coincidence?

Here are some of our findings:

— Several cities, including Berkeley, California, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colorado, and Madison, Wisconsin had concerted campaigns to buy locally and/or globally from bona fide free trade organizations. Some even had craft or vendor fairs to showcase local artisans and help boost their sales.

Bonnie Schrader, who makes pottery and sells cannabis on the side to survive, said that for her and her family, it’s a matter of paying the rent and putting food on the table. Without local support, they’d be living in the car. And it’s really hard to work on a potter’s wheel in the car.

As glad she is to have her side business, that’s not why she’s on the planet. And in fact, she no longer uses as that takes her out of her artistic groove. But it is increasingly hard to compete with Pottery Barn and cheap imports whose profits are made off the backs of dirt poor folks in Asia, she reminded us.

— Bucky Simpson told us that people who get in line at 3 am to shop at the mall are tired, cranky, and mean. They push and shove to get the bargain items they feel they deserve and are even known to come to fisticuffs to get prized electronic devices on sale at ridiculously low prices made off the backs of dirt-poor folks in Asia.

Mayors game but innocent

— A local mayor who asked to remain anonymous disclosed that while it may look like a conspiracy there have been no formal agreements made with other cities doing similar projects.

“Sure we talk to each other over games of Clue or bid whist, but nothing formal comes of it. We just think it’s a good idea, so we do it. No attempt on anyone’s part to undermine the supercalafragilistic capitalistic system, or if there is, it was the butler in the drawing room with the candlestick.”

— In New Orleans we found people playing music and dancing in the streets instead of shopping. Ever since Katrina, there has been a sharper focus on what makes the Big Easy stand out among American Cities. And it ain’t Best Buy. Tourists and townspeople alike flock to the streets for merry-making and celebrating their multicultural heritage.

There were even filé gumbo cooking contests and impromptu second-line parades, much to the shock of the national press when they realized how unpatriotically dangerous these non-shopping phenomena could become.

Warnings were issued by the local authorities but not headed in the volume hoped. Sales of products made available off the backs of dirt-poor Asians were down, but the fun factor was way up. Hotel and restaurant owners had no comments but lots of shit-eating grins.

America’s youth clueless about BF

— Teens and twenty-somethings across the country that we interviewed pulled out their empty pockets and had comments like, “Shopping? What’s that? Does it have anything to do with Climate Change? If so, we’re not going anywhere near it.”

For purposes of discussion we had to confess that yes, Black Friday style shopping did add to the carbon footprint in terms of consumers driving to malls in cars as well as the whole manufacturing process and all the fossil fuel consumed in the productions thereof. Not to mention the fact that the ridiculously low sales prices were able to be had off the backs of dirt poor Asian folks.

Needless to say, that was the end of the conversation. As best our POOPers in the field were able to tell, while different groups of youth used the day off to work for Climate Change, pot legalization, and other causes near and dear to their hearts, there was no concerted conspiracy to boycott Black Friday. After all, how can you boycott something you know nothing about?

What color is your economy?

— Not so for an impromptu group of multicultural activists who stood outside a mall in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio braving the snow to make a point. We don’t agree with monetizing color, they said.

A Native American in full traditional regalia, who was taking a break from protesting the naming of ball teams with non-PC terms for indigenous folks, asked why red had to be the color of debt and black the color of solvency. Why even have colors for economics at all?

Another protestor claimed that the color red has a schizophrenic mentality. From referring to Native Americans, communists, Republicans, and the condition of debt, it doesn’t know who or what it is. An identity crisis is not something you want to inflict on the color also associated with the emotion of anger. All hell could break loose and it’s ten below outside.

This got folks riled up, shouting at the shoppers who were so far away and the air so cold that nothing registered. Rather than risk frostbite, they gave each other big bear hugs and headed across the street to a locally-owned bowling alley to warm up and thaw out.

No conspiracy, they confessed to our roving POOPer. They aren’t that organized. Only a handful would agree to come out in the cold. They’re headed back to the drawing board to plan something more doable in the spring around baseball’s opening day. So stay tuned.

And finally…

— Other nuggets we found out as reasons for not shopping — folks not willing to get any deeper into debt, being homeless and having no place to hide presents till they get wrapped, being hung over from overindulging on Thanksgiving, and being on vacations at ski resorts or Caribbean cruises.

So there you have it. A national round-up from POOP. Evidence shows, lots of interesting and valid reasons, but very little to no coordination.

In our estimation, lots can be said for boycotting Black Friday, especially by the kids about the environment, but no, except for a few Democratic Socialists, we’re just not that committed, disciplined, or organized. The supercalafragilistic capitalistic system will survive a while longer — assuming the planet does.

In the meantime, this has been POOP saying have happy holidays, but don’t drink and drive!