In the beginning, thanks to the Equity ban of the 70's and 80's, music, movies and TV were left wide open for American occupation. Slowly, our Christmases changed from easy, summer family affairs into competitive table decor, Bing Crosby crooners and nibbles for the hardworking reindeer.
And yes, I fell into it. With glee. American culture made Christmas beautiful, colourful, fragrant and iconic. Retailers everywhere celebrated, the Christian roots withered away but oh, my, did our table groan while our house glowed and glittered in every nook and cranny.
Then Halloween arrived, replacing Guy Fawkes and Bonfire night. Backed by genius American marketing we painted and pasted yucky wounds and monster faces, peeled grapes (for the eyeball trick) and sent the offspring on their way to load up with unwanted and unnecessary sugar. And saw nothing wrong with that, either.
Fortunately, Thanksgiving is passing us by (TWO turkey dinners in four weeks would blast both budget and waistline) but social media still gives it a good tonk and insidiously Thanksgiving is a familiar date on our calendars too.
Yet bizarrely, Black Friday has landed and slipped tentacles into November's last Friday. Why? This is a day exclusively linked to Thanksgiving Thursday. Which we don't observe. So why a day devoted solely to shopping and money spending a stone's throw away from Christmas should plant itself firmly in South Africa is a mystery.
Or maybe not. Checkers, a discount food grocery chain proudly brags that they brought Black Friday to SA in 2014. And trumpeted that Black Friday 2016 would be the biggest and best yet, with markdowns of up to 50%. How they must be regretting that after photographs of the horror queues at their store in Port Elizabeth flooded social media on Friday. Online shopping websites across the country crashed and optimistic shoppers got to the virtual checkout only to have their baskets melt down.
A sign of desperation in these fraught economic times, or that crazed bargain hunting gene gone wild? Perhaps a bit of both.
Meanwhile, the Social Media Social Conscience Keyboard Warriors (SMSCKW) have added their two cents worth by flooding the airwaves with urban legend and rumour in an effort to ruffle and stir up a collective guilt wave. Black Friday was the day way back in the 1800's when Southern plantation owners would discount their slaves on the sales block.
Bollocks. But when did a little research ever come between a keyboard warrior and an inflammatory post? http://www.history.com/news/whats-the-real-history-of-black-friday
Black Friday began in the 1950's in Philadelphia when local cops were all out on duty struggling to cope with hordes of people and vehicle traffic in town for some pre-Army/Navy football game shopping. By the mid 1980's, retail marketers saw the gap to rocket sales stratospheric-ally and embraced a huge, discount shopping day. They'll tell you it changes retail balance sheets from the red into the black, which is a spin stretched quite far. A few days into the final month of the year, these poor businesses finally get to turn a profit?
Anyhow, back to the beginning. Why, oh why, is this intrinsically American phenomenon, linked to a holiday South Africans don't celebrate, putting down roots in our culture? Are we so eager to fit in under the shadow of that huge nation we grasp excessive commercialism rather than explore, and exploit, the many cultural possibilities on our own doorstep?
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| Personally, I prefer my Black mixed with White! |
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