us – oh, we shouldn’t buy that, but what if we did?procrastinated starting this article. I was all set up and ready to begin writing when I received an email from a store I’ve never visited with a great deal on items I do not need and cannot afford, even with an outrageously good discount.
Black Friday is, more than anything else, a startling reminder of how many companies you have thoughtlessly given your email to. The modern consumer experience presumes that we leave every store with a message to the company along the lines of, “Hey there, thanks for selling me this rug. Feel free to contact me as often as you would like, at all hours of the day, for the rest of my life.”
Black Friday has spawned its own terrible little twin, Cyber Monday, which offers the same products at mostly the same discounts, in mostly the same way, but does provide consumers with the opportunity to receive even more unwanted emails. Perhaps it’s that, in the face of a year of belt-tightening, cost pressures and ardent self-denial, we relish the flirtation with such frivolous purchases.