Why Black Friday Is Called “Black Friday” (And How It Took Over America) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00If you only know Black Friday is the day
2. 0:02when people sprint through sliding doors
3. 0:04like they're competing for the last raft
4. 0:06off of a sinking ship, you'd never guess
5. 0:08the name actually started as a complaint
6. 0:10from police [music] officers in
7. 0:12Philadelphia. Long before flat screens
8. 0:14existed, long before doorbuster was a
9. 0:16word, and long before stores decided
10. 0:18that [music] 5:00 a.m. is a perfectly
11. 0:20normal time to start holiday shopping.
12. 0:22And what makes it even stranger is that
13. 0:24somewhere along the way, this chaotic,
14. 0:26dreaded day turned into something else
15. 0:28entirely. A holiday tradition for a lot
16. 0:31of families. Black Friday isn't just
17. 0:33shopping. It's coffee before dawn. It's
18. 0:36grandparents and grandkids wandering the
19. 0:38mall together. It's one of those quiet
20. 0:40little rituals that somehow became part
21. 0:42of Americana. But none of that explains
22. 0:44the name. Black Friday wasn't born
23. 0:47cheerful or festive or even remotely
24. 0:50positive. So, how did the calm turkey
25. 0:53coma Friday after Thanksgiving morph
26. 0:55into the loudest retail ritual in
27. 0:57America? And why is it called Black
28. 0:59Friday? To answer that, you have to
29. 1:02start with a very different kind of
30. 1:03chaos.
31. 1:13Let's clear something up. The name Black
32. 1:16Friday did not originate with sales or
33. 1:19shoppers or even retailers. It
34. 1:21originated with people who dreaded the
35. 1:23day more than anyone else, Philadelphia
36. 1:26police officers. In the 1950s and60s,
37. 1:29the Saturday after Thanksgiving was the
38. 1:31Army Navy football game, one of the
39. 1:34biggest sporting events on the East
40. 1:35Coast. Tens of thousands of fans flooded
41. 1:38Philadelphia for the weekend. They
42. 1:40packed hotels, restaurants, sidewalks,
43. 1:43and unfortunately, the roads. Meanwhile,
44. 1:46Thanksgiving weekend was also when
45. 1:47suburban families started venturing into
46. 1:50the city to begin their holiday
47. 1:51shopping. The result, a perfect storm.
48. 1:55Picture it. Traffic backed up for miles.
49. 1:58Every trolley and bus overflowing.
50. 2:01Stores jammed shouldertosh shoulder.
51. 2:04Shoplifting through the roof. And police
52. 2:07working backto back 12-hour shifts. To
53. 2:10them, the day was miserable,
54. 2:13unpredictable,
55. 2:15a logistical nightmare. So, they started
56. 2:17calling it Black Friday. Black meaning
57. 2:21bad, unpleasant, dreaded.
58. 2:24Retailers heard this and panicked. Who
59. 2:26wants their biggest shopping day
60. 2:28associated with misery and theft? But
61. 2:31despite their complaints, the name
62. 2:33stuck. First locally, then regionally,
63. 2:37then nationally. And that's when the
64. 2:39store owners decided, "Fine, if we can't
65. 2:42kill the name, we'll try to rewrite the
66. 2:44meaning."
67. 2:48Retailers in Philadelphia absolutely
68. 2:50hated the term Black Friday. To them, it
69. 2:52sounded like disaster, like a stock
70. 2:54market crash, like an oil spill, like
71. 2:57something that makes your account inside
72. 2:59deeply and pour another cup of coffee.
73. 3:01And you have to understand why retailers
74. 3:03cared so much. This wasn't just one busy
75. 3:06day. This was the unofficial kickoff to
76. 3:08the entire holiday shopping season when
77. 3:10department stores made a huge percentage
78. 3:12of their yearly revenue. They wanted a
79. 3:14name that sounded festive, positive,
80. 3:17sparkly, [music] even. Instead, they had
81. 3:19a name that sounded like the day
82. 3:21Voldemort took over the mall. So, in the
83. 3:23early 1960s, the Philadelphia Retailers
84. 3:27Association and several big stores
85. 3:29attempted a full-blown PR intervention.
86. 3:32They proposed a new upbeat shopper
87. 3:35friendly name, Big Friday. Big Friday
88. 3:39was supposed to feel celebratory, like a
89. 3:41grand, happy event. Some stores printed
90. 3:43flyers using it. A few radio ads said
91. 3:46it. Local papers briefly humored the
92. 3:48idea, but the public reaction was
93. 3:51basically zero. No one used it. No one
94. 3:54cared. Even the stores who promoted it
95. 3:56couldn't keep a straight face. A sales
96. 3:58manager might say Big Friday in a TV
97. 4:01interview at 10:00 a.m., then casually
98. 4:03referred to it as Black Friday again by
99. 4:05lunchtime. The rebrand attempt fizzled
100. 4:08almost instantly. And part of the reason
101. 4:10it failed is that the original meaning,
102. 4:12the police meaning, was still too
103. 4:13strong. Shoppers overheard cops using
104. 4:16it. Reporters used it. Retail workers
105. 4:19used it. It traveled by word of mouth,
106. 4:21not marketing. By the mid 1970s, Black
107. 4:24Friday had pushed beyond Philadelphia.
108. 4:26It spread into New Jersey and the rest
109. 4:28of Eastern Pennsylvania. Newspapers
110. 4:30outside Philly picked it up because they
111. 4:32loved how dramatic it sounded. And once
112. 4:35the media adopts a name, good luck
113. 4:37getting rid of it. Still, the meaning
114. 4:40was negative. It still meant crowding,
115. 4:42gridlock, bad behavior, and a long day
116. 4:45at work. It wasn't tied to profits or
117. 4:48deals or shopping holidays. Retailers
118. 4:50realized they couldn't erase the name,
119. 4:52but maybe they could change its meaning.
120. 4:54And that is where the most famous piece
121. 4:56of Black Friday folklore enters the
122. 4:57picture. The idea that it's the day
123. 4:59retailers finally go into the black.
124. 5:06You certainly heard the story. Black
125. 5:08Friday is the day retailers finally go
126. 5:10into the black, turning a profit after
127. 5:12being in the red all year. It's clean,
128. 5:16it's satisfying, and it's a great
129. 5:17elevator explanation. And it's not
130. 5:20exactly how things work. Most stores are
131. 5:23profitable well before Thanksgiving.
132. 5:25Back to school shopping alone often put
133. 5:26them in the black. But in the 1980s, as
134. 5:29the Black Friday name spread nationally,
135. 5:31retailers realized something. If you
136. 5:33can't kill a name, redefine it. So they
137. 5:36pushed the into the black explanation in
138. 5:38press releases, ads, and media
139. 5:40interviews. It wasn't exactly a lie,
140. 5:42just a very generous reinterpretation of
141. 5:44reality. [music] And people bought it,
142. 5:46literally. If you're enjoying this
143. 5:48little retail reality check, hit
144. 5:50subscribe. We drop new curiosity deep
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147. 6:00Okay, so even before Black Friday had a
148. 6:02name, the day after Thanksgiving was
149. 6:03already shaping up to be a shopper's
150. 6:05paradise. People were off work, kids
151. 6:07were home from school, the holidays were
152. 6:09coming, and stores realized, hey, people
153. 6:12are already out. By the 1980s and '90s,
154. 6:15two things happened simultaneously. One,
155. 6:18big box retail exploded. Walmart,
156. 6:21Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, all
157. 6:24racing to undercut each other. Two, the
158. 6:27doorbuster era began. Massive discounts,
159. 6:30but in limited quantities. You had to be
160. 6:32early. Really early. That's when lines
161. 6:35started forming at dawn. People camped
162. 6:38in lawn chairs. Local news vans showed
163. 6:40up for the morning show Live Hits. And
164. 6:42inevitably, you got those infamous crowd
165. 6:44surges. Not every store handled it well.
166. 6:48Some learned the hard way that humans
167. 6:49will fight to the death for a discounted
168. 6:51DVD player. By the early 2000s, Black
169. 6:54Friday wasn't just a big shopping day.
170. 6:56It was a national ritual. The kind where
171. 6:58families made plans around it. The kind
172. 7:00where people bragged about snagging
173. 7:02deals like trophies. But then the
174. 7:04internet showed up.
175. 7:09When online retail showed up, the entire
176. 7:11Black Friday playbook got rewritten.
177. 7:14Suddenly, you didn't need to stand in a
178. 7:15cold parking lot at 4:00 a.m. to save
179. 7:17$30 on a blender. You could do it from
180. 7:19your couch in slippers while eating
181. 7:22pumpkin pie. Amazon leaned into this
182. 7:24hard. They began running November long
183. 7:26deals. Retailers followed and consumers
184. 7:29quickly realized, why cram all the
185. 7:32shopping into one day. In 2005, the
186. 7:35National Retail Federation debuted Cyber
187. 7:37Monday, designed to boost online
188. 7:39spending. It was a hit, a huge one.
189. 7:43Within a few years, shoppers were
190. 7:44getting deals. Black Friday, Cyber
191. 7:47Monday, Thanksgiving, and the weekend in
192. 7:50between all became part of one long
193. 7:52sales season. The Black Friday frenzy
194. 7:55didn't disappear. It just got spread
195. 7:57out, diluted, digitized, and the
196. 8:00stampedes slowly faded.
197. 8:06Today, Black Friday is still a huge
198. 8:08retail moment, especially online, but it
199. 8:11no longer feels like a single day event.
200. 8:13Most retailers offer deals for a week or
201. 8:16two or the entire month. Some start in
202. 8:18October, and Black Friday has gone
203. 8:21global. Countries with no Thanksgiving
204. 8:23at all. The UK, Germany, Brazil, India
205. 8:26have adopted it. But here's something
206. 8:28the spreadsheets and sales charts don't
207. 8:30capture. Over the decades, Black Friday
208. 8:33quietly became a holiday tradition all
209. 8:35its own. For a lot of people, especially
210. 8:38families, the shopping was only part of
211. 8:40the day. The real draw was the ritual.
212. 8:42waking up early, bundling up, grabbing
213. 8:45coffee, walking the mall while Christmas
214. 8:47music plays. [music] In many families,
215. 8:49it turned into a generational thing.
216. 8:51Young moms going out with their own
217. 8:53mothers. Kids tagging along with grandma
218. 8:55because this is what we do every year.
219. 8:58Not because they needed anything, but
220. 8:59because it was a moment carved out of
221. 9:01the holidays, a little pocket of shared
222. 9:03chaos and fun. For some, Black Friday
223. 9:06became as much a part of Americana as
224. 9:08decorating the tree or watching the
225. 9:10parade. a tradition stitched together
226. 9:13not by marketing departments but by
227. 9:15families who made a day out of it. To
228. 9:17others, of course, it's a symbol of
229. 9:19overconumption. But either way, the name
230. 9:22and the ritual endure. Not because they
231. 9:25make perfect sense, but because once
232. 9:27something becomes part of tradition, it
233. 9:29sticks. A day that started in
234. 9:31frustration became a national ritual and
235. 9:34in a strange way a reflection of how
236. 9:36America shops, adapts, and builds
237. 9:39traditions out of the most unlikely
238. 9:40origins.
239. 9:44Thanks for watching and finishing the
240. 9:46video before you went to check out the
241. 9:47deals.