As we enter December in the wake of Black Friday, buying is all thats on everyone's mind. It's the holiday spirit that really makes me think our society is going to turn out like "Wall-E" with us all roving around on hover-chairs drinking bacon milkshakes because we're too fat to execute any sort of human-like movement. The situation I just described happens to be my own personal worst nightmare, but even if you read that and thought hmmm bacon milkshake, could be worse there are still many other reasons to fear Black Friday and the consumerism that surrounds commercialized holidays like Christmas and Hanukah.
Black Friday to me is a symbol of everything that is going wrong with humanity. It represents consumerism in its most gruesome and deadly form, taking our ability to ignore our morals and common sense for a low price on a flat screen TV or a pair of sneakers to an entirely new level. As someone who has always worked in retail, most recently at a hugely popular teen clothing store on Broadway in SoHo called Brandy Melville, I have seen the way people get on Black Friday from behind the register and it is not pretty.
Our society places so much emphasis on buying new things all the time which leads us to have almost no regard for waste. This is a huge problem for the environment and for us as people. What we have just isn't enough anymore. The emphasis put on the clothing and textile industries to pump out the cheapest clothing that also complies to the latest rapidly changing trends is enough to make it impossible for a company to manufacture clothing ethically and compete in the free market.
We want all our clothing to be under $20 dollars and we want to be able to buy a new shirt for every day of the year; instead, quality should be valued over quantity when it comes to all consumer goods. The first step is to change our definition of quality. The quality of an item of clothing or other consumer good is usually judged on the price of the material used or the aesthetic of the design. Quality should not only be judged on looks and presentation; the process of making an item should be part of the discussion as well. If people thought of the quality of a t-shirt as where and what that shirt came from and what went into making it, I'm sure the conversation about ethical and environmentally friendly ways of production would open up.
It is consumerism that is driving us to destroy the earth and that is driving us crazy trying to keep up with trends and new products in order to be in the loop and feel a part of society. So instead of going shopping on Black Friday, I decided to not think about buying things and getting deals and building up my large collection of items that take up space in my life. I went outside. I spent time with my family. I had fun. And you know what, maybe I didn't get a new pair of sneakers, but I got something a lot more valuable.
