When I first read fellow classmate’s Mariska’s blog post on how Singles’ Day turns into Shopping Day, I came to a realization that in today’s society, it appears that every holiday or significant event has turned into a reason for stores to hold extravagant sales, and consumers to buy yet again. In her post, Mariska discusses how Singles’ Day in China has now turned into a shopping spree, quoting that on that day the “Chinese bought 1.6 million bras”. Online sites such as tmall.com and dangdang.com joined in on the fun, with companies such as Nike, Adidas, Procter and Gamble utilizing these sites.
My two cents is that consumerism has brainwashed everyone in that holiday sales are increasing and becoming far too extravagant for people to actually enjoy the holiday. For instance, take Black Friday or Boxing Day as examples – sales for both these events start so early nowadays (we’re talking 3am lineups for 5am sales) that we don’t even get to celebrate properly anymore. Instead of enjoying Christmas dinner, we rush eating dinner to ensure that we sleep early to grab that $400 off deal on the latest Ultrabook. But is that really necessary? It seems like Boxing Day is the time people stop being thankful, and start being consumers. I say let’s save the holidays!
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