BURLINGTON

by Lyra Codney

   Black Friday is an annual holiday located the day after Thanksgiving. This event helps boost sales in the festive season. However, many wonder why such a holiday exists.

   People enjoy this occasion for several reasons. Around the festive seasons, people struggle with common holiday purchases. During this time, with great sales happening, people who want to enjoy the more expensive items are easily able to. Companies give consumers the opportunity to buy cheap items they usually would be unable to purchase.

   Black Friday is not only something consumers look forward to, but companies also. This yearly event is known to have people trying to snag the best items over others. This creates great sales for stores. Black Friday consists of around 20% of annual sales for companies.

   One side effect many people find with this holiday is the aggressive uprising it brings. With so many deals lasting a short time, many customers tend to become violent trying to get the last of the products. On top, of that customers are known to wait hours in front of stores just to be one of the first inside.

   However, during the last couple of years, Black Friday has spread across more days applying less stress to get the deals faster. Including that, this event is starting to find its place online, making it less violent and more convenient for everyone. With deals lasting longer and accessibility easier, more people are also able to enjoy this tradition without risks of getting hurt or being in large crowds of people.

  Black Friday is an important holiday for consumers and companies. Sales sky-rocket and customers can make purchases they normally aren’t able to. This holiday helps in many ways and is a big part of the festive season.

by Teagan Harris

   Black Friday is an intense holiday filled with angry customers and stressed workers. People are planning where they will hunt first starting in the wee hours of the early morning. It truly is a nightmare. 

   Black Friday is madness, and the people are crazed. It just has dangerous written all over it. The stampedes of people and the crowded stores are pure chaos. There are currently 10 Black Friday related deaths and 111 injuries recorded since 2010.

   The prices during Black Friday are cheap, but often times so are the products you are buying for such an “incredible deal.” If it weren’t Black Friday, people probably wouldn’t buy a large majority of the items at any other point in the year. Expensive stores that carry name brands do not have many discounts available. 

   Furthermore, people tend to forget that all the deals aren’t going to just banish once the clock strikes midnight on Black Friday. There isn’t much reason at all for this madness. The obviously superior holiday is Cyber Monday.

   You just have to hope you have those quick fingers and click checkout before the other person trying to snag the same items in your cart. You can get those same Black Friday, if not better, deals from the comfort of your own home. When Cyber Monday exists, it’s hard to comprehend why humans even participate in Black Friday.

   Last, but most certainly not least, Black Friday makes people crazy during a time they should be giving thanks. It really takes away from the meaning of Thanksgiving: a time to give thanks with your family and friends. 

   Ten years ago, a video that gains a few million views on YouTube would warrant the title “viral video.” People across the world could reference these videos, and those listening would understand a reference to them immediately. However, with how the internet works today, the age of “viral videos” is dead.

   YouTube was created in 2005 and quickly became the petri dish of these funny clips. “The Duck Song” first uploaded in 2009, and 2007’s “Charlie Bit My Finger” are classic examples of this. These posts were indisputably of poor quality compared to what we see now, but they saturated the media of that time.

   These first videos were often longer in length as well. In following years, Vine gained popularity. An app entirely for the sharing of short video content, much of the posts seen on Vine quickly were uploaded to longer length YouTube Vine compilations. These compilations dominated Generation Z’s childhood.

   Now, it is true that videos today reach the same amount of views as this older content. However, these “vids” are no longer able to reach the permanence in society as the much older ones. The internet is much faster paced, and as a result, memes and other content are not relevant past the timeframe in which they are “trending.”

   As a society, people are using the internet differently. Fewer and fewer people are scrolling YouTube, TikTok, and other apps or websites looking for random entertainment. In today’s age, everything is about personalization. One looks through their YouTube subscriptions or “For You Page” for content tailored to what they care about.

   All in all, the current environment of the internet does not allow for meaning of “viral” to hold the definition it once had. Internet viewers are bombarded with content that gains millions of views every day. It has become a normal occurrence, and thus, the title “viral video” is now obsolete.