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Nicholas Altman
English 101
Professor Bolton
22 October 2014
Black Fridays Insanity goes overboard
Andrew Leonards essay, Black Friday: Consumerism minus Civilization, emphasizes how
advertising for day-after-Thanksgiving sales has gone too far. Leonards claim, that Black Friday
represents out of control marketing-driven commodity fetishism or, more concisely, insanity, is
vividly illustrated by several videos of commercials that provide both background information and
evidence for his argument (135). He acknowledges the need for vigorous sprees of retail spending
while decrying the psychotic spasm that is Black Friday (135). This being asserted in Leonards essay:
he is giving us his definition of what Black Friday shopping means to him, he also includes several videos
and links to other websites, so that he can push his arguing point across to the general audience on why
Black Friday shopping is not only out of control with the marketing-driven-commodity fetishism, but is
pure insanity. One that reads this might ask how is the marketing out of control? or why is it pure
insanity? (131). Heres a Thanksgiving recipe guaranteed to deliver a nervous breakdown impervious
to even the most bleeding-edge psychopharmaceutical wonder drug (131). Leonard asserts this to
show us, the general audience, which participate in Black Friday shopping or that dont participate, just
how the retail is a panic of darkness that has grown into an out of control marketing system, and how
intense the insanity level really is through his point of view. This being affirmed, Leonard is right about
how Black Friday ads have gone too far, and how people should know that Black Friday is a cause of
pure insanity.

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Black Friday ads have gone too far, and Leonard shows us this due to the fact that The Crazy
Target Lady is not a joke. Watch her cannibalize her ginger-bread man, or strategize her reverse
psychology shopping techniques, or show off her shopping utility belt: you cannot avoid the dual
conclusion that a) she is not a healthy woman, and b) she is America (133). This being professed, she
may be a lunatic, but by the American culture her lunacy is approved. We can clearly tell that The Crazy
Target Lady has lunatic tendencys by the way she models her shopping utility belt, stands in front of
the Target doors until they open, and that we can all agree that she has major issues that need to be
dealt with. We can also see that The Crazy Target Lady is not only America, but she is the type of
symbol for America that helps keep the American engine of capitalism all stoked up. We all can agree
that The Crazy Target Lady is a patriotic symbol for us Americans to look up too on how well of a job
she does. The Crazy Target Lady, so proud of her OCD-obsessive Christmas disorder- is not funny
(131). Shes scary (131). Shes why people trample each other to death (131). She is wrong (131).
This being said should make us all agree with Leonards points, because The Crazy Target Lady does
have an OCD issue due to the fact that its not only Christmas time, but its also Black Friday shopping
time. The ad goes overboard by stating that The Crazy Target Lady is the reason why people trample
each other to death due to the fact that she is so crazy that it is beyond scary. The message that keeps
getting blasted across my tv is that we should all be more like her-doing our patriotic duty to boost
fourth-quarter retail sales (133). This being all said is a very agreeable point of view that comes from
Leonard, because we should all be putting forth the tremendous effort to help out America such as The
Crazy Target Lady does, and whos to say she might not be so crazy after all due to the parody used in
the Kohls campaign.
While The Crazy Target Lady is terrorizing target, we have the Kohls parody, where the
shoppers stand so long in line that they sing of joy while standing there. After the perky Stepford-wife
shopper sings joyfully about how shes been in line since yesterday and how everybodys going to

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Kohls at midnight, midnight the ad ends with her observing, with a mild air of perturbance, that she
cant get this darn song out of my head. (135). Leonard is right about these ads going too far, because
no one stands there in line since over night to the next day, and sings joyfully about how they have been
in line that long. Trust me, my shopping experiences on Black Friday are never like that, and you never
see people joyfully singing about standing in line. Whenever standing in line all you see is a lot of people
ready to get what they are waiting on in line for and move on to the next item on their shopping list.
This being said we can agree with Leonards idea that Black Friday ads have gone overboard, along with
grown men having Bieber fever.
Leonard in his belief, states how Black Friday has not only gone overboard, but is authentic
insanity when grown men shout for Justin Bieber. We all know this is ludicrous when a grown man is
shrieking over a pop star singer. We should all know that only young girls screech for Justin Bieber and
his merchandise. Adult men should not be hankering Bieber fever at all in my opinion. Leonard then
states if you are a Black Friday shopper or you are not one, we can all agree that Leonard could never be
more right than he is now, because he gives us great details on why Black Friday is pure insanity.
Leonard is not against vigorous sprees of retail spending during Black Friday for the sake of the U.S.
economy. This being said is a great point because we do need to shop on Black Friday to keep the U.S.
economy stoked up and running good, because if we didnt have a day where we could catch great deals
for Christmas shopping, then that would not only hurt us, but also our country. Leonard in my opinion
wants the general public just to know how crazy the Black Friday madness really is and does a great job
by expressing his key points on why it is pure insanity.
The Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization essay does a tremendous job at expressing its
points and giving us detail on why Black Friday shopping is pure insanity. People after reading this
should be able to agree with Leonard on how Black Friday ads have gone too far. Leonard sure did help

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me to agree with his idea, and I hope it helps you agree with him also on why Black Friday shopping has
went off the deep end.

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Work Cited
Leonard, Andrew. Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization. The Norton Field Guide to writing
with Reading and Handbooks. 3rd ed. Ed. Richard Bullock, Maureen Daly Goggin, and Francine
Weinberg. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. 131-135. Print.