The
Clarion
MaCiday- chee%
itididc
SERVING THE BREVARD COLLEGE
Volums 73, Issu6 12 COMMUNITY SINCE 1935 November 30, 2007
What's
Inside?
Black Friday brings out tlie worst
News.
-Voice of River returns
-We Can
- Contra Dance pictures
Opinions
-The Art of Gift Giving
-Rivalries
Costner 8
-Yet another letdown on the
big screen
Arts & Life...9
-Beowulf and American
Gangster movie reviews
Classifieds 12
By Aaron Palmer
Editor In Chief
Black Friday, the notoriously
most dangerous shopping day
of the year still reaches record
highs as suburbanites flood
stores in hopes of giving their
children the best Christmas
ever
Advertising the event days
prior, many stores such as Best
Buy, Target and major malls
hired security guards to keep
the peace and direct
organization as crowds lined
the parking lots at early hours.
The lines began forming
around midnight for the 4 am
openings in hopes to get 1 of 5
Nintendo Wii’s left.
The big sellers this year were
the “door busters” at the
ungodly morning hours when
people grabbed five dollar
DVD’s like they were going out
of print. Hot electronics, power
tools marked at half price and
this seasons trendy
accessories disappeared in the
blink of an eye thanks to
creative advertisers and the
poor souls that had to set up
displays and run registers.
The biggest shopping day of
the year does bring in
astrological numbers though.
Stores anticipate making their
biggest profits on this one day
every year The numbers are
not released until after January,
but they are estimated well
ahead of time. They can usually
tell by the length of the line
wrapping around the perimeter
of the store and sometimes into
the parking lot.
Even on a local level, stores
are affected by this
phenomenon. Sayle Park the
owner of Denali, a local outdoor
store stated “we double the
sales of our biggest day of the
year on black Friday”.
This momentous occasion is
long awaited and feared at the
same time every year.
Husbands sent by their wives
in the middle of the night sat in
the cold while us not so die hard
consumers chose to stay in for
the day and avoid traffic.
At the same time, though
humorous it’s also just the
begiiming of the misery that
everyone else must endure for
the following month. Traffic
increases through December,
drivers become more irate, and
it becomes difficult to fight
through crowds everywhere.
If 1 want to go out to lunch, 1
must take into mind the traffic
on the way, the lines of loud
people discussing shopping
and obnoxious holiday music
and decorations.
The whole ordeal is
offensive. Christmas has
become nothing more than a
Hallmark holiday. The horrid
music is required to be played
by managers who are blind to
how much it is disliked by
employees and patrons.
And what about those that
do not even celebrate
Christmas? We are subject
along with everyone else to
participate in the seasonal
chaos.
So, who’s to blame for this
horrendous month that grows
increasingly worse every year?
We are: the consumers. We
buy into it time and time again.
The advertisers seek out who
their target audience is and
shoot for that group.
At one time or another I’m
sure we all have given into
temptation and gone out to
purchase what item it is we
thought we needed when we
saw it. The target audience
becomes a larger crowd by
selhng only limited supplies of
certain items, then that item
becomes the hot ticket making
us think that we’ll never get
continued on pg. 11
Christmas Decorations in Jones Hall
Left: Ribbons and
wreaths adorn the
steps and porch of
Jones Hall
Right: Christmas trees
decorate the entrance
to Jones Residence
Hall.
photo by S. James
photo by S. James