HAVE YOU UNKNOWINGLY CHANGED YOUR RELIGION?

HAVE YOU UNKNOWINGLY CHANGED YOUR RELIGION?

Are you aware that a new religion has slowly and steadily infiltrated North American society over the past few decades? In my early life, three of the most important and anticipated days of the year were Christmas Day, New Years Day, and Easter Sunday. They were all important celebrations related to our Christian heritage. I am very sad to report that today these significant religious holidays have been replaced by three (or four) new commercially invented days that are gathering more followers than our traditional Big Three. I think it is one of the great tragedies of our time. Our world is being taken over by the Church of the Obsessive Consumer!

Of course, I am referring to the celebrity status of Boxing Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the newly invented Amazon Prime Day. I find it quite troubling that the new most celebrated and anticipated events of the year have to do with consumerism rather than celebrating our religious or historical traditions.

Boxing Day (singular) is a day where housebound families can work off their turkey dinner by racing to a massive sale the day after Christmas to stock up on - Christmas decorations to store for next year.  Boxing Day, which generally dumps all of the excess Christmas inventory, has expanded to Boxing Week and involves sales in every product line, most that have nothing to do with Christmas.

Black Friday, which follows American Thanksgiving Day, is a major shopping date on the calendars of most obsessed shoppers. There are some good buys, in limited numbers, often for cheaper electronic gadgetry. Crowds line up hours before stores open and people get trampled regularly trying to save a hundred dollars to buy a TV. Its monumental popularity has expanded this fabulous opportunity into Black Friday Week. You cannot hold back a nation of addicted shoppers; they need more time to shop and get high!

When slavering Black Friday shoppers appeared to still have money to spend (or credit cards to debit) advertisers invented Cyber Monday. This recent phenomenon consists of the four days after US Thanksgiving when consumers are encouraged to shop online for the best deals. 2018 sales on that day were over 8 billion dollars. The congregation of out-of-control shoppers just grows and grows.

Of course, the greedy marketing and advertising departments of our consumer religion, recently noticed there were no huge sales events, except in November and December. There was obviously a need to remedy that shortcoming. Enter Amazon Prime Day, designed to seduce more money from the slaves of shopping during the summer.

Amazon created a midsummer version of Black Friday, and it became so popular that stores like Walmart and eBay launched discounts to compete with Amazon. From all reports the 36 hour Prime Day sales on July 15 and 16, 2019 were a huge success. Sales of computers, tablets, Apple Watches, Amazon Echos, smart TVs and phones, and other electronics were enormous. Owners of Amazon stock should expect a good dividend this year thanks to this creative shopping non-event. Amazon’s marketing minds I’m sure are already ramping up plans to extend this wonderful event to seven days next year.

I personally think it is a sad commentary on some of today’s dominant values and attitudes. We have created a new religion with few redeeming features and are losing much of the significance of our old holidays from the past. Would Homeless Day, where everyone donates all of their food and shopping dollars for that one day to assist the less fortunate, generate the same kind of response as our Church of Obsessive Consumption receives? I think you know the answer!