Spectator Sport?

 Our family does not watch football.  Several of us do not even have TVs.  Several members of the family had run a fun marathon, including Sophia who managed three whole miles -- it's that kind of family.  So our Thanksgiving dinner was a time of talk and relaxation and some parlor game playing, including the youngest, little 4 year old Sophia, who won the "piggy"game against all the big people. (It's much like dice with two tiny rubber pigs that are tossed; the position in which they land determines the counting of points or erases points-truly a game all ages can play.) 

Keeping my eyes open for insights into trends a senior citizen might miss I was surprised that one of Sophias's teenage brothers was nagging his parents to take him to the mall at midnight.  He had some money he might spend but that wasn't why he wanted to go.  He wanted to watch people in their shopping frenzy -- a new spectator sport.  His brother was not quite so keen on the idea but would have enthusiastically gone along ... except neither is old enough to drive and the parents were definitely not going to take the boys anywhere at midnight.

I do believe this Black Friday sales stupidity is being marketed, in part, as a mass rite.  The ads  promise an adrenaline high if you elbow your way through the crowd and score the flat screen TV for $100 less than the inflated list price.  We could liken it to those occasional mass migrates of lemmings running to throw themselves into the sea. Or I could go off on the tack of accumulation, hoarding, buying for the sake of buying.  That very momentary buzz of getting home with another (----) fill in the blank; it's like the  quick high of a Snickers bar, a Red Bull, and, I suppose, but don't know, a short of cocaine.  The high won't last long and they'll  have to repeat, repeat, repeat -- it's called addiction. Addiction means you have ceded some part of your independence to a physical or psychological compulsion.  Both Sophia's parents, and my older daughter, all work in the mental health field -- they will always have jobs.