This is the longest Black Friday ever recorded

The year 2020 is already bizarre in terms of time feeling, but with Black Friday all the rules that we have agreed with each other about what is a day are being turned upside down.

Is it still Black Friday?

One of the consequences of the corona crisis and the various measures is that this year feels very strange in terms of time. After months in quarantine, it still feels like March. But it also seems like this year full of misery has been going on for years. January events feel like an eternity ago. Can you still remember the forest fires in Australia?

But the time rules are completely thrown out the window around Black Friday bargain day. Or now it is more of a bargain week. Or month? The first reports about Black Friday were already available at the beginning of November, and now I do not even know at the beginning of December whether it is still Black Friday or not.

Singles

While the Netherlands tries so frenetically to hold on to traditions, new traditions are only too happy to be brought in. As long as it has to do with bargains, of course. Singles Day is one of the newer trends. November 11 in China celebrates people who are not in a relationship, because of the ones in the date 11-11. Chinese stores such as Alibaba responded to this with discounts and now we can also enjoy no less than eleven percent discount on products in the Netherlands.

With Singles Day in mid-November, Black Friday at the end of November and Cyber ​​Monday the following Monday, November is slowly turning into one big shopping month, while that was traditionally just in December because of Sinterklaas and Christmas. Now we have been tricked into spending money for two months.

I used to be a little jealous of Black Friday in the United States. The day after Thanksgiving, while everyone is still full of canned turkey and cranberry sauce, they shop as the start of the Christmas season. This is done with incredible discounts. People fight each other to get hold of that one television with an insanely low price, or pull on each other’s hair for a dress.

Pandemic

In the Netherlands, I came into contact with Black Friday mainly through digital game stores, such as Steam. They often have worldwide sales, so that we could also enjoy some bizarre discounts here. Everyone in the Netherlands is now participating.

The Dutch seem to have forgotten en masse that there is a pandemic, because there were bargains to be had. Hordes of people frantically searched for offers, just days before the mandatory masking became effective.

Now I understand that again this year. We could not go on vacation, often not to the amusement park and not eat out. Then you want to give yourself and your family something nice in a different way. And if that can be done at a discount, it is a bonus.

However, these discounts are rarely as strong in the Netherlands as those bangers in the United States. Here the TVs do not go away with a 90 percent discount, but the prices are often raised just in advance to then say that there is a strong offer. So always check a comparator, because if we continue to fall for that, Black Friday will start in August in a few years.

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