Black Friday (hoax)

The Black Friday hoax is an internet hoax about the origin of the term "Black Friday". The term denotes the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, a day that traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season.[1] A 2018 viral Facebook post made the false claim that the name derives from a day when slave traders sold slaves at a discount. The term actually originates from a 19th century financial crisis.

True origin

Main article: Black Friday (shopping)

The term “Black Friday” was first used in relation to a 19th-century financial crisis. Wall Street financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk attempted to corner the gold market and failed after their conspiracy was derailed. On Friday the 24th of September 1869, the gold market crashed and caused the stock market to suffer losses affecting practically everyone in the nation, many to the point of bankruptcy.[2]

The link between the term and retailing begins in 1939, when U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a presidential proclamation, subsequently reinforced by an act of Congress, which set the day of Thanksgiving to be the fourth Thursday in November rather than the last Thursday as it was until then. The change, in effect, lengthened the Christmas shopping season with whose start Thanksgiving had been traditionally tied.[3]

In the 1950s, "Black Friday" became associated with a specific social disturbance, and indirectly with retail finances. The annual Army-Navy football game was traditionally held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and was drawing a significant number of visitors. Local retailers began offering significant discounts the day before the game to attract these new potential customers. Philadelphia police began calling the day "Black Friday" because of the headaches the large crowds caused for them.[4] As the discounting practice spread, followed by sales' increases, many businesses subsequently started using the term "Black Friday" to denote the day when their accounting logs went "from red ink to black".[5][6]

In the late 1980s, the term was re-invented and promoted by retailers to denote the discounts offered to the seasonal shoppers and it spread nationwide across the United States.[2] Through the years, discount-offer days using the "Black Friday" moniker were used for additional dates of the year, such as Amazon's "Black Friday in July" of 2015.[7] Additionally, the use of the term for discount-offer Fridays spread beyond the U.S.[8]

It remains the prevalent use of the term.[n 1]

The hoax

Internet posts have falsely claimed that the term "Black Friday" was originally used for "the day after Thanksgiving" when slave traders sold slaves at a discount for the upcoming winter. One of the posts was accompanied by a "1904 photo" claiming to show African slaves in America,[9] but which actually depicts Aboriginal prisoners in Wyndham, Australia from around that time.[10][11] The image dates from at least 2013,[12] and appeared on Facebook in 2018[13] and 2019.[9]

It is one of many "fanciful" claims that have surfaced over time due to the term's distant and convoluted historical provenance[12] but it caught on and remains a viral phenomenon[14] that regularly appears around the time of the eponymous holiday,[15] on various social media platforms, including Twitter.[11]

The claim has been debunked as a hoax by experts and the media,[4][6][10][11][15] including African online media and fact-checking websites,[16][17] but remains popular.[18]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Retailers have tried to avoid the "negative" adjective "Black" and tried for "Big Friday" but the name did not catch on. See Butterly (2014)

References

  1. ^ Swilley, Esther; Goldsmith, Ronald E. (1 January 2013). "Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Understanding consumer intentions on two major shopping days". Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 20 (1): 43–50. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2012.10.003. hdl:2097/15213. ISSN 0969-6989. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  2. ^ a b Pruitt, Sarah (17 November 2023) [23 November 2015]. "What's the Real History of Black Friday?". History. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  3. ^ "Congress Establishes Thanksgiving". Archived from the original on 1 October 2009. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  4. ^ a b Curet, Monique (1 December 2021). "Black Friday did not originate with the sale of enslaved people". PolitiFact. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  5. ^ Singh, Mohini (29 January 2015). "In the Black, or in the Red? Bottom Line Can Depend on Performance Measure Used". CFAInstitute. Chartered Financial Analyst Institute. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  6. ^ a b Murphy Marcos, Coral (21 November 2021). "How Black Friday Got Its Name". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  7. ^ Jespersen, Courtney (29 June 2016). "Just how good are Black Friday in July sales?". USA Today. Archived from the original on 3 July 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  8. ^ Bird, Joe (20 November 2023). "Le Black Friday: How An American Tradition Spread Around The World". Forbes. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  9. ^ a b "True?". Facebook. 24 November 2018. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  10. ^ a b Daley, Paul (19 June 2019). "The legacy reverberates: how a repulsive image reminds us of our ugly past". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  11. ^ a b c Dupuy, Béatrice (30 November 2019). "How Black Friday became associated with sales". APNews. Associated Press. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  12. ^ a b Mikkelson, David (30 November 2013). "How Did 'Black Friday' Get Its Name?". Snopes. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  13. ^ "Black Friday". Facebook. 1 December 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  14. ^ Serino, Kenichi (24 November 2017). "Africans obsessed with Black Friday". Quartz. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  15. ^ a b Butterly, Amelia (28 November 2014). "Black Friday rumours and the truth about how it got its name". BBC. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  16. ^ "No, 'Black Friday' did not originate during American slavery". Namibia Fact Check. 27 November 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  17. ^ "'Black Friday' did not originate from selling slaves". PesaCheck. 27 November 2018. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  18. ^ Varghese, Johnlee (30 November 2019). "Thanksgiving Fact Check: Who said 'Black Friday' is about selling of slaves?". International Business Times. Retrieved 28 November 2023.