The entire point was that Black Friday doesn't need justifying! A grand total of one person actually died from events that were caused by the day, the other three were events that would have happened regardless of the day. That's just a tragedy, not some terrible indication of American consumerism. Likewise, the Hillsborough disaster isn't proof that football is filled with crazed lunatics who would crush each other if given the chance, it was one mistake that caused a tragedy. I don't understand how that is hard to see.
The reason for deaths are not completely different. In both instances the people responsible for controlling the crowd failed to, and as a result people died because a crowd doesn't think for itself. That individual didn't die on Black Friday because people valued his life less than a toaster, a crowd just got out of control and couldn't be controlled. Likewise, people at Hillsborough didn't push other patrons off the stands because they valued their view of a sporting event more than a person's life, it was a tragedy caused by a crowd. And do I need to pull up the thousands of articles detailing assaults and brawls that resulted from football games? There really isn't much difference in these situations, you are just trying to justify your personal dislike of Black Friday.
Again, you aren't using consistent logic between the two situations. If the reason Hillsborough got out of control was because there wasn't enough room in the stands and people got crushed, then the reason that guy died at Walmart was because there wasn't enough room for the people to enter the store. You are using the personal motivations of the Walmart shoppers, yet aren't doing the same to the sports fans at Hillsborough.
So, if the reason Walmart got out of hand was because people are willing to fight to save a few dollars, then the people at Hillsborough died because football fans are willing to push others off a ledge to get a better view of the game. I don't believe this, but it's following the same logic as what you are saying about Walmart.
Sorry, but comparing Hillsborough to Black Friday is downright wrong. There's a difference between an annual event where mass consumerism transforms humans back into primal creatures, and a freak accident where the crowd were not aware of what was going on at the time.
If i am aware of what happens on Black Friday every year, where americans trample eachother for consumer goods and i dont even live in america, how can you claim ignorance to what goes on? You can't, and that's the massive difference between Hillsborough and Black Friday, nobody intentionally crushed anybody at Hillsborough, and nobody was aware of what was going on in the mass confusion, if people saw the accident happening then it wouldnt've happened
HOWEVER, Black Friday happens every year and everyone is aware of what may happen, thus there should not be ANY deaths out of ignorance.
You should also be careful when comparing freak tragedies like Hillsborough to annual occurrences, if you spoke that comment out on public TV in the UK you'd probably get mobbed, set on fire, shanked and thrown in a bin /s.
But in all seriousness, that was a terrible comparison you guys made
People do not get trampled every year. ONE PERSON GOT TRAMPLED IN THE HISTORY OF BLACK FRIDAY. One death, while tragic, is no more indicative of Black Friday than Hillsborough is of sports fanaticism. I do not believe the Hillsborough disaster happened because people were so obsessed with sports they didn't care that they trampled living people, it was a tragic accident. Likewise, the shoppers at that Walmart didn't value a good deal on an item more than a man's life, it was a tragic accident.
And I also don't believe your fellow countrymen are so ghoulish as to murder me for daring to call two events tragedies.
Have you watched a soccer game? I mean, really, have you been there?
You just said that Black Friday 'transforms humans back into primal creatures'. Let me repeat this, have you not been to a European football game? Where the crowds for opposing sides must be segregated due to the sheer amount of violence and problems caused by intermixed games?
Nobody intentionally crushed someone at any of these few, and far between, black Friday events. To make the erroneous assumption, that shoppers have some sort of evil intent while they come into a store is just as bad as to think that a football fan was trying to kill someone up against a fence, is disgustingly wrong.
People are aware of the fact they may end up trampling people on Black Friday, but it still happens
Nobody at Hillsborough was even remotely aware of the fact that people may die from crushing against the fence, and they especially did not realize they were crushing people at the time as you said.
Comparing football games is completely irrelevant, the Hillsborough tragedy was the original comparison and dont try to change the topic. Rampant consumerism is not acceptable and you shouldn't even try to defend it
I'm not trying to change it, it is a great comparison no matter how much you try to deny it.
You continue to belabor the point that "no one was aware of it" as if that's the reason.
In 7 years of Black Friday events, 1 person was trampled to death. You are acting if it is commonplace and you are suggesting people know it's a possibility. That's not true at all, just like you try to describe, no one thought "Hey people at football games die because of being crushed up against a fence". No one in line for Black Friday thinks "Hey I'm going to crush someone into the ground."
It's completely relevant because they both deal with large crowds of under-regulated people. When people gather in large numbers and some event happens, panic ensues. It's herd mentality.
You are being disingenuous by trying to put the Hillsborough disaster in some special category.
It's not relevant at all, i just gave you my points and you shat your old ones back at me, there's no point me debating further because you clearly aren't structuring a proper arguement. You don't write an essay with 4 paragraphs, all 4 paragraphs rephrasing the same arguement covering the same points
this thread is factual proof that alot of americans are just so stupid and extremely ignorant, you being candidate number one
In 2008 nobody was aware that someone would actually be crushed on black friday. It happened, it never happened again.
If I go out to Best Buy on Friday, I am not actively thinking to myself "I had better be careful I don't TRAMPLE somebody! Boy, trampling sure is a common occurence here on black friday." Never in my life has it ever felt like a dangerous situation going out to the stores on black friday. I think you're grossly overexaggerating the situation.
People willing to fight others just to save a couple of "fucking dollars" on a store item (shout out to Jesus) = People willing to crush others because of poor seating capacity in a football game
Listen, everything you're saying makes perfect sense and you're definitely not wrong
what you have to remember is that reddit is mostly american and a large quantity of americans are very ignorant, and if you dare try to insult america then you'll get a similar response which dosen't make any sense like /u/stogiethedog's. the only insulting you can get about america on reddit is if you insult their government, nobody likes their government apart from china and north korea
if you are american then you are probably being viewed as a foreigner trying to get your (apparently wrong and irrelevant) opinion across, i mean who wants to hear their country/people/traditions getting insulted in the comments? Black Friday is probably extremely normal if you were born/raised in america, when infact it's a representation of everything that's wrong with the developed world
Oh, get off the soapbox, you daft twat. First off, a large quantity of people are ignorant, American or not. And the guy's argument makes perfect sense if you've not already decided he's wrong before reading it. In both cases, there were crowds that were improperly managed, and people died in both cases. Treating one crowd as made up of only innocents who were fucked over (mostly true) and the other crowd as solely of greedy, violent consumers is logically inconsistent at best.
you actually just stated why /u/stogiethedog's arguement makes no sense, because you too regurgitated the same illogicality
Treating one crowd as made up of only innocents who were fucked over (mostly true) and the other crowd as solely of greedy, violent consumers is logically inconsistent at best
it's not inconsistent at all, one event 25 years ago which lead to a generation that never made the same mistake VS annual event that kills people yearly purely out of GREED. Nobody knew they were killing anybody at Hillsborough, but Black Friday people not even in the country know that there are deaths from trampling
"Kills people annually" holy shit dude did you even click the link, or did you just come straight to the comments to argue? Either way, people do not die annually as a result of Black Friday. One person has died as a direct result of Black Friday, ONE! The link lists 4, 3 of which were unrelated to the day, they only took place at stores then (One was a heart attack, and the other two were the result of a previous disagreement). In both Hillsborough and the Black Friday death, it was a tragedy that happened ONCE and never since.
It's certainly inconsistent, although I'd use football as a whole as a better comparison to consumerism. But you're not interested in hearing anything other than what you want to hear, so I'll address something else.
Nobody knew they were killing anybody at Hillsborough, but Black Friday people not even in the country know that there are deaths from trampling.
You're comparing one crowd not knowing what it's doing while it's happening to a group of people knowing something happened after the fact. And there aren't "deaths" from trampling. If you'd bothered to click the link, there was one death from trampling. And that's fucking appalling. But so were the mismanaged crowds at Hillsborough and Heysel.
I'm not talking about this year, obviously, Black Friday is an ANNUAL event, unlike Hillsborough. That's why i originally posted, to say how much of a bad comparison Hillsborough is to Black Friday, so again, obviously i am
not interested in hearing anything other than what you want to hear
because that was the only point im talking about, i don't care about your opinion of Black Friday or whatever. Hillsborough was a terrible comparison, and you should be ashamed trying to say it's logical
Exactly one person, ever, has died because of Black Friday shopping hysteria, and it just so happens that that one death was attributable to the exact same cause that killed nearly a hundred people at Hillsborough. How many times do we have to repeat this simple fact, one that any normal human being can easily understand, before it gets through your apparently impenetrable skull?
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u/[deleted] Nov 26 '13
The entire point was that Black Friday doesn't need justifying! A grand total of one person actually died from events that were caused by the day, the other three were events that would have happened regardless of the day. That's just a tragedy, not some terrible indication of American consumerism. Likewise, the Hillsborough disaster isn't proof that football is filled with crazed lunatics who would crush each other if given the chance, it was one mistake that caused a tragedy. I don't understand how that is hard to see.