Let’s talk about Black Friday — that annual ritual where otherwise reasonable people suddenly behave like caffeinated raccoons fighting over a broken air fryer. Every year, millions wake up at an hour normally reserved for raccoons and burglars, line up outside giant warehouses lit by fluorescent regret, and prepare to fistfight a stranger over a discounted blender.
Why?
Because psychology has receipts.
And they’re on sale for 70% off, today only.
So here we go — six reasons humans lose their minds the moment they hear the words doorbuster deal.
1. Scarcity Makes Us Stupid
You slap a “Limited Supply” sticker on anything and the human brain does a full system crash. Suddenly, a $14 toaster becomes the Holy Grail. People are out here treating discount TVs like they’re transplant organs.
Scarcity flips the primal switch that says:
“If I don’t get this now, someone else will… and I can’t let that happen because I’m a highly evolved creature who absolutely needs a ninth set of throw pillows.”
2. FOMO Is the New Religion
People talk about missing a deal like it’s a moral failing.
They don’t want the item — they want the story.
“Remember the year I got that giant flat screen for half-off we didn’t need? What a triumph!”
Your ancestors hunted mammoths.
You hunt markdowns.
Progress.
3. The Dopamine Hit of Fake Winning
Sales trick your brain into thinking you're accomplishing something.
People leave a store with four bags of nonsense and feel like they just negotiated world peace.
Meanwhile, the store manager is in the back room cackling like a villain in a kids’ cartoon because they just sold you a waffle maker you’ll use twice.
Maybe.
4. Social Proof: If They Want It, I Want It
You could put a crowd around a pile of garden hoses, and suddenly everyone needs a garden hose. People don’t even have yards — but now they’ve convinced themselves they’ll start one. “It’s called being aspirational,” they say, while dragging a hose through an apartment hallway.
Black Friday harnesses the ancient instinct:
“If the tribe is stampeding toward something, I better run too.”
Even if the tribe is wrong.
And the thing they’re stampeding toward is a discounted vacuum.
5. The Illusion of Savings (A.K.A. Math People Don’t Do)
Everything is “50% off.”
From what?
Doesn’t matter.
They could say “Normally this plastic chair is $9,000, today it’s $29,” and people would believe them. Consumers will do long division in a parking lot at 4 AM like they’re auditioning for Mensa — yet somehow don’t wonder why that couch was 80% off for the last six months.
Because the trick works:
Black Friday doesn’t sell products… it sells permission.
Permission to spend money you shouldn’t, on things you don’t need, at hours you shouldn’t be awake.
6. Chaos Makes People Feel Alive
Deep down, there’s a tiny part of the human brain that likes mayhem.
Not big mayhem — just enough mayhem to feel like life has stakes. And nothing provides that quite like watching two adults tug-of-war over a discounted Instant Pot while security pretends not to see.
People don’t admit it, but the spectacle is part of the fun.
It’s the one time of year when mild suburban shoppers get to cosplay as post-apocalyptic scavengers.
It’s retail Thunderdome, but with coupons.
So Why Do We Keep Doing It?
Because the whole thing is designed to push every psychological button we have — fear, competition, validation, belonging, reward, identity. It’s a behavioral buffet, and everybody’s filling their plate.
Black Friday isn’t a shopping day.
It’s a national group project in irrationality.
A celebration of everything predictable about human behavior dressed up as a bargain hunt.
And the funniest part?
Half the stuff people buy ends up in a closet by February.
But hey — at least they “saved money,” right?
Right?