Black Friday has come and gone. Hopefully you got that high-definition TV (40 percent off!) that you wanted, and those boots (buy one pair, get a pair 1/2 off!) that you couldn’t resist. I get it, I really do. The holidays are around the corner. You have to get everyone a gift and you really don’t want it to be shitty, but your manager is cutting your hours. Isn’t Black Friday just a great opportunity to find some deals?

I can’t deny that, but don’t you feel just a little bit used?

Maybe Black Friday is just an attempt by retailers in this country to give the consumers a little gift. Everyone loves a good deal and Black Friday is full of those. Maybe it’s just tradition. What am I, un-American? It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Gotta celebrate capitalism and consume, consume, consume for the good of the economy. But I guess I’m somewhat cynical.

I can’t help but think about how incredibly profitable the day is for stores everywhere. They’ve found a way to guarantee that, for a one-day period, their store will be packed with customers looking for something in particular (“I NEED to find the [insert fad] for my little girl and your flier says that it should be here!”), but who are easily manipulated into buying things that they don’t need (“Why shouldn’t I get kitten mittens?”) and convinced that they are saving money while doing so (“I mean, they’re so cheap!”).

Stores are even set-up to manipulate customers, with certain products put in certain places to guarantee that you don’t leave the store with only the things that you needed or wanted. They’re set up like this all the time; just take a look at the impulse section stores always keep handy near the register. Black Friday is just another example, but one so obvious and insulting that I can’t believe so many people go along with it.

People line up all night to get products that are still marked up 200 percent from the cost of manufacturing. People push and shove other people to get products they’ve been convinced that they need. Shoppers scream at and belittle salespeople who are, without a doubt, having the worse day.

It’s not like I’m not a part of the consumer culture, but at a certain point you have to step back and realize it isn’t what’s really important. It might seem important to get your Christmas shopping done without breaking your bank account, but aren’t the holidays really about celebrating your fellow man? Loving your loved ones, and charity and all that? Yet in the name of those very holidays, people are willing to forgo their humanity, and allow companies that see them as cheap pull their puppet strings.

Black Friday is all about manipulation. Companies manipulate people into buying what they don’t need, and what they shouldn’t really be spending their money on. It manipulates those very same people into acting like complete assholes, or it at least manipulates the circumstances so that assholes can feel free to be their asshole selves. And yet people love it.

As anyone who works retail can tell you, however, Black Friday truly sucks.