While pre-dawn trips to the mall are waning as online shopping grows, in-person shopping on Black Friday is still a big deal in the U.S.—it’s estimated that around 80 million Americans visited a brick-and-mortar store on Black Friday in 2025. But how did Black Friday come about, and what does it all mean?
But even before it had a name, Black Friday was a thing. The day after Thanksgiving has been known by merchants as the start of the shopping season since the late 1800s. By the early 20th century, retailers sponsored Thanksgiving Day parades that traditionally ended with an appearance by Santa Claus, as if to say, “Now it’s time to shop for Christmas.” By unspoken agreement among retailers, Christmas-themed advertisements rarely appeared before Thanksgiving in our grandparents’ day. This informal bargain obviously no longer applies.
Black Friday’s problematic name
A more modern issue with the name is that Black Friday sales now last for days or even weeks, beginning in early to mid-November and bleeding over into the following Saturday, Sunday, “Cyber Monday,” Tuesday, and beyond, leading people to say things like, “Do you want to go Black Friday shopping this Sunday?” So far, alternative names like “Five-Day Frenzy” and “The day I get to trample someone to save $8 on a Nespresso” haven’t caught on. But here’s hoping.
Cyber Monday is Black Friday’s accidental offspring
The term “Cyber Monday” describes the boost in online retail sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving, sparked by workers returning to the office and getting right to online shopping. The term first appeared on Nov. 28, 2005, in a Shop.org press release entitled “'Cyber Monday’ Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year," which may be the most influential press release ever written. Since its early 2000s birth, Cyber Monday has become the biggest online shopping day of the year. Americans spent $14.25 billion online on Cyber Monday 2025, according to Adobe Analytics. So is Cyber Monday bigger than Black Friday? Retailers really don't care: Analysts now tend to mash everything into the category of "Black Friday–Cyber Monday" (or even "Cyber Week").
It’s hard to measure the success of the alternative holiday. Both online and brick-and-mortar retail sales have increased sharply since 1992, suggesting Buy Nothing Day’s effect is negligible. On the other hand, maybe big retailers are losing millions because someone on Bluesky reminded you not to shop. Sure.
How many deaths has Black Friday caused?
Black Friday violence has even inspired a horror flick: Eli Roth's 2023 holiday-themed slasher Thanksgiving opens with a hilariously brutal Black Friday riot at a big box store, setting off a chain of events that involve a lot of people being murdered by a dude in a Pilgrim mask.
Is Black Friday just hype?
Yet despite protest holidays, the unpleasantness of shopping when stores are overcrowded, and the frustration of hunting for bargains that often aren't that great to begin with, Black Friday stubbornly remains an unofficial holiday, celebrated by over 100 million Americans in one way or another. What that says about our country's relationship with capitalism is unclear, but personally, I’m going to continue my own day-after-Thanksgiving tradition of eating pie for breakfast and thinking about going for a walk, but then watching The Quick and the Dead instead. I'm not protesting anything; I just don't need the hassle.
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