What is this black Friday, why is it Friday?

[jelinaden]

Black Friday, traditionally held once a year in the US, known as crazy shopping day, has been harshly criticized in Turkey.

Turkey's Presidential Adviser, Hamza Yerlikaya, said this at a news conference in Bestblackfridaysales2018.com.

Yerlikaya wrote in his Twitter account: "What is this black Friday, why Friday, where Friday is clarity, blessing, a holiday, and Friday is the best day of the sun, which name is served by the name of which?"
On the Black Friday event held once a year in the United States, renowned companies sell their products at a discount of 80%. Today it is held in several other countries except America

[5thHorseman]

Friday is not a holiday in the US or other "Western" countries that tend to "celebrate" Black Friday. Friday is the last day of the work week and frequently the day people go out drinking and being morons.

Thanksgiving is a US holiday to celebrate landfall at America, the final harvest of the year, making friends with the American Indians and other twisted lies of History that make us feel better instead of remembering our horrible past. I'm sure Turkey and other countries can relate as no country is innocent of nasty pasts.

Thanksgiving is always celebrated on a Thursday, and is almost a month before Christmas, another holiday that I assume you know about because while not everybody celebrates it, it's one of the main holidays of a pretty big religion, Christianity. It went from a religious holiday to a celebration of gift giving to a massive retail event that in no small way drives our economy. People like some lead time before the holiday to buy their gifts, and usually had the Friday after Thanksgiving off of work due to the holiday, so it was natural to buy Christmas presents on that Friday.

It was also natural for businesses to want to attract those customers away from competitors, so huge sales started happening.

The day quickly became the worst day of the year to work, and the poor low-wage retail employees started calling it "Black Friday." A few decades after the phrase became common in those circles, it became popular in media and - somewhat surprisingly to me - was celebrated by the retail chains as a great thing of its own.

So tl;dr it's the day after a major US holiday that is conveniently a month before Christmas so has become a massive shopping day. It's not an official holiday or anything and has nothing to do with what anybody else likes to do on any other particular Friday.

[CucumberedPickle]

It's because 200 somethin' years ago Harriet Bathtub did not like working so on a Friday she built the Underground Choo-Choo and escaped Workplace™ but after digging so long her clothes became Black so she called it Black Friday.