Consume! Obey! Black Friday’s Dawn of the Dead

This was an important place in their lives.

[looking at the zombies in the mall]
Francine: What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Stephen: Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.
- Dawn of the Dead

Media, Black Friday and the Last Shopper

Very solid hit against the media… suggesting a consumerist version of Nietzsche’s Last Man:

Even consumption may have limits. Mr. Cohen said that in his 32 years interviewing consumers in malls during the holiday season, he had never heard what he did this year. “People really have no idea what they want,” he said.

They don’t even want anything. They want to want. Our popular culture, driven by news and entertainment media, and advertising, has stimulated their appetites, such that all they know now is appetite. I don’t know whether it’s more pathetic or frightening. Maybe it’s frightening because it’s pathetic: the Last Shopper.

By Ron Dreher

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