SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 23: Shoppers flock to stores as retailers experience boost in sales on December 23, 2013 in Sydney, Australia. Australian retailers experience some of their busiest trades in the days leading up to Christmas with atleast $20 billion spent already. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images) (2013 Getty Images)
There is a Christmas crisis in America right now. Yes, the season that is supposed to bring out our best — is doing quite the opposite. Have you seen the scandalous and embarrassing melees at malls lately? It’s all about a pair of sneakers. That’s right, the newest Air Jordans are causing quite a stir, just as Nike likely hoped and planned as it carefully unveiled its newest shoe called the “11 retro gamma.”
Stupidity, meet greed.
All of these manufacturers know exactly what they’re going for when they release a limited supply of their product on a carefully chosen and predetermined date. Mayhem equals and headlines. Headlines equal more sales.
Even before the shoes went on sale, hordes of horrendously eager customers were seen breaking the doors to the entrance of Eastland Mall in Columbus, Ohio. The mad rush occurred when Champs Sporting Goods was offering to give out vouchers so Air Jordan aficionados could be among the first to buy a pair. The local news video shows a glass door being ripped off its frame.
Stupidity, meet greed.
At the Weberstown mall in Stockton, California, shoppers engage in vicious fist fights on videos that are played and replayed on cable and local stations around the country. The video, like a mirror, doesn’t lie. It reveals what we too often and too easily become: violent, impulsive, short tempered, and uncaring.
Stupidity, meet greed.
There is yet another brawl, also on video of course, which shows just how desperate people are for the $170 pair of Air Jordan sneakers. The venue for this Bronx tale: A footlocker store on 155 Street and 3rd Avenue.
Rampant stupidity is clearly on display on this recent rash of disturbing videos. How else would you describe shoppers risking their lives to pay an outrageous price for the newest name that is branded on a shoe made of the same cloth, plastic and rubber as the model from the year before?
It is in a word, “marketing,” carefully planned and executed to attract dolts and idiots — stirring them into a feeding frenzy as one would expect to see in nature among animals all vying to feed from the same trough. It is the artificial manipulation of supply, to exploitatively stir a demand. We hear the bell, and like pigs and sheep, we come a’running. How sad.
Nike is not the first, nor will they be the last to take advantage of vapid and vacuous consumers. Apple does it with iPhones. Microsoft with the X Box and Sony with the PS-4.
All of these manufacturers know exactly what they’re going for when they release a limited supply of their product on a carefully chosen and predetermined date. Mayhem equals and headlines. Headlines equal more sales.
It’s perfect. Greed, meet stupidity.
And oh yeah, Merry Christmas.
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