Black Friday Special

Here's how NOT to spend your money—if you can afford to spend it at all.

I have never been a fan of shopping, so a shopping holiday is a bridge too far. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I bought so much as a tank of gas on Black Friday. Fuck honoring tradition: I prefer to hibernate, nurse my hangover, and digest Thanksgiving dinner. Family can also be fun in small doses.

I tell my family, friends, and colleagues (when I have them) every year—like a (nonrefundable) broken record—that Black Friday deals are bullshit and that retailers are just looking for easy marks. Those greedy bastards can’t stand the thought of us taking some time for ourselves. No, they have to drag us out of bed early to fight traffic to get to a crowded store (or, more likely, click a few buttons on our phone or computer) to buy things made by children in China we didn’t know exist—things that don’t need to exist. It’s sad that we continue to fall for this crap year after year: Most of us would stand on one foot and do hopscotch if the corporate masters said so. A few of us might even kill for a deal.

Not me, though, I’m honoring a different tradition my wife and I just made up ourselves: boycotting any business or entity associated with Trump and his enablers. I hope you do the same because that’s about the only power we have now that election season is over, and another God-awful holiday season is upon us.

Here’s who’s at the top of my naughty list.

1. Amazon, Whole Foods, and The Washington Post

   These three companies are listed together because they’re owned by the same billionaire philanderer Jeff Bezos, who was too much of a spineless punk to allow the editorial staff at the Post to endorse Kamala Harris for POTUS. This was the last straw for me. We need to take a long, hard look at who owns the press in this country and whether those owners care if “democracy dies in darkness” as long as they can sell us over-priced lightbulbs that barely illuminate.

   Bezos is better known for founding the evil empire known as Amazon, which makes shopping easier for the consumer but a lot harder on the environment. (Both are grave sins as far as I’m concerned.) Also, it should be obvious that Amazon has killed many a small business—which a lot of Americans, including politicians, pretend to care about. For all his billions, Bezos doesn’t have a fuck to give about the little guy or even about the safety of his warehouse workers. Good luck trying to unionize if you’re one of his workers. (I meant that without sarcasm: Solidarity forever!)

   I think I’ll boycott Whole Foods, too, for good measure. I’ll spend my whole paycheck somewhere else. Bezos can kiss my whole ass.

2. Tesla, X, and OpenAI

   I won’t go into all the reasons I can’t stand Elon Musk—from his alien-like features (I know some women love money, but this guy seems totally unfuckable to me—am I wrong?) to his unholy alliance with Trump. I wrote plenty about my distaste for this wannabe James Bond villain here. In short, he’s dangerous and must be stopped. Yet, despite his endless wealth and power, He’s probably down on his knees before the Big Donald as I write this. (I thought having billions would give you a modicum of self-respect—but I was sorely mistaken.)

   Boycotting Tesla is easy: I don’t have the fucking money right now. But if I did, I would buy used. New electric vehicles aren’t as environmentally friendly as you might think if you take into account manufacturing—and those batteries aren’t built to last. I’ll stick with my old, reliable hybrid. At least I won’t have to drive around feeling like I’m supporting fascism.

   I haven’t been on X since it was Twitter. “X” seems to mark the spot of entitled douchebags whose idea of “free speech” is sticking it to a female athlete for looking too much like a man. I have better things to do with my time and better-than-clickbait content.

   OpenAI is a tough one because I do occasionally use ChatGPT to help me fact check, edit, and summarize for social media purposes. However, the unpaid version seems to be getting worse. (It didn’t like my Matt Gaetz post—said it was “highly offensive” or something to that effect.) Sorry, soulless nonhuman entity, but I think I’ll trust my own judgment as to what’s “offensive” to other human beings. Stick to what you know best, AI. (I would have told it to “fuck off” if it could understand what that meant.)

Whether it’s butt-plug Bezos or micro-penis Musk, I won’t allow myself to be sucked into giving more of my hard-earned dollars to lifeless tech bros who don’t care if the whole world burns as long as they can avoid human interfacing of any kind. They’re fine with mass extinction as long as there’s still a pretty robot out there somewhere they can fuck. God, I hate those godless bastards.

But I love you all. Thanks for reading. Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend, and remember to stop shopping!