What’s Deviance Got to Do With It? Black Friday Sales, Violence and Hyper-conformity

Thomas Raymen, Oliver Smith

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)
22 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Based upon original ethnographic and interview data, this article presents an initial theorization and analysis of the violence and disorder witnessed throughout UK high streets and superstores during the 2014 Black Friday sales. While the conduct of these ‘extreme shoppers’ appeared deviant, this article positions such behaviour as hyper-conformity to the cultural values of neoliberalism, embodying the competitive individualism, cultivation of envy and aggressive display of consumer items which characterizes Western society in late modernity. In doing so, the authors explore the concept of ‘deviant leisure’, using the disorder of Black Friday to pose important questions about how the underpinning social and cultural values of neoliberal consumer capitalism pervades relatively mundane leisure activities, cultivating harmful subjectivities.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)389-405
Number of pages16
JournalBritish Journal of Criminology
Volume56
Issue number2
Early online date3 Jun 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • consumerism
  • black friday
  • deviance
  • leisure
  • shopping

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