To be fair, karaoke comes from Japan, and the birth rate in Japan has declined tremendously since its introduction.  Isn’t is just possible, Mr. Taylor, that this is because using a microphone makes you gay?

I mean, I’ve been playing Rock Band since it came out, and I’m not gay, but the plural of anecdote is NOT data.

Every store I’ve ever been to on Black Friday has a pretty simple mechanism called “a line” that allows people to enter stores in a manner that’s not deadly.

Under the current American intellectual property regime, I believe that Target snapped up the patent rights to “The Line.” Most retailers licensed the rights, but you know WalMart—always cutting costs and passing along the savings to consumers.

“Wizard of the Crow”
by Ngugi Wa’Thiong’O is a book I really want to read, but haven’t got there yet. Anyway, what made me buy it is that there’s a part in the book where the dictator bans lines. I think a line is evidence of an illegal gathering. At bus stops, deli counters, etc.. no one can line up, they must be in a general amorphous mass and rush for the bus doors when it pulls up.  I’m definitely going tp pick it up again soon.

It’s not the store’s fault. The mob crashed through the door. The “line” method of controlling people only works when the people consent to behave in a civilized fashion.

It’s not the store’s fault. The mob crashed through the door. The “line” method of controlling people only works when the people consent to behave in a civilized fashion.

OK, I’m sorry but if we’re now living in a country where ADULTS cannot be expected to wait patiently in line to enter a store and make purchases like civilized human beings, I think I will officially declare myself a communofascist.  All retail level commerce should be banned.  Instead, the government decides what sort of rations households of various sizes require and sends the relevant goods directly to people’s homes with a bill for the whole thing. 

Because seriously?  If we are at the level where we’re willing to let people die rather than wait our turn to buy that third flat screen TV, I don’t think we deserve the freedom to shop anymore.

Just FYI, per above, I don’t really believe we should end retail capitalism and/or ‘curtail rights’.  I just think that if one thinks the stores have no responsibility whatsoever for crowd control, the corollary is that you outlaw shopping and let the government decide what people should have.

Consumerism is our soccer/football.

And I’m not being flippant, or reductionist, here. Most countries and cultures have something that turns them into mobs. I don’t necessarily see the fact that ours is consumerism as being qualitatively worse than soccer, or death metal, or what have you. I’d prefer we were less consumerist, why yes I would. But I don’t see it as being a specific indictment of a specific American failing that we have something relatively trivial that causes trampling deaths. Tragic but not exceptional.

And I’m usually a blame-America-firster.

Jesse, you don’t have to apologize to President Obama.  He’s Commander-in-Chief of the military, not the economy.

I moved east away from Valley Stream two years ago.  The closer you get to Manhattan, the worse the mob mentality becomes.

Alan, that’s part of why I don’t understand why the store didn’t know to expect crowds and use the same crowd control that other stores do in situations like this.  200-300 people is not an outlandish crowd in Long Island, for anything.  I would guess that number is pretty typical for ‘door-buster’ holiday weekend sales in Nassau County.  I mean, shit, that’s about half the people waiting to get into the Times Square Toys R Us on a typical weekend afternoon between October and January.

Black Friday at the Butte Wall-Mart consisted of 4 people waiting for the doors to open, 3 of them to return items, one to get coffee at the in-store McDonald’s.  Your precious black J*sus has ruined the economy with his Maoist economic advisers.  Thanks a bunch, DEMONcraps.

Ever take a plane trip to NYC or Boston?  Line doesn’t exist.  Bostonians make their own and hold position, but don’t tend to trample or elbow or push, just manuver and bump.  New Yorkers, at their worst, do elbow and push.

I was ready to board a flight to Boston from Seattle when people did their usual “but I am the line” routine, bunching toward the choke point at the boarding pass reader in order of their own entitlement.  The gate agents in Seattle were firm: everybody back away, stay clear of the entrance until we call your row, and form a single file line or we are NOT boarding and NOT flying anywhere - got it?  Amazing how many people had no clue what a single file line was, how to make one when they weren’t at the front of it, or had bothered to look at the boarding order on their ticket.

I have sternly warned my kids before when traveling: you are NOT in Boston, you do NOT jaywalk, you do NOT shove past people and you do NOT make your own line.  The northeast coast from Pennsylvania on up is fucking clueless when it comes to speeding everybody’s journey by behaving themselves.

It’s not the store’s fault. The mob crashed through the door. The “line” method of controlling people only works when the people consent to behave in a civilized fashion.

Bullshit.  Even in the Boston area, where my husband has done Black Friday sales for years, they get cops and rent-a-cops out there at midnight, stamping hands and handing out as many vouchers as there are special sale items to buy ahead of the game.  When they didn’t do this, line jumping assholes would always make their own line at opening time.  Now they are very sternly turned away at the door and told to get their butt in line for the items offered, or go home because they are too late.

New Yorkers, at their worst, do elbow and push.

Getting on a crowded train?  Sure.  But no, when there are dangerous levels of crowd, lines work in New York just like everywhere else.  They have to be enforced by security, and sometimes cops, and of course everyone will grouse and grumble that really, they deserve to skip the line and just go into the store already, and great amounts of stinkeye (and the occasional shoving match or even a thrown punch) will ensue.  But they really do happen, and they really do work. 

If New Yorkers were impervious to ever lining up, we’d be seeing this sort of thing every weekend.  Because a group of 300 people who all want to do the same thing at the same time is a routine everyday occurrence here.

They have to be enforced by security, and sometimes cops, and of course everyone will grouse and grumble that really, they deserve to skip the line

I take it you have never visited the Northwest, where people line up without coercion?

I wasn’t saying anything about the propensity for people to politely form orderly lines in the Pacific Northwest, just trying to clarify that New Yorkers will do it, if they’re made to.  In other words, you really can’t blame this on regional manners or lack thereof.

Opop, you missed my point: there are places in this country where people form lines without coercion!

Yes, believe it or not, hundreds of people waiting for something don’t have to be FORCED into a line - they JUST FORM ONE and WAIT THEIR TURN. In other words, the northeast tendency to declare oneself the head of a new line and shove shove shove unless otherwise forced to IS REGIONAL BAD MANNERS!

Before “festival seating” concerts were banned after people got trampled somewhere in Ohio trying to see some baby boomer band of some sort, people in Portland would form and stay in orderly lines to get into a venue with no assigned seats.  I remember it well.  We got to the Oregon State Fair just before it opened one morning, and my husband was gobsmacked to see a neat and straight and orderly line of several hundred people forming without lines or ropes or cops - not something we have seen when we did the organizing for Schools Day at Water Country in NH or when we were at Six Flags New England.

It is regional bad manners that Wal-Mart, as a retailer that operates in that region, should be aware of and taking into account when planning and promoting events that draw large crowds.  Just as they should be considering likely weather, traffic conditions, parking availability, and a large number of other factors that will be radically different at their stores in or near Seattle, Minneapolis, Houston, and NYC.

I have sternly warned my kids before when traveling: you are NOT in Boston, you do NOT jaywalk, you do NOT shove past people and you do NOT make your own line.

Got any stern warnings for when they hit driving age? We have friends from inside 495 and their kids turned out to be atypical drivers for eastern Mass; now I’m curious as to how anyone does it.

Ms. Kate,

Misshapen “lines” happen all the time here in Chicago, too.  Catch a flight at O’Hare or Midway and you’ll see what I mean.  Don’t recall elbowing, but lots of turf-staking.

And I’m not sure how jaywalking counts as “bad manners” (what, I’m supposed to stand there like an idiot if cars aren’t coming?), but we definitely have that here, too.  Frankly, I’d worry if people didn’t jaywalk when there weren’t cars coming, too sheeplike for me.

The night after those kids got trampled in Cincinnati, I saw that baby boomer band in Buffalo.
I never saw so many cops in my life, and those cops allowed no foolishness.
I’m sure the promoters and the hockey arena owners got a nice fat bill for the O.T.
Sure beats lawsuits.
Never mind personal responsibility lectures.  If you have crowds, you need crowd control.
Unfortunately, it’s a lesson we have to keep learning.
The purpose of Black Friday is to build up excitement, and people love to get worked up.
(The worst crush I was ever in was to see the band AMERICA for Christ’s sake!)
Buffalo ‘79 wasn’t Chicago ‘68.
The cops and security had their shit together.
I saw the same shenanigans when I had to video Black Friday ‘07.
People at one mall were lining up at 10pm, but the mall security assholes kept dispersing them…
to a nearby bar.  It was cold, and nobody had a plan in place FOR A PLANNED EVENT.
At another strip mall the sheriff’s deputies finally took matters in hand and got people lined up.
The mood went from dangerous to cheerful in a matter of minutes.
Going back to 1979, the Who played their set, but their hearts weren’t in it.

All I can say is that lines don’t mean much anyhow.  My friend and I waited in line to get into a nearby store when they opened yesterday.  The line was well-formed and all, and there was no level of rudeness or pushing - except from a group of selfish fucks who didn’t get out of their cars and, the moment the doors opened, made the bum’s rush toward the door in an effort to push past those of us who had waited.  They didn’t get to - we blocked their way.

Those of us who follow the rules shouldn’t have to watch as those who don’t go unpunished.  Unfortunately, the prevailing “wisdom” in this country is that those who break rules and screw others are “mavericks” and should be rewarded.

Just read that a woman miscarried at that same WalMart.

When will the Black Friday Abortionists be held accountable?

If you read the articles, the situation sounded all fucked up.  They had already called the police about the crowd growing large and unruly.  Yet, when it came time to open the doors, they sent a “temporary maintenance worker” to do the job.  Not security, not someone who knew how to deal with a situation like this.

As I said on the previous thread, Walmart encourages this by releasing the footage every year of people charging through the doors.  This teaches people how they are supposed to behave at a Black Friday sale.

And in terms actual crowd problems, they are invariably not caused by the people up front who knocked the guy down.  Crowds become uncontrollable when people in the back start pushing, and the people in front of them have to move forward to avoid being knocked down themselves.

Funny, Thursday night, I was looking at the sale pages on Amazon.  People on their boards were complaining bitterly about how lousy all the sales were this year.  My guess is that retailers are sick of the whole Black Friday thing and that the costs to them are greater than the benefits, but they have to go along because everyone else does.  I bet this is going to be the excuse for a big paring back of the early morning madness.

This sounds like a Freakonomics thing more than a regional issue. I wonder what the ratios of self-formed lines to rampaging mobs are like once once you factor in issues of availability and value.

For instance I think a group of people waiting to see get a very limited number of items below cost sitting in a pile in plain sight are less likely to respect a line than people with preorders or needing the staff assistance to retrieve the item.

Oh, it’s gotta be regional.  I have lived almost all of my life in the PNW, and yes, we do spontaneously line up.  If we approach a venue with what looks like an amorphous mass of people in front, we ask “Is this the line?  Where’s the end of the line?”  (Note: not is this a line?  We expect a line to be there, we just wanna know is this it, or that over there?)

One of the things I like about living up here is that manners are endemic.  Or used to be anyway.  When I was a kid there was never ever even any trash on the streets.  People just carried it until they came to a container.  Noobs caught on fast, because people would correct them.  Not quite so good now, but it’s still better than most places.  The only place I’ve been where the public neatness compares is Albuquerque.

The Sawgrass Mills Mall opened at midnight and had more than 30,000 people show up in the first two hours, with no casualties reported, so it can be done, though you wouldn’t catch me within ten miles of the place.

They probably had more than one door open for people to enter through, unlike Wal-Mart.  That’s usually what precipitates the disaster—a limited way in that people are shoving other people towards.

Aw, take pity on those cranky New Yorkers.  I’m convinced it’s because they are on the East Coast in the Eastern Time Zone and the news doesn’t even come on till 11, much less Letterman.  Letterman’s monologue is over by 10:40 here, if we stay up that long.  That extra hour of sleep is what makes Chicagoans so much nicer than NYers.  They need a nap.

Caren,

Cute, but see my comment above.  I’ve lived in Chicago for twenty years and the “Chicagoans are nicer/line up without asking/don’t jaywalk like NYers” meme is bullshit.  Don’t know about PNW, but Chicagoans and NYers are just not that dissimilar, so deal.

I’ll also say there’s one area where Chicagoans are terrible with respect to lines/crowds:  On a crowded bus, they absolutely refuse to move to the back when there’s room.  Might be that bad in NYC, but it’s certainly not “better” in Chicago.

Oh, and that “lost hour” waiting for Letterman?  We end up using it to work instead of watching TV.  It’s been about 5 years since I heard anything from friends, but “9 to 5” was still more than a song title in NYC (here it’s 8 to 5 or 9 to 6).

I moved east away from Valley Stream two years ago.  The closer you get to Manhattan, the worse the mob mentality becomes.

Really? That’s sounds a bit dubious to the ears of someone who has lived in NYC boroughs of Manhattan and Queens since practically the date of birth…with a brief hiatus in the Midwest and the Greater Boston area. 

I wonder if this is some sort of projection by Long Islanders onto those of us who live nearer or within the NYC limits as “inferior riffraff” compared to him/herself…...

Especially considering how I learned long ago to avoid crowds of Long Island teens/young adults on weekends who come into various areas of NYC to shop and party.  From past encounters, they tend to be loud, obnoxious, and a bit stuck-up in their attitudes towards those of us who actually live within the NYC limits. 

High school classmates who had them as classmates at NYU have confirmed how those traits carried over into the classroom and on the campus.  One reason why my classmates didn’t feel too bad for the good portion of those kids who were suspended/expelled for bad behavior and/or flunking too many classes because they and/or their parents had far more money than good sense. 

I’ll also say there’s one area where Chicagoans are terrible with respect to lines/crowds:  On a crowded bus, they absolutely refuse to move to the back when there’s room.  Might be that bad in NYC, but it’s certainly not “better” in Chicago.

IME, the refusal of passengers to move to the back where there’s room used to be far more common back in the 1980s and extreme early 90s. 

Since then, that has never really been an issue whenever I ride the buses in the NYC area.

Frankly, I’d worry if people didn’t jaywalk when there weren’t cars coming, too sheeplike for me.

Go to Germany for that.  Nobody jaywalks there, even if there’s literally no cars in sight.  When I did jaywalk, I was looked at as though insane.

People! “Doorbuster Specials” is just an expression. You don’t have to actually…you know…bust the doors to surrender your money.

It seems like every year, someone at a Wal-Mart gets trampled in the mad rush for a $2.98 fullscreen copy of Wall Street.

But it’s the Fullscreen version, the one that uses all that TV screen space you paid good money for.  None of those useless black bands.  And aren’t those bands bad for your screen?  I think Rush said something about that, or was it Savage?  You know how hard it is to get the Fullscreen version, cause all those liberals want widescreen movies, and French too, or something with subtitles, or dubbed like those Japanese animated ones by that guy—you get them and they’re not even sexy, much less you know what, just some kids and a furry friendly monster something waiting for a bus in the rain, and what the heck is a cat bus anyway?

Dan: It’s not the store’s fault. The mob crashed through the door. The “line” method of controlling people only works when the people consent to behave in a civilized fashion.

I know that Americans are fatalistic, but this is a new high. Or low. Or whatever.

Auguste: I don’t necessarily see the fact that ours is consumerism as being qualitatively worse than soccer,

For some reason I find it easier to blame people who go to a soccer match with the intention of getting into fights and then get dragged off by the police with a broken nose or a broken head for their own misfortune, than someone who was simply unlucky enough to get a job at WalMart. Maybe someone could build arenas for people who want to get into fights flat screen TVs. Then the shop personel could watch and throw popcorn.

John: Go to Germany for that.  Nobody jaywalks there, even if there’s literally no cars in sight.  When I did jaywalk, I was looked at as though insane.

If I get the translation of “jaywalk” right, crossing the street without looking, or walking on the middle of the road is considered the behaviour of the insane, drunk or tired of living in a country where breaking speed limits is a national pasttime. On those empty streets at night the young and stupid might go 120 kph. You always check. Twice. And unless you have eyes in the back of your head you get off the road as quickly as you can. (Nearly got run over by a bus last week when I took photos of my car that was damaged by a moron going 20 kph over the speed limit in a narrow residential street while it was snowing. Grr.)

Caren, thanks for the explanation. (I just discovered that I was lucky when in the US…)

Unless I missed it, noone’s said anything re: the overheard conversation about the game that would make you gay since it had a microphone. I sure am glad that there’s now a sure-fire way of identifyng gay people: anyone who buys a game with a microphone. But a few might slip by, so maybe we should broaden in to include anyone who buys ANYTHING with a microphone. That should cover it. Now all us straight folks can sleep at night.
—Kate

Caren,

I was directing you to a response I had to Ms. Kate’s assertion that only Northeasterners ignored lines/jaywalked.  It happened to also act well as a reply to your assertion that Chicagoans are nicer than NYers, to which I say, again: bullshit.