Black Friday: A Retrospective

Another Black Friday has come and gone, leaving desolation, holiday cheer, and suffering in its wake. The images are permeating the internet, and the stories will likely be told in hushed tones until next year's even greater excesses renders these events quaint in comparison.

But until then we can enjoy the show. Since studios have yet to get on the ball and start producing stop-motion specials about the magic of Black Friday, we must make do with video captured by shoppers and spectators (apparently, we're not the only ones).

Gawker assembled an impressive collection of shorts showcasing the festivities at various Walmart stores. Of their videos, we found the following most fascinating, as it manages to record the incident clearly:

If you'd rather skip the suspense, the holiday cheer begins at about 1:25. It takes the crowd approximately thirty seconds to strip the display bare of electronics, leaving a pile of rubble behind.

For the sake of comparison, here is a video we found on YouTube of piranhas killing and devouring a goldfish. Note the relative display of restraint and use of strategy in their attacks. Also, note how they function as a community, building off each others' actions for collective and individual gain: