How to SURVIVE Black Friday | Style Theory

It's that time of year, the weather is getting colder, families are gathering to make memories, and we take a little time to remember what really matters in life. Capitalism. Today we're using the classic theorist methods of research and overthinking to optimize your Black Friday shopping. How can you save the most money while shopping for all your loved ones this holiday season? Spoiler alert, if you're asking that question, you've already lost. Hello internet! Welcome to Style Theory, where to

day we are gonna beat Black Friday with some big brain strategies. So, it is the holiday season and you know what that means. It is time to go out and like little elves that we are, go buy gifts for all our family and friends and loved ones. And when you're an employer, like I am, it also means that you're getting gifts for your employees. But how do you do that? If I want to optimize my gift-giving experience as boss of Theorist Inc. Incorporated, that's what the Inc. stands for, but I thought

including incorporated would make it sound more official. Theorist Inc. Incorporated, the question I have is this, how do I optimize my Black Friday experience? Well friends, I've done some research, I'm starting a plan, and it's all top secret. Let's go! To the boss cave! It's this way, I'm still tethered to my thing. While live action MatPat's busy untangling himself, let's do a little bit of a background check on the most popular shopping day of the year, Black Friday. The OG Black Friday cam

e into being way back in the 1950s in none other than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Because, of course, the holiday where people trample each other to get their hands on a Tickle Me Elmo started in the city of brotherly love. As the story goes, police officers in the city began using the phrase to describe the chaos that happened in the city when large numbers of suburban tourists rushed into town to begin their holiday shopping, creating traffic jams, accidents, and shoplifting. It also didn't re

ally help the crowd situation that there was a tradition of a big football game happening on Saturday, Army vs. Navy, pushing the city to its breaking point. And from there, the Black Friday name just kinda stuck. For a few years, stores tried to rebrand it all as Big Friday to avoid that negative sounding name, but yeah, it didn't work. So then they tried again to re-spin the narrative around Black Friday as a positive thing. You see, many businesses operate at a financial loss for much of the

year. In other words, you would say that they're in the red. That is, until the day after Thanksgiving when massive sales finally allowed them to turn a profit, putting them in the black. This one had a bit more success, but what made it truly enter the public consciousness was a 1961 article in the New York Times where they used the phrase to specifically refer to the day after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year. Though, uh, that's not always entirely true. In real

ity, it competes for that title with the Saturday before Christmas, known as Super Saturday. Anyway, fast forward to today, where you can't escape the marketing branding Black Friday as the day of the year's best deals regardless of whether you're buying those gifts for others or for yourself. It's okay, you can admit it, if you've bought an item or two or ten for yourself. Well, it's okay, you can admit it if you have bought an item or two or maybe ten for yourself. It's okay, you can admit it,

you've bought an item or two or ten for yourself. If you're wondering what that was, it's because all local news channels are run by basically the same company, so they share scripts everywhere. That montage goes on for, like, another five minutes. Truly, we live in a dystopian nightmare. But, hey, if you can't beat them, join them. That's why I'm bringing you all to my basement to learn how to best plan for the big day. Allow me to walk you through MatPat's Declassified Black Friday Survival G

uide. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the best boss basement, otherwise known as my personal basement. This is where all the best ideas come to fruition, and in this case, I'm putting this big brain strategy to work on coming up with the optimized gift plan for our holiday Christmas gifts this year. Everyone's done a good job this year. CPN's been a little bit rough, but that's not their fault. They've done amazing work, had to pump out so many damn shorts like it's nobody's business

, and it's time that we all get rewarded for it. So, without any further ado, welcome to my top secret plan. Do not steal on how to win Black Friday, starting with... Step number one, setting your budget ahead of time. Since 2008, the amount that we spend on holiday gifts has steadily been on the rise, and this year, it's expected to reach just shy of 900 bucks. That said, countless studies have shown that setting a target amount that you're willing to spend decreases bloat and impulse shopping,

but thinking about it like a budget is actually approaching it the wrong way. Your emotional brain sees the word budget and thinks of it the same way that it does a diet. The connotation is deprivation, depression, not getting what you want. The word diet makes us feel like there's a famine coming, and while we can certainly take that on in the short term, the long-term deprivation of a diet doesn't really work. When our brains are in deprivation mode, you start to see food differently. It beco

mes more appetizing and tempting, because now you can't have it. Budgets work similarly, because instead of thinking about what you want, you're thinking about what you can't have. A budget implies scarcity. So instead, create a spending plan, which sounds the same, but actually works in a slightly different way that benefits your brain. Unlike a budget, a spending plan is focused on your goals. You first sit down and think about all the things that you value the most. So if you want to take a v

acation, your goal becomes take a trip to Japan in 2025. Once you have that goal in mind, you build a plan on how to execute on that goal. Crunching numbers, planning how to save, moving money around. In its implementation, a spending plan is virtually the same as a budget, but the approach is different enough that it helps our brains succeed. So this year, I have $1,000 to spend on the corporate gifts for our six department heads, and I want to get each one a personalized gift that makes sense

for them. I also feel good about getting the most out of my money by shopping on Black Friday, which means it's now time for step number two, figuring out what I actually got to get everyone. Head editor Dan. He is, as the name implies, the head editor, and therefore is stuck in the editing dungeon. Kind of goes without saying. A little bit dreary, a little bit damp, a little bit of a bummer. So maybe something like, say, a lamp, or something that gives him the illusion of hope and daylight in h

is day-to-day operations. We'll see. We also know that he enjoys bops. Otherwise known as sick beats or tunes to those of you in various generations. So he likes music. He lives in a dungeon. He also has incredibly long hair. Just like, big old wad of hair that he likes to clump up on his head like a big old Cinnabon, up here in the man bun style. I hate to tell him that was, you know, the style back in 2016 and probably should be updated at this point. But hey, he does him. You know, that's pro

bably a style theory episode for another day, right? So, taking all of these factoids one by one, stuck in editing dungeon, enjoys bops, long hair, we need something that's gonna hold the hair back, but also give him the sick tunes that he's looking for. Obviously, the answer is headphones. Bonus points of this one is the fact that not only is this a present for him, you're gonna make his day-to-day life that much better, it also is gonna help his work here at Team Theorist better. Because who d

oesn't love a corporate gift that helps their day-to-day office life? We've got ourselves Lee. For those of you who don't know, Lee is the creative director of the Film Theory channel, so obviously, as part of that territory, he loves going to the movies. Maybe a film pass, maybe a popcorn bucket, maybe a big ol' jar of artificial butter substitute for said popcorn. We know that he also analyzes every frame, just like me. Aw, boss-like creative director. It's a beautiful relationship. Maybe I sh

ould have him analyze every frame of Hello Neighbor. And then lastly, he wears glasses, as evidenced by his little avatar here. So it kind of goes without saying that he needs something that's going to be, you know, magnified for his own enjoyment. So we need something that's going to deliver him the entertainment, the pop culture, and do it at a scale that he won't have to squint excessively hard for. Which tells me that Lee is going to get himself a projector. Maybe one of those close-scale pr

ojectors, maybe a big one. We'll do some research, but he is going to get himself a projector. We're going to choose Film Theory Red here. By the way, I don't know if you have used smelly markers at any point in your, you know, young adult or adult lives whenever you're watching this, because obviously YouTube is a platform for ages 13 and up. But man, these still bang. Just by the way, this is the cherry one. This is really good. I remember when I was growing up, purple. Oh, so good. To this ve

ry day, great. Best smell ever. What's this one? I haven't seen orange yet. What is this? Oh! I am betrayed by this marker. Oh, what is this? Apparently, the marker is supposed to smell like cinnamon rocket fuel. Personally, I think it was just a mistake at the factory and they had to come up with some excuse. We go from Lee over to Santi. Now, for those of you who don't know, Santi is our creative director for Food Theory. And really, the man is just an enigma wrapped in a mystery, right? He's

a big food guy. He also loves to cook. It really goes hand in hand. But there is something about Santi. For as much as he loves to cook, for as smart as he is about all things in the kitchen, he is just an absolute crap baker. And I say that with the most love and admiration in my heart. I'm the guy who's tried to make cookies out of sawdust for multiple years in a row at this point. So what better thing that we could get for Santi than... Shoot, I just threw away the yellow marker. So for Santi

, we're gonna make sure that he hones his baking skill by getting him a stand mixer. Those things are pretty costly though. And this year has not been great when it comes to the CPMs. So if we could find a little bit of a discount on that puppy, that would be wonderful. Ready for this? Everyone's favorite, Brits! It's Mr. Tom! Tom is the creative director of Game Theory. He is my fellow FNAF boy up in the Five Nights at Freddy's attic where we're trying to solve the lore. He's been there in the

trenches calculating how much Sonic's rings are valued at or whether Mario can break bricks with his fist. However, you'll notice one thing. He's either all about FNAF and indie horror or he's all about Nintendo and wider Nintendo properties. So in the interest of getting Tom to write me more episodes, we're gonna get him the Xbox Series X. But not the X, the S, because the S is slightly more cost effective. You know, it plays the exact same games anyway. Like, do you really need the updated fra

me rate? No, no, you don't. And honestly, this is me doing him a favor, right? Because doesn't that the Xbox X, like, actually smoke and burst out into flames sometimes? Did they fix that? I wonder if they fixed that. I should probably look into that. I did look into that and it turns out it was a hoax. Good to know. Still, I don't want to risk Tom or the budget, so we're sticking with the S. Moving on to everyone's favorite figment of my imagination, co-host of GT Live, Ash. Ash just moved to a

new apartment. I don't know if you saw it, but in a previous episode here on Style Theory, we actually had a feng shui episode and we got to see the inside of Ash's apartment and it was barren outside of the very small rug that we bought for them. So we're just doing a really good job. But Ash is also an epic gamer, clearly, because we game on the GT Live couch. Also got Peacock to watch FNAF and before that month trial is up, we should probably get them something to watch more things on becaus

e Lord knows that they're absolutely going to cancel that Peacock subscription at the end of this month. So in order to accomplish all of these things, right? Decorate the living room, get her the chance to game, give her the chance to make the most out of that free month trial of Peacock. We're going to get Ash a good, moderately sized, mid-range TV. Because it's the sensible option and if there's one thing that I know Ash appreciates, it's being sensible. And last but certainly not least, we h

ave ourselves Amy, creative director of Style Theory, who we've seen on the channel a couple times. She's basically my puppeteer on this channel. So what do you give the person who's given so much to you? And by so much, I mean, giving you so much edible underwear in a, you know, corporate approved way, that is. Well, what do we know about Amy? Well, clearly she's a fashion icon and she's so worldly and she travels all the time, but she needs space to pack all of her amazing cosplays. This is a

list of details that she wrote about herself. She, that's not to say that she isn't these things. I'm just saying, there's a very clear difference between the factoids that were given the other employees at this company. Can I just, can I just call this out real quick? Just, just for, for sake of comparison here, let's just, let's just rewind for a second, shall we? Santi, food theory. Let me tell you about Santi. Grew up in Hong Kong, lives in Miami and California, lived in Argentina for a whil

e, does like mountain climbing, but no, no, the bullet points that I'm giving for Santi are, food guy likes more food. Or let's go even further back to Lee, going to the movies, watches the movies and wears glasses. So whoever wrote all of these is in a stark difference to the fashion icon, beauty guru extraordinaire, who traveled the world and needs some space to pack many of her amazing cosplays. Is this just like fan fiction? Did Amy just write herself a fan fiction? I wrote Amy's. You wrote

Amy's? I wrote Amy fan fiction. Okay. Well, Amy, have I got a gift for you, my friend. I'm going to get Amy some luggage and I have the perfect luggage. This is actually Theorywear that is coming out in mid-December. She helped design this actually. So like we can give it to her and that'll be the gift and it functions on her traveling a lot. So there you go, Amy. Very own set of theory wear, except with, you know, she didn't work on it. So she probably doesn't want something that she worked on,

albeit being very high quality. So maybe I do something else. I still like this idea of doing luggage, but we're just going to, you know, buy some luggage as opposed to making her design it herself. Luggage. And there you have it. So with our marker smelled and our list prepared, it's time for step number three: good old-fashioned research. You see, every major retailer from Target to Best Buy to Old Navy puts out a pamphlet that shows off all their Black Friday deals. But that right there, tha

t sucks. I don't want all these ads floating around my house and I especially don't want to be having to cross-reference across a bunch of different sources. There's got to be a smarter way to approach deal hunting, right? And guess what? There is. Much like the entire industry of Black Friday has been built to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers, consumers have developed their own systems to get one up over the big boys. There are a plethora of sites out there who've already done the har

d work of cataloging every store's Black Friday deals. Websites like blackfriday.com and theblackfriday.com have scanned every store's major ads and hyperlinked them so you can keep track. They break it down by product category, helping to surface the best deals, and even having store-specific tips, like how Walmart offers a discount for purchases made online and then opting to pick them up in the store. Or where you can find your local Target's layout on Black Friday morning so you can then bea

t the other less-prepared shoppers. And speaking of saving money while getting great gifts for your loved ones and yourself, I want to tell you about the sponsor of today's episode, Vessi. Fun fact, North Carolina, it's kind of rainy in the winter. See, we're not north enough to get a ton of snow, but also not south enough to avoid the seasonal changes, so we just end up with a lot of rain in the wintertime. Enter Vessi, the hero that we didn't know we needed. Why? Because each of Vessi's amazin

g stylish products, from the clothes to the shoes, are 100% waterproof. And if you don't believe me, then believe the tried-and-true theorist method, experimental testing. Steph and I braved the cold October rain to test the waterproofness for ourselves. I was all decked out in Vessi. Steph agreed to take one for the team and be the case study in her normal, non-protective Vessi wear for the good of the cause. And immediately, you could tell a difference here. My feet, clad in the Vessi Soho sne

akers, were dry as a desert, no matter how many puddles I was splashing around in. Your pants are definitely wet. My pants are definitely wet at this point. My socks? No. I think that officially makes me a member of Vessi's dry socks club. You could even see the water beating up perfectly on the outside of my green Vessi overcast jacket. I could literally just wipe the water away. Look at that. It is so cool. Heck, even my Vessi gloves were keeping me cozy and dry. And bonus for all you looking

to get some social media pics while rocking your Vessi finest, they're touchscreen friendly. Meaning that you don't need to remove your gloves and get your fingers all wet and cold to take your pics. But MatPat, I hear you say to your screen, what if it's sunny? Well, no worries. Vessi is also super breathable for a cool, sunny day. I wore the exact same outfit for the state fair for a food theory shoot, and I was at the perfect temperature all day long. And hey, if you want a more fashion-orien

ted sneaker, they got you covered too. The Alta is a stylish high top with a sleek silhouette that I wore to take Ollie trick-or-treating this Halloween. They went perfectly with my whole look that day. And again, waterproof, which meant that that rainy Halloween went a whole lot smoother. Plus, they have the theorist seal of approval on comfort thanks to Vessi's four-way stretch technology. And lucky for all you style theorists, Vessi is having their biggest sale of the year right now. So click

the link in the description or go to Vessi.com slash theorists to get a headstart on your holiday shopping before it's gone. That's Vessi, V-E-S-S-I.com slash theorists, T-H-E-O-R-I-S-T-S, to shop Vessi's biggest deals of the year. Thanks again to Vessi for sponsoring this video. So, after doing the research across the ads, here's where my holiday shopping list shook out. Dan's headphones were at Walmart, where normally they'd cost me a whopping $349, but with the Doorbuster promotions, we can

get this for just $149, saving us a full $200. Hey editors, can we get ourselves a deal tracker to keep a tally of all this? Awesome, thanks. Lee's Projector, originally priced at $99, Target's Doorbusters had it listed at $79, a savings of $20. For Santi's Mixer, the full price is usually a hefty $449, but Target wins the day again with a listed price of $249, another $200 savings. Looking at the tracker, without those sorts of savings, I would be in trouble. Instead, we've already saved almost

half of that original total thanks to our savvy deal hunting. Tom's Xbox, while the Series X may not literally be on fire, the deals for the Series S, yeah, they're not setting things ablaze either, only saving us about $50. Ash's sensible 55-inch TV was originally priced at $430, but Best Buy will be selling it for $200 on Black Friday, a difference of $230. Lastly is Amy's Luggage. Though Theorywear would definitely be the more colorful option, I did find this full five-piece set at Macy's. Y

ou know, that super hip store that your grandma loves? This set was originally priced at $300, but with the Black Friday deals, it's knocked all the way back down to $70. We've just saved ourselves another $230. And checking in on the budget tracker, we are coming in just under the budget, saving a full $930 off that non-discounted pricing, a whopping 48% less. Now all I gotta do is prepare my route and get my tent ready for a frantic morning of Black Friday shopping before all those doorbuster

deals are gone. We've marked out all the stores that we need to hit. Now the only question is, how do we get there, right? We have to get to Best Buy first, because that one is opening at 5 a.m. So I am there, ready to go, best boss attire, let's go. Doors open, I am stampeding along with the rest of the herd, and I am getting that TV for Ash, because Ash deserves that mid-range TV. And then immediately, we're running over to Macy's, which opens at 6 a.m. And at Macy's, we are definitely getting

Amy, that fashionista icon, we are getting her that luggage. But we're not wasting a whole lot of time there, because guess what? Also open at 6 a.m., that's gonna be our Target, right? And let's be honest, Target has basically everything that you need. We're absolutely knocking out Lee there. So we are getting a projector for Lee, and his little tiny eyes. We're getting a stand mixer for Santi, so he can stop sucking at baking. And we are getting Tom that beautiful Xbox Series S, because it's

cost-effective, and he needs to get out more, and play more games that aren't Nintendo. And then last, but certainly not least, we are wrapping things up where we all began, going to Walmart, getting Dan that beautiful set of headphones. I think in total, we're gonna save around $1,000 across all of this. It's gonna be done in a couple of hours. I'm gonna be camping out. It's gonna be great, and everyone will hail me as the best smartest boss possible. It's what I would say, if this was truly th

e way to beat Black Friday. But guess what, ladies and gentlemen? It's not. All this, it's all a bunch of marketing hype, my friends. Take it away, VO MatPat. You see, these deals that we're so afraid to miss out on, that draw us in and make us overspend, and camp out and trample on each other, they aren't actually unique deals. They exist all year long. And honestly, there are even better deals than what you end up with if you wait until Black Friday. I took a look at the price history of our s

hopping list using a few sites like Honey and Slick Deals. Amy's Luggage Set, it's been as low as $49.99. Santee's Stand Mixer, Sam's Club had it for $190. Heck, that doorbuster deal Target has for Lee's Projector, it's on a better sale right now as I'm writing this episode. In total, I could have increased my savings from 48% to 53% if I hadn't tried to wait until the last minute. Instead of saving $930, I could have saved $1,030, an extra $100 in my pocket, and an extra couple hours of sleep t

he morning after Thanksgiving. It's a classic bait-and-switch. Make you believe that this is the best time of year to shop while hyping up the incredible deals because who in their right mind is looking retroactively at this sort of information? We are. When it comes to buying things, each major product category has a different best time of year to buy it. Electronics? Yeah, those are definitely best purchased on Black Friday. TVs? Black Friday. Or, surprisingly, February, around the time of the

Super Bowl. For clothes, you're gonna want to look for deals at the end of each season as they clear out the old product to make room for the new stuff. If you're buying mattresses, Memorial and Labor Day are the times to shop. Other large furniture purchases are best made during patriotic holidays. Memorial Day, Labor Day, President's Day, and Independence Day. It's pretty darn random, right? Well, it's because these are the random holidays where people find themselves having extra time but ar

en't already earmarked for family events and aren't long enough for some large vacation. Labor Day is especially strong here because it's a seasonal transition. Jewelry is best a few weeks after Valentine's and Christmas, and buying a car? You're best doing that late summer, midweek, at the end of the day. That might seem very specific, and it is, it's very intentional. Late summer is when they're looking to change over model years and are looking to offload inventory. Midweek is when customer f

low is less, and end of day is when they're eager to close a deal out of fear of losing you and your business the second that you walk off the lot. The key is, whenever an industry is switching over the inventory, like car model years, that is gonna be when the sales are at their best. Because while Black Friday will always have itself some worthwhile deals, the way to truly beat Black Friday is to think ahead, shopping smarter all year long. That way, you can spend your holiday season giving th

e best gift of all, your time and attention to the people that you care about. But hey, that's just a theory. A style theory. Who's the smartest boss now? This guy. Don't believe in marketing hype. Thinking for myself. Planning out a year ahead. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Take it away, best boss, MatPat. Take it away, best boss, MatPat.