Brit’s vision of Black Friday in America goes viral

A Reddit user from the UK has made an imagined image of a Walmart parking lot on Black Friday go viral by attracting hundreds of thousands of hits to their computer-crafted critique of the major American shopping day.

“As a Brit, this is how I imagine [B]lack Friday in America,” an individual with the Reddit handle '_theseacucumber' wrote on the popular web forum on Tuesday.

The attached image is an ominous depiction of a massive Walmart retail shop with throngs of would-be shoppers waiting outside with American flags in the evening rain as dark clouds roll in. It received more than 4,000 points from other Redditors and over 2,000 comments within eight hours of going online.

According to statistics provided by Imgur, the picture-hosting site where _theseacucumber originally uploaded the file, the eerie Black Friday image was viewed more than 305,000 times during that same span.

One Redditor described the image as “the funniest thing” they’ve ever seen on /r/funny, the “subreddit” where humorous content is shared among millions.

“This is my first successful post so hearing that is awesome,”respondedthe image’s creator.

“My British brain just exploded,” another supposed UK resident responded to the picture. “Good luck brothers on Friday, Don’t get too hurt.”

Indeed, injuries during the post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza are almost as synonymous with Black Friday as the deals. Yet, as the Huffington Post reported this week, Walmart has so far gone six years without paying a $7,000 fee ordered by federal regulators after an employee died when the store was overrun by eager shoppers in 2008.

Meanwhile, Americans have already started camping out in front of major retailers days in advance of the big sales, which will have stores from coast to coast opening their doors during the early hours of Friday, and in some instances even sooner. This year, many Black Friday retailers are offering their big sales on Thursday, America’s Thanksgiving holiday.

According to Time Magazine, 96 percent of consumers say discounts like the ones offered on Black Friday play a big role with regards to shopping ahead of the winter holidays. Nevertheless, deal-hunting site ShopAdvisor determined that the average discount during last year’s major shopping day amounted to only five percent below regular cost.