The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is a curious Earth tradition that occurs annually on the first Monday following the American festival of “Thanksgiving.”

The event represents humanity’s touching belief that clicking small pictures of consumer goods on illuminated rectangles while sitting in their underwear is somehow more dignified than physically wrestling strangers for discounted kitchen appliances three days earlier on “Black Friday.“

Origins

Cyber Monday was invented in 2005 by Earth’s marketing professionals—a subspecies of humans who have evolved the remarkable ability to convince other humans that they desperately need things they’d never previously heard of. The day was specifically designed to capture the attention of office workers who, having spent the Thanksgiving weekend pretending to enjoy their relatives’ company, return to work with an overwhelming urge to spend money they don’t have on items they don’t need.

The term “Cyber” was chosen because in 2005, Earthlings still thought adding “Cyber” to anything made it sound futuristic and exciting, much like their earlier obsession with adding “Turbo” to products in the 1980s, or “Quantum” to anything they didn’t understand.

Ironically, at that time “Cyber” was shorthand for “Cybersex” which is every bit as confusing and anatomically impossible as it sounds. In the current era, no one on Earth remembers Cyber being used in that manner and the shopping usage of the term actually outlasted the sexual usage — an odd occurence on Earth.

The Ritual

The ceremony begins at precisely midnight, though “midnight” is a flexible concept that retailers have interpreted to mean “whenever we feel like it, really, possibly starting on Sunday, or maybe the previous Tuesday.”

Participants engage in the following traditional activities:

1. The Vigil of the Refresh Button: Devotees sit before their computers, repeatedly pressing F5 with the fervor of ancient monks at prayer, waiting for deals to appear.

2. The Sacred Cart Abandonment: Items are placed in virtual shopping carts and then removed seventeen times while the human experiences what psychologists call “buyer’s remorse” and what the rest of the galaxy calls “a brief moment of sanity.”

3. The Ritual of the Crashed Website: Retailers demonstrate their commitment to the holiday by ensuring their websites cannot handle the traffic, creating a sense of scarcity and panic that makes humans want products even more desperately.

4. The Ceremony of Comparing Prices: Participants open between forty and seventy browser tabs to ensure they’re getting the “best deal,” a process that takes so long that the deals expire before a decision is made.

Economic Impact

Cyber Monday generates billions of Earth dollars in revenue, most of which is spent on:

• Electronics that will be obsolete by Tuesday
• Clothing in sizes the purchaser hopes to be by January
• Gifts for people they don’t particularly like but feel socially obligated to acknowledge
• Items marked as “70% off” that were actually marked up 80% the week before

Economists note that Cyber Monday is responsible for a 340% increase in the use of the phrase “I can’t believe I bought that” and a 670% increase in package theft from doorsteps.

Cultural Significance

Anthropologists from more advanced civilizations find Cyber Monday fascinating as it represents one of the few Earth traditions where humans voluntarily:

• Provide detailed financial information to strangers
• Compete against automated purchasing bots (and lose)
• Experience genuine excitement about “free shipping” despite paying for a premium membership service to receive said “free shipping”
• Engage in what they call “retail therapy,” which is neither retail nor therapy, but is definitely expensive

Modern Developments

In recent years, Cyber Monday has expanded to include:

• Cyber Week: Because one day of financial regret wasn’t quite enough
• Cyber Month: See above, but more so
• Cyber Everything: At this point, every Monday is potentially Cyber Monday if you believe hard enough and have a credit card

The event has also spawned “Giving Tuesday,” where humans attempt to feel better about their rampant consumerism by donating small amounts to charity, typically less than they spent on a single pair of discounted socks the day before.

Survival Tips

The Guide offers the following advice for any off-world visitors who find themselves on Earth during Cyber Monday:

1. Do not attempt to understand the “logic” of the deals. There isn’t any.
2. If an Earthling asks if you “got any good deals,” simply nod and back away slowly.
3. Avoid all delivery drivers. They are not having a good time.
4. Remember: The best deal is the one you don’t make while sitting on your couch at 3 a.m. in a caffeine-induced purchasing frenzy.
5. Do not point out to the earthlings that the discounts and the alleged normal price do not resemble anything near what the actual product is worth.

Conclusion

Cyber Monday remains one of Earth’s most beloved traditions, proving once again that humans are the only species in the galaxy who will voluntarily wake up early, stay up late, and spend money they don’t have, all for the privilege of saving money on things they don’t need.

It is, in its own way, perfectly human.