What’s a more quintessential American holiday than Thanksgiving? Well, Black Friday. Let’s be honest: nothing captures the truly American values of capitalism and extreme sports than a whole day dedicated to the encouragement of aggressive, frenzied collection of discounted items that one doesn’t actually need. No one needs eight Tommy Hilfiger bath towels. Not even when they’re eight dollars at Macy’s.

But yes, Black Friday is as American as it gets and thus it still occupies a pivotal role in American society: an estimated 156 million shoppers hit the stores this Black Friday, which is an increase from last year by about 2 million.

I, myself, went Black Friday shopping for the first time in three years and it was a really fun way to spend the day with my friends. However, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of the maddening hysteria of thousands of people rushing in and out of stores. In fact, when my friends and I got to the mall at 6:30 a.m., the stores were downright sleepy. And I didn’t witness a single soccer mom fight over scented candles throughout the whole day!

This phenomena can’t come as a surprise when you consider the rise of the usurper of American shopping traditions: Cyber Monday. I suppose I must revise my earlier sentiment that it can’t get more American than Black Friday, but Cyber Monday really does take the cake; not only can you spend copious amounts of money on things you don’t need, you don’t even have to get out of bed to do it! Everything is digital nowadays, so why should shopping be any different? In fact, in the last two years there’s been an almost 15 percent rise in online spending, with Amazon’s reign only strengthening and other retailers like Walmart, JCPenney, and Macy’s scrambling to keep up. It seems as though Black Friday is rapidly approaching obsolescence.

Currently, we are in the midst of Cyber Week in which deals that used to be confined to Monday have now been extended throughout the whole week following Thanksgiving and there are a lot of great deals on computers, jewelry, and clothing floating around the internet.

However, it is important you approach online shopping with a degree of caution–often times it is difficult to gauge exactly how much money you’re spending when there is no physical reminder like the steadily lightening load of your wallet. Keep checking your balances, guys–there’s no reason to bankrupt yourself because you bought too many pairs of designer socks. With that small grain of salt, I wish you a very happy retail therapy session!