A New Era of Holiday Sales: What Black Friday Means to Younger Consumers

This Insight Brief is brought to you by Infegy’s partnership with Joesph Bayer’s students at The Ohio State University. We work with these students to dig into a particular topic of their interest and encourage deeper insights.

Over the last decade, holiday shopping culture in the United States has undergone a profound transformation. The hype that once surrounded a single day of deep discounts and in-store urgency has evolved into a sprawling ecosystem of e-commerce events, early promotions, and near-constant digital sales cycles. For younger consumers, with ages from 18-35, this shift has fundamentally changed the significance of Black Friday. As online shopping became frictionless, personalized, and available year-round, the symbolic weight of “the biggest shopping day of the year” has eroded. The landscape that remains is one defined by constant availability and diminished urgency.

The Relevancy Decline

The Infegy Starscape chart below, which tracks online mentions of Black Friday-related keywords among U.S. individuals ages 18-35 over the last 10 years, reveals a dramatic and consistent decline. Early in the timeline, Black Friday generated millions of mentions from young consumers, peaking during the mid-2010s, when the event still carried strong cultural weight. However, each subsequent year shows a noticeable drop, with recent years producing only a fraction of the conversation volume that once surrounded the holiday. The steepest decline appears between 2019 and 2020, a period shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic, which reduced the cultural presence of in-person events. This disruption contributed to the subsequent ongoing downward trend in conversation volume among younger consumers and marked a turning point in how Black Friday functions within the holiday shopping cycle.

Figure 1: Volume of conversations with mentions of Black Friday-related keywords among individuals ages 18-35, (January 2015- December 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

Who is Driving the Conversation

Age distribution data from Infegy shows that individuals ages 18 to 35 consistently represent the largest share of online conversations about both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In the Black Friday dataset, the 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 groups make up a significant portion of all mentions, surpassing older age brackets. The Cyber Monday dataset reflects the same pattern, with young adults again appearing as the most active participants.

Figure 2: Author Age spread within conversations with mentions of Black Friday-related keywords, (January 2015-December 2025), Infegy Social Dataset

Figure 3: Author Age spread within conversations with mentions of Cyber Monday-related keywords, (January 2015-December 2025), Infegy Social Dataset

Because this age group contributes the most to online discussion surrounding these events, their conversations provide a significant perspective on how public perception has shifted over the last ten years. Changes in relevance, tone, and key themes are most visible within this demographic, which makes them a strong indicator of how holiday sales culture is evolving. Focusing on young consumers allows the analysis to center on the group that is shaping the majority of the digital conversation and influencing how these events are understood today.

What Consumers are Talking About

The Infegy force-graph visualization of Black Friday conversations from the last 10 years shows how discussion topics have shifted and diversified within the broader holiday shopping landscape. Instead of one dominant storyline, the graph reveals clusters of smaller, interconnected themes that reflect how young consumers talk about sales events in a digital-first environment. One of the most prominent patterns is the blending of Black Friday discussions with general holiday shopping. Clusters that include terms such as “Christmas, holiday, shopping, #christmas” and “annual, Join us” indicate that Black Friday is frequently mentioned alongside broader seasonal buying behavior. Conversations about the event often occur within the context of a longer shopping period rather than focusing on the day itself.        

Figure 4: Narratives of Black Friday conversations colored by sentiment among individuals ages 18-35, (January 2015-December 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

Digital commerce themes also appear heavily throughout the visualization. Dense clusters tied to “#sale, Click, code, Swipe,” and broader retail terms signal that online behaviors: clicking through deals, browsing promotional codes, and interacting with brand content. These are central to the way younger consumers discuss Black Friday. Mentions of these behaviors show how the event has become embedded in e-commerce culture rather than remaining an exclusively in-store experience.

Promotional and brand-led content forms another significant portion of the conversation. Phrases like “Retweet, Contest, rules, Tag, Follow us, gift card, #giveaway” and brand-specific references such as “Kohl’s” and “Sephora” appear in highly connected clusters. This reflects the volume of retailer-generated online content circulating during holiday sales periods, including giveaways, influencer promotions, and customer engagement campaigns.

Clusters that include “Cyber, Monday, Thanksgiving” emphasize the overlap between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the rest of the holiday week. This interconnectedness suggests that online users rarely discuss Black Friday in isolation; instead, these major shopping events appear linked in both timing and conversational context.

Taken together, the force graph depicts a distributed rather than centralized conversation environment. Black Friday appears as one node within a wider network of seasonal shopping themes, digital engagement behaviors, and promotional activity.

Shifting Sentiment: Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

A sentiment comparison between the top two topics connected to Black Friday, “Friday shopping” and “Cyber Monday”, shows differences in how young consumers have discussed each event online over the last 10 years.

The Friday shopping topic, with more than 33,000 records, reflects a 43.3% decrease in conversation and a sentiment distribution with a substantial negative share. The large red segment on the sentiment bar indicates that many posts associated with this topic carry frustration, criticism, or dissatisfaction. Positive sentiment is present but proportionally smaller, suggesting that the online tone around Black Friday is more mixed than enthusiastic

Figure 5: Sentiment and volume of conversations related to Black Friday among individuals ages 18-35, (January 2015-December 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

The Cyber Monday topic, which generates a similar volume of conversation at just over 32,000 records, shows a different pattern. Although mentions declined by 26.5 percent, the sentiment bar is dominated by positive reactions. Negative sentiment is significantly smaller in comparison, creating a more favorable emotional baseline for this online shopping event.

Figure 6: Sentiment and volume of conversations related to Cyber Monday among individuals ages 18-35, (January 2015-December 2025); Infegy Social Dataset.

Looking Ahead

Looking at ten years of online conversation among individuals ages 18-35, Black Friday’s role in sales and holiday shopping has shifted. The declining relevance shown in conversation volume, coupled with increasingly positive sentiment around digital-first events like Cyber Monday, suggests that younger shoppers will continue to gravitate toward experiences that prioritize ease, transparency, and autonomy.

As e-commerce environments evolve, younger consumers may place even greater emphasis on personalization, predictability, and digital convenience. Black Friday may still be recognized as a promotional touchpoint, but conversations suggest it will continue functioning less as a cultural event and more as part of a fluid cycle of holiday promotions shaped by e-commerce habits.

Key Takeaways for Brands

Consistency matters more than spectacle. The declining volume of Black Friday conversation shows that young consumers aren’t drawn to one-day hype. They reward brands that offer clear, reliable value across the entire season, not just during a single promotional spike.

Digital ease shapes perception. Cyber Monday’s overwhelmingly positive sentiment demonstrates that a smooth online experience carries more weight than aggressive discounting. If the checkout flow is slow, confusing, or inconvenient, no promotion can compensate for it.

The message must meet the moment. With sentiment around Black Friday increasingly mixed, brands should treat the holiday as a touchpoint, not an identity. Young consumers respond best to messaging that acknowledges how they actually shop: online, selectively, and on their own timeline.