Black Friday a bust under Biden? No, video of lone shopper is from London in 2017

The days of Black Friday shoppers trampling each other at retail stores to find discounts may be over in this era of online shopping.

But one social media post misrepresents footage of a nearly empty store on Black Friday as an example of President Joe Biden’s effect on the economy.

A Nov. 25 Instagram video sharing a TikTok shows a worker — with a camera crew nearby — sliding open a store’s doors to find only one person waiting. Text above the footage says, "Swarm of Black Friday shoppers ready to spend their money in Biden’s thriving economy." 

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The video doesn’t reflect the state of the U.S. economy under Biden’s leadership. It was filmed six years ago in England.

(Instagram screenshot)

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on November 13, 2024 in a Threads post

Nissan just announced 9,000 layoffs in Tennessee “to avoid severe losses due to expected tariffs.”

Using a reverse-image search, we traced the footage to a Nov. 24, 2017, report from BBC reporter Frankie McCamley. McCamley was at Currys PC World — now known simply as Currys — on London’s Oxford Street at 7 a.m. to catch the Black Friday crowd. Her video, which she shared in 2017 on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram shows a lone shopper casually entering the store. She identified him in a second X post as Marcel, who she said came to pick up a pre-ordered laptop.

McCamley’s video also appeared on BBC’s website and in other news reports.

The way Americans shop for the holidays has changed in recent years, with more people choosing to go online for shopping deals. Still, U.S. shoppers set a record over this year’s five-day holiday weekend from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association.

The federation said 200.4 million consumers shopped — either in person or online — over the holiday weekend, breaking last year’s record of 196.7 million. That’s 18 million more shoppers than the federation had predicted.

On Black Friday only, 76.2 million Americans shopped in stores — 3.3 million more than last year — and 90.6 million shopped online.

We rate the claim that this video shows Black Friday shoppers "in Biden’s thriving economy" False.