Buy Nothing Day: A Controversial Concept

For North Americans, shopping is all the rage for the holiday season. We are notably guilty for spending hundreds, thousands of dollars on items that we value as a necessity to have for social status, personal well being, and believe in the “gift of giving.” I’m not saying that I’ve been immune to all this, I’ve succumbed to it despite myself.

So how does “Buy Nothing Day” work? If you’ve never heard of this unofficial holiday, it’s probably because you’re too concerned in figuring out what to get for Uncle Larry, worrying about that huge family reunion, and wondering if you should have enough food to splurge for turkey, stuffings, corn, ham and pineapples. Wait, what was I talking about again?

Buy Nothing Day is a concept created by Canadian social activist magazine AdBusters. Aware since 1992 that the world is consuming too many resources for its own good, they’ve decided to launch a sort of awareness day that you should buy nothing on the day after Thanksgiving (US). This is because after Thanksgiving, it is the biggest shopping holidays of the season until Christmas. And what could be more encouraging than this year when the Canadian Dollar is on par with US dollar? Americans haven’t adjusted any kind of inflation and it’s mighty tempting to go over the border to get you some cheap goodies.

Well Adbuster’s aim is to counter all of the greed shoppers inhibit during the holiday season. There have been manifestations all over the world on Buy Nothing Day, people standing in the streets with self-made posters, banners and stunts to stop shoppers from buying anything (or at least educate them). In Montreal’s case, in 2005 there was an attempt of a coup to an American Apparel shop downtown to show how the business is exploiting women in their ads. However, the plan was thwarted when a mole had infiltrated into the group and alerted American Apparel of the plan.

Of course, though the concept seems simple enough to not buy anything a particular day, it doesn’t really stop people from buying anything from the other 364 days out of the year. Especially where fashion is concerned, we are propelled to consume our goods. There needs to be a more sound concept where everyone could bind together and help causes instead of hinder businesses. Like, “Donate Your Clothes Day” or “Help The Shelters Day”, or something that could help others. When you do nothing, you do nothing. How is this going to help the world to stop consuming?