Buy Nothing Day? What We Need Is ‘Buy Something Day’

I‘ve always had mixed feelings about Buy Nothing Day, the “wildcat” consumer strike championed by the merry culturejammers at Adbusters. It’s tough not to get a chuckle from the some of the witty street theatre thrust like a juicy horsefly in the punchbowl of retail’s biggest holiday shopping event: Black Friday. Picture a procession of costumed Jesuses, carrying signs asking “What Would Jesus Buy?” through the mall. That’s gonna curdle a few $4 eggnog lattes down at the food court.

At the same time, you have to wonder about the effectiveness of such stunts. The cardinal rule of boycotts is never to call one unless you’re sure it will have a measurable financial impact on the target. While it’s true that Black Friday is for suckers and a lot of the Buy Nothing Day demonstrations are both witty and photogenic, it’s not likely that they’ll achieve their stated goal of bringing “the capitalist consumption machine” to a grinding – if only momentary – halt. Maybe what we need is a better kind of buying boycott. One which aims at the right target.

Blame where blame is due

Really, it’s time to quit hammering on the merchants. Yes, Black Friday is designed to whip shoppers into a spending mood: to lure them through the door with loss-leader specials in the hope they buy thoughtlessly once inside. And unfair labor practices, artificially cheap goods, and the effect of big-box retail outlets are all valid — though separate — issues.

But all the advertising and marketing gimmicks in the world won’t buy a fundamentally unhealthy consumerist society. We did this to ourselves. Nobody would flatten a couple hundred acres of wetland to build a strip mall if people wouldn’t come. No creative department is really clever enough to convince us that spending is equal to love, or that we should see more discount store sales associates between Thanksgiving and Christmas than our own friends and family.

Buy Something Day

What we need isn’t a once-a-year Buy Nothing Day. The real cure for what ails us is to apply some common sense and restraint every time we consider a purchase decision. Perhaps we should turn things around and make Buy Nothing Day the norm. Need something? Write it down. Do your homework. Let the shopping impulse cool.

Then, once a week, we’d have Buy Something Day. Shopping day, essentially: Online or at the mall, make the week’s purchases in a considered manner. Perhaps you don’t mind crowds, and the best bet is a Black Friday deal, after all. That’s fine, because we’re shopping with our heads, not our hearts. Just stick with your list, and leave those Zhu Zhu pets on the shelf, where they belong.

However you choose to observe the holidays, here’s wishing you health, happiness, and peace.