Buy Nothing Day: Adopt the new lifestyle, say organizers

www.cbc.ca, November 28, 2008 

This year's international Buy Nothing Day takes on added significance in the face of a worldwide economic downturn, according to the Vancouver-based magazine that champions the annual event.

"If you dig a little past the surface, you'll see that this financial meltdown is not about liquidity, toxic derivatives or unregulated markets, it's really about culture," said the co-founder of Adbusters Media Foundation, Kalle Lasn. "It's our culture of excess and meaningless consumption — the glorified spending and borrowing of the past decade that's at the root of the crisis we now find ourselves in."

Now in its 17th year, the day was originally the brainchild of Vancouver cartoon artist Ted Dave and is kept front and centre by Adbusters.

Today, Buy Nothing Day is celebrated every November in more than 65 countries around the world.

In North America, it coincides with the usual holiday shopping frenzy of Black Friday in the United States — which this year falls on Nov. 28. Internationally, the day is marked on Saturday, Nov. 29.

In Chicago, Buy Nothing Day celebrants dressed up as zombies on Friday to greet early-morning shoppers along that city's main thoroughfare, the Magnificent Mile. At the University of Guelph in Ontario, student organizers planned movies, workshops, free food and a "stuff swap."

There are also plans at various shopping centres in North America and Europe to offer free credit-card cutting services.

In addition, the Adbusters website asks people to take part in something called Whirl-mart, which "has the advantage of being most likely to piss off security personnel." It involves getting 10 people together to silently push their shopping carts around a store in a long conga line without ever actually buying anything.

"A simpler, pared-down lifestyle — one in which we’re not drowning in debt — may well be the answer to this crisis we're in," said Lasn. "Living within our means will also make us happier and healthier than we’ve been in years."