Buy Nothing Day is a day of protest against consumerism. In North America, the United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden, Buy Nothing Day is held the day after U.S.

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...

, concurrent with Black Friday; elsewhere, it is held the following day, which is usually the last Saturday in November."Buy Nothing Day
"''Adbusters.org'' Created by artist Ted Dave and promoted by magazine and nonprofit ''

Adbusters The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia. Adbusters describes itself as "a global network of artists, activis ...

'', Buy Nothing Day encourages people not to shop for one day. Participants may participate in a variety of anti-consumerist and philanthropic activities, such as donating winter coats or marching through stores. Some activists have also extended Buy Nothing Day to cover the entire Christmas shopping season. As of 2001, Buy Nothing Day was observed in over 35 countries. In the late 1990s, ''Adbusters'' created a TV commercial to promote Buy Nothing Day in the US, but most television stations refused to air it. Some commentators, particularly business groups, have criticized the event, claiming that it is economically destructive.

History

The holiday was invented by Canadian artist Ted Dave. ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' journalist Joe Sommerlad traced supporters' philosophy back to the 1899 text ''

The Theory of the Leisure Class ''The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions'' (1899), by Thorstein Veblen, is a treatise of economics and sociology, and a critique of conspicuous consumption as a function of social class and of consumerism, which are s ...

'', which argued that consumerism was left over from the feudal era and should be discontinued. Soon thereafter, Canadian magazine and nonprofit ''

'' began promoting the day as well. It then spread to the United States, then internationally. It began to be observed in Japan in 1999, and by 2001 was observed in 35 countries around the world. The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Canada in September 1992 "as a day for society to examine the issue of overconsumption." In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, also called " Black Friday", which is one of the ten busiest shopping days in the United States.

Activities

Activism

Beginning in the 1990s, ''Adbusters'' readers began engaging in

culture jamming Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It at ...

activities on Buy Nothing Day. Various gatherings and forms of protest have been used to draw attention to

overconsumption Overconsumption describes a situation where consumers overuse their available goods and services to where they can't, or don't want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this is the point where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater ...

: * Credit card cutting parties * Handing out flyers: Participants gather in busy city areas to hand out flyers to inform passerby of the movement and anti

consumerism Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the ...

* Forming long lines of people pushing empty shopping carts around stores (referred to as "Whirly-Mart" by ''Adbusters'') * Buy Nothing Coat Exchange: Four states, including Utah, hold winter coat exchange programs as an alternative to Black Friday shopping. * Walking through streets or malls in zombie makeup

Commercials

Beginning in the 1990s, ''Adbusters'' produced a commercial promoting Buy Nothing Day. The ad depicted North Americans as a belching pig, to symbolize their overconsumption, and cited statistics comparing North Americans' consumption to those of people in Mexico, China, and India. The ad also refers to "A world that could die because of the way we North Americans live". However, ''Adbusters'' struggled to get the ad on the air, with

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

, and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

refusing to show it. Only CNN, as well as some local stations, agreed to air the ad. In 1997, CBS justified their refusal by citing "the current economic policy in the United States".

Kalle Lasn Kalle Lasn () (born March 24, 1942) is an Estonian-Canadian film maker, author, magazine editor, and activist. Near the end of World War II, his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent some time in a German refugee camp. At age seven he was resettled ...

, the co-founder of ''Adbusters'', questioned why MTV was comfortable airing

gangsta rap Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, is a subgenre of rap music that conveys the culture, values, and experiences of urban gangs and street hustlers, frequently discussing unpleasant realities of the world in general th ...

and sexualized videos, but would not run the ad. In 2001, ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'' advertising critic Rob Walker opined that ''Adbusters'' shouldn't "suddenly change their convictions" following the September 11 attacks, but should consider airing a new ad, especially in light of the "world that could die" language.

Buy Nothing Christmas

Buy Nothing Christmas started unofficially in 1968, when Ellie Clark and her family decided to publicly disregard the commercial aspects of the Christmas holiday. Contemporarily, a movement was created to extend

' Buy Nothing Day into the entire Christmas season. Buy Nothing Christmas first became official in 2001 when a small group of Canadian

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

s created a website and gave the movement a name. Adbusters in 2011 renamed the event Occupy Xmas, a reference to the

Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...

. Buy Nothing Day was first joined with Adbusters' Buy Nothing Christmas campaign. Shortly after, Lauren Bercovitch, the production manager at Adbusters Media Foundation, publicly embraced the principles of Occupy Xmas, advocating "something as simple as buying locally—going out and putting money into your local economy—or making your Christmas presents". Previously, the central message of Occupy Xmas and Occupy Christmas differed in that Occupy Xmas called for a "Buy Nothing Christmas" and Occupy Christmas called for support of local economy, artists, and craftspeople in holiday shopping. The union of these ideologies calls for a Buy Nothing Day to kick off a season of supporting local economy and family. ''Adbusters'' editor Kalle Lasn claimed in 2006 that the holiday was celebrated in over 65 countries around the world.

Opposition

In 2001, during the

aftermath of the September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks transformed Presidency of George W. Bush, the first term of President George W. Bush and led to what he referred to as the war on terror. The accuracy of describing it as a "war" and its political motivations and conseq ...

, Adbusters encountered an increase in opposition to Buy Nothing Day, with some Americans believing that consumerism was critical to rehabilitating the US economy. In 2002, the president of the Maryland Retailers' Association opined that supporters of the holiday should "get in the holiday spirit" and claimed that their activities could hurt retail workers financially. That year, the director of communications for the

National Association of Manufacturers The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C., with additional offices across the United States. It is the nation's largest manufacturing industrial trade association, representing 14,000 s ...

called Buy Nothing Day "a very bad idea" and accused it of being "a protest against modernity". In 2012, Andrew Simms published an opinion piece in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' arguing that abstinence-focused movements fail and that the economy was already suffering from too little demand, instead advocating that people buy better-quality goods.

In popular culture

English alternative rock band

Chumbawamba Chumbawamba () was a British anarcho-punk band who formed in 1982 and disbanded in 2012. They are best known for their 1997 single "Tubthumping", which was nominated for Best British Single at the Brit Awards 1998. Other singles include "Amnes ...

recorded a song titled "Buy Nothing Day" for their 2004 studio album '' Un''. ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

'' critic Johnny Loftus deemed it an "endorsement" of Adbusters' movement, while fellow ''AllMusic'' critic Chris Nickson deemed it a "musing on greed" on their 2007 live album, ''

Get On with It ''Get On with It'' is a live album by British anarchist punk band Chumbawamba released in 2006. It features recordings made at shows throughout England in 2006, covering songs from all throughout their musical career. The songs " Timebomb", "H ...

''. In 2019, actress

Shailene Woodley Shailene Woodley (born November 15, 1991) is an American actress. She first gained prominence for her starring role as Amy Juergens in the ABC Family teen drama series '' The Secret Life of the American Teenager'' (2008–2013). She then starr ...

tweeted her support for the holiday.

References

External links

The Buy Nothing Day
- thematic page (2019) by Adbusters Media Foundation
BND UK information and support for UK campaignersBuy Nothing Day commercial
posted on Adbusters' official YouTube channel
A 2001 NPR interview
with Kelle Lasn about Buy Nothing Day {{Unofficial observances 1992 establishments in Canada Consumer boycotts Criticism of the commercialization of Christmas Friday observances November observances Observances based on the date of Thanksgiving (United States) Recurring events established in 1992 Retailing by time of year Unofficial observances Waste minimisation Annual protests