Buy Nothing Day gains support

Last Friday, millions of people from across the U.S. didn’t participate in what has become known to shopkeepers as “Black Friday.”

Although it may sound dire, the “Black Friday” title evidently derives from cash-strapped shopkeepers, hoping that the early Christmas bargain hunters will pull them out of the red and into the black. Always on the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving and a month before Christmas, it’s considered the biggest day of the year for shopkeepers.

But as tight fisted consumers unlocked their wallets and muscled their way through many of America’s aisles, they had to move aside as political and peace activists, and even general consumers, pushed empty carts and cut up credit cards, because this year’s “Black Friday” was also international Buy Nothing Day (BND).

BND began more than a decade ago by Adbusters Magazine, a Vancouver-based anti-consumerism group. The organization wants shoppers to step back and make a small choice not to shop in protest against rampant consumerism. BND is held annually on the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving.

“It’s a celebration of not giving in to the consumer cultures,” said Jason McLean, a member of Montreal’s Optative Theatrical Laboratories (OTL), a community-based, non-hierarchical dramatic arts collective known for its long running performance-protest Car Stories.

“Buy Nothing Day gives me a chance to fully live what I preach on a personal level. It’s a great feeling to know that, for at least one day, I’m part of the solution,” McLean said.

People from around the world were encouraged to cut up their credit cards, build banners and posters, arrange free concerts, create shopping free zones with carpets and chairs, and dress up as pigs and shopping sheep, as a way to protest and bring awareness to rapidly growing consumption and consumer culture.

But the common call was for everyone to refrain from making purchases for 24 hours.

According to organizers, since BND uses clever techniques to attract attention, it exposes the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism.

“Only 20 per cent of the world population is consuming more than 80 per cent of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.”

Montreal’s OTL has been celebrating BND since 2002. Last year’s performance of death by Latt

Related Posts