“Buy Nothing Day (BND) is an international day
of protest
against consumerism
observed by social activists and many concerned citizens. Buy
Nothing Day is held the Friday after American Thanksgiving
in North
America and the last Saturday in November internationally,
which in 2012 correspond to November 23 in North America and November 24
internationally.
Buy Nothing Day was founded in Vancouver by artist Ted Dave
and subsequently promoted by Adbusters magazine,
based in Canada.”source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day
The internet is now full of videos, pictures and puns
regarding this year’s Black Friday. People running over each other, screaming,
pushing, shoving, just to get their hands on cheaper stuff. I sit and watch
while this Black Friday thing is slowly but surely taking over other cultures
and countries. Such as Romania. We’re starting to have it here too. Either in a
form of a week’s sales or just a day sale. Bottom line is: we’re getting the
consumerist virus in us. The disease is spreading like any other epidemic. After 23 years from the fall of Ceausescu’s
regime, Romanians are now fully adapted to capitalism’s consumerist lifestyle.
The urge to buy more stuff and own a collection of useless shit around the
house is powerful and took over people’s minds. Owning stuff is more important
than health. Happiness comes in the form of a new pair of shoes or a new gadget.
If i had the money most people do, I’d be traveling all over the world, but
they prefer to say in a house surrounded by their shiny shit and rot in their
job-buy-eat-sleep routine.
Today is buy nothing day! Everyday should be buy nothing day
or at least buy-only-what-you-really-need-day.
Try not to be a fool and fall into their trap. We’re bombarded with PR and sales
techniques. It’s a war between corporations and the only ones that have
something to lose is us. They only get richer and we are destined to stay “poor”.
We live our lives through numbers. Prices, percentages, bills etc. They managed to put a price on happiness. Don’t
let yourselves be fooled by all their lies. You don’t need to consume their
products to feel good. Rather than buying a new dress, take the opposite
direction. Clean your wardrobe and whatever you don’t wear, give it away to
people in need. Rather than buying a new, bigger, flatter tv, adopt a pet – it will
keep you entertained. NEVER SHOP FOR PETS! People are making good money
breeding animals and selling them for huge profits, while other freeze to death
in the streets. It’s another capitalist miracle... Rather than buying all your
food, try to grow some. Grow spices, grow onions, anything your living space
can offer you. The food in our supermarkets are imported from all over the
world, most of them are full of pesticides, herbicides and are slowly killing us.
Buy nothing day shouldn’t be just a day in the year in which
we abstain from shopping, but a day to reflect on our habits and try to change
our self destructive ways of being.
