BUY NOTHING DAY 2012

 

“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.