I want YOU...to stop spending.

The course outline for this class just informed me of something shocking… November 25^th (Yes, it is a little early to be discussing November 25^th) is BUY NOTHING DAY. Buy Nothing Day? WTF. I have never in my life heard of such a day, but according to Wikipedia, this day, which is apparently worthy of capitalization, begun in November of 1992…1992? Buy Nothing Day has been around for the majority of my lifetime, that being 16 years now, and I am only hearing about this now?! And now I’ll take this opportunity to confirm that I DO, in fact, watch the news at least once a day. Well, I did. I haven’t watched TV since I moved into residence, but before I got here I watched the news quite frequently. I wouldn’t call myself an avid newspaper reader, but every Saturday morning in the past my mom and I would eat breakfast while skimming through various sections of the paper…Okay, so I usually went straight for the comics, puzzles and entertainment section. But regardless, I think between the televised news, newspaper, and even those usually insignificant news updates on my internet homepage (msn.com), I should have some idea of its origin. This leads me to believe that A) Buy Nothing Day hasn’t been advertised as well as it could be or B) I’m not as smart as I think I am. Both are possibilities. If Buy Nothing Day is not as well advertised as it could be, then what’s the point?

Buy Nothing Day is a day to examine over-consumption, as well as create awareness amongst consumers of this very issue. Consumers, those who are the culprits of over-consumption cannot participate in this protest if they are not made aware through advertising in the media. However, even if made aware through the media of Buy Nothing Day, one has to wonder how effective the day’s purpose would be. The vast majority of consumers would not take this day into account if they needed to purchase something…or even if they merely wanted something that isn’t a necessity. In fact, I’d be willing to bet a large sum of money (which I don’t have, but I’m speaking figuratively) that a store such as Wal-Mart makes 75% of the average amount of money made daily on Buy Nothing Day, if not more. Unless Buy Nothing Day was considered a civic holiday, meaning malls and stores were closed, consumers will likely purchase what they need at the current moment being November 25th, thus disregarding the objective of Buy Nothing Day.

PS – Wikipedia states “Despite controversies, Adbusters managed to advertise Buy Nothing Day on CNN, but many other major television networks declined to air their ads.”

I don’t watch the CNN news (despite the fact that it’s probably the most legit of all television networks). When I watch the news it’s usually on Global, CityTV, or CTV. Thank you Wikipedia, for confirming my intelligence, if you want to call it that. Woohoo!