I’m on a lot of “green” e-mail lists, and there has been a most entertaining trend amongst the “green” set this year. They pay a lot of lip service to Buy Nothing Day, but they invariably follow it up with an “unless.” You know, buy nothing on the day after Thanksgiving…unless you buy green, buy independent, et cetera.
It’s not Buy Nothing (at Wal-Mart) Day, or Buy Nothing (Unless…) Day. It’s Buy NOTHING Day. (Emphasis on the nothing.)
Now, I haven’t bought anything on the day after Thanksgiving in years and years, but that mostly comes from an aversion to the crowds of shoppers, and not a purely ideological drive. I worked retail for a long time, and the day after Thanksgiving (known as Black Friday for a reason) was the hellish beginning of a hellish season. Buying nothing on the “biggest” shopping day of the year is just about self-protection for me, I am sort of ashamed to admit.
Still, as “cool” as the Buy Nothing Day concept is, I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t really do squat in the long run. People who are going to buy gifts are going to buy them on another day if they refrain from the horror of Black Friday. It’s probably fun to go out and hassle shoppers and get thrown out of malls, and be really public about your own sense of smug, fashionably-mostly-fake anti-consumerism — but how many hardcore shoppers really change their behavior because of a magazine-based pseudo holiday/protest opportunity?
It’s sort of silly. I mean, the concept is admirable in its own way — but like any sort of “action” we’re encouraged to take, it doesn’t change anything systemically. And that’s probably the point.
Not buying anything on a specific day feels like you’re making a stand in a culture of endless consumer pressure. But what about the other 364 days of the year? Does it change your behavior on any of those other days? For a few people, it probably does — but those people were probably already leaning toward change, anyway.
Sometimes I get so very tired of symbolic actions — Buy Nothing Day is no exception.
