Buy Nothing Day

Buy nothing day as stated by the official website is a day “to unshop, unspend and unwind.”(http://www.buynothingday.org/faq.html) Essentially it is a day in which you avoid purchasing anything. This could be taken as lightly as not purchasing anything at the mall if you happen to be there, or as heavily as not using your electricity for the entire 24 hours.

In my opinion this is a great idea to raise awareness on over-consumption. I am very sure that taking an entire day to “unshop” in the words of the website, would shed a very strong light on how deeply we as humans are attached to the idea of consuming, and purchasing. This idea is even appearing in video games as Chuck Klosterman muses in his critique of the popular EA title “The Sims”. In such a situation “SimChuck” is prompted to buy a new TV because as real Chuck began to realize very quickly when playing the game that “The happiness of the characters is directly proportional to the shit you elect to buy them.” (Klosterman, 18) As Klosterman flips through the seemingly endless catalogue his eyes fall upon many items, but more specifically the “Soma Plasma TV” as “Buying this item for $3500 increases the owner’s fun rating by six full points.”(Klosterman, 18) Now I can hardly imagine that the human psych is so intertwined with consumerism that we unconsciously have an ingrained “fun-o-meter” for lack of a better word. However EA seems to be onto something for it seems that every time I feel the least bit upset, my mind immediately jumps to purchase something to fill the void. “What the Sims suggests is that buying things makes people happy because it takes their mind off being alive.”(Klosterman, 19)

I guess what this site is indirectly promoting is the concept of actually dealing with your issues without buying the tissues, and confronting your problems directly as opposed to filling the void with a purchase. This seems to me like a justifiable cause, and after learning about this challenge I will defiantly make an effort to consume less, “At the very least [I’ll] save a bit of [my] hard-earned cash!”(http://www.buynothingday.org/faq.html)

"Buy Nothing Day." Buy Nothing Day. Web. 24 Nov 2009. .

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.