If you’re gonna take a stand against rampant consumerism and all-encompassing commercial exploitation of everything that moves, abstaining for a day is pretty fucking weak. How about “Buy Nothing EVER”? Certainly a more ambitious plan, but if you’re gonna be cheap most of the time anyway, you might as well embrace an activist agenda (hopefully distracting others from your personality defects).
There is something on the Adbusters site about “Buy Nothing All Year” which eloquently talks about bartering for goods and services, but I’ve got two non-philosophical hang-ups with this :
1) my ISP isn’t down with this bartering thing. They want cash, cheque or credit card payment in exchange for reading Adbusters’ wildly entertaining fantasies. I offered to mow their lawn, but no dice.
2) the plan seems sensible, if a bit utopian. But nowhere does Adbusters explain how I’m supposed to get a $29 DVD player
(Xmas shoppers go berserk upon hearing the news that Jandek’s ‘The Door Behind’ is on sale for $7.99)
In the midst of MP3/flat-screen mania, I am feeling a bit sad for the toy companies. Perhaps they shouldn’t have laughed so hard when I proposed the Fur-covered Slinky.