Two camps.
For or against.

So this Friday, the Canadian based, anti-consumerist AdBusters magazine is asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding – if only momentary – halt.

Funny that the busiest shopping day in the United States, lovingly known as Black Friday, should occur on the very same day.

Merchants and the media use the term Black Friday to refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers go from being in the red (i.e., posting a loss on the books) to being in the black (i.e., turning a profit). While not an official U.S. holiday, but many employees have the day off (with the exceptions of those employed in retailing and banking), which increases the number of potential shoppers in the stores, buying everything.

Those in the Buy Nothing camp celebrate this quasi-holiday too. AdBusters encourages Buy Nothingers to send in photos of their culture jamming stunts to their website, which in turn inspires others to either plan their own or at least refrain from participating in Black Friday madness, scoring you major David Suzuki points that day.

Now don’t get me wrong, I come from a Cultural Studies background, which has a love-hate relationship with AdBusters. But all of this planning to stunt the shopping with Buy Nothing stunts, I’m sure involved some sort of pre-consumption to acquire the perfect elf, santa or grim reaper costume to really spook the mall rats. All I’m saying here is that the polar bears really don’t care what day you consume, but would prefer if all consumed less everyday.

About the Author: megan
It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood for this young creative professional who blogs about her adventures in downtown Hamilton, cultural treasure hunting, phenomenon analysis, and timbit experiments.

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