Damn it! It’s so cold today that I didn’t want to go out shopping, and there isn’t anything I want to buy right now. Plus I can’t stand crowds. I’m just not cut out to be a shopper. But on the other hand I hate it when people tell me not to do something, and I don’t like the Buy Nothing Day idea. It just strikes me as too contrived.
Mindless activist follower types bring out the natural contrarian in me. Anything that activists want me to do, I tend to instinctively want to not do. And vice versa. In this case, though, the problem is compounded by the fact that they want me not to do something that I already don’t want to do.
But reading stuff like this makes me want to hightail it to the nearest shopping center:
It just might be the most well-known holiday on the activist calendar.
Across North America on Nov 23, and around the world a day later, thousands of activists will take part in mass Santa meditations, credit-card cut-ups, zombie walks through malls and conga lines of non-shoppers with empty carts in the aisles of Wal-Mart.
It’s all part of Buy Nothing Day, the annual celebration of anti-consumption that asks consumers to spend an entire 24 hours without reaching for their wallet, which from its humble beginnings in Vancouver in 1992 has spread to over 65 countries.
Something about the conga lines of non-shoppers with empty carts just irritates me. I feel like just going out and buying something.
In fact, right now I’m ready to buy anything!
The Buy Nothing Day people link their cause to Global Warming, of course, and they are also trying to insinuate religion into it:
LOS ANGELES – Buy Nothing Day is getting a Jesus jolt. Performance artist Bill Talen assumes the persona of Reverend Billy, often accompanied by a gospel choir, to use the histrionics and cadences of a televangelist (think Jimmy Swaggart) in an anti-consumerism effort to convert people to his “Church of Stop Shopping.”
And for this year’s Black Friday shopping frenzy, Talen is upping his profile with a colorful campaign promoting a new documentary film about his efforts, “What Would Jesus Buy?”
The piece links the Adbusters web site, which offers a litany of complaints, like this one about the “‘vicious cycle’ of consumerism”:
– the chronic overwork to be able to spend more; the social disintegration resulting from overwork; the environmental damage caused by consumer waste; conflict over resources to supply consumer demand. In other words, a myriad of problems loosely bound by the innocent desire for an iPod or a luxury car collection.
Geez, I had no idea that an innocent desire for an iPod was part of such wickedness.
Needless to say, Jesus is like totally behind Buy Nothing Day!
I should have known that shopping was for secular hedonists who hate God!
Hmmm…..
Maybe I still have time for a spitefully Satanic shopping spree.
Comments
2 responses to “God hates shopping too?
(Doh. Why do you think they call it BLACK FRIDAY?)”
Eric, I would like to take this opportunity to announce on your blog that it is my full intention to spend other people’s money on stuff this holiday season. That’s right, whatever gets dropped in my tip jar between now and December 31st 2007 will be spent during that period of time or a few days later (depending on how long it take to transfer it from PayPal to my checking account). I do this not because I’m sending a message to the self-important. I do this not to support our economy in its time of trouble. No, I’m doing this because I’m hoping to have tons of money to spend.
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the more you drop in my tip jar, the more of your money I’ll have to spend on stuff you’ll never see. Why, with sufficient largess on your part I’ll be spending it on a new iMac (this short term fix I just got is proving to be more short term and less fix than I’d thought it would be).
Help Mythusmage make a mockery out of the spirit of the season, contribute today! (I do hope I don’t have to emphasize the necessity of these contributions being excessive.)
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the more you drop in my tip jar, the more of your money I’ll have to spend on stuff you’ll never see. Why, with sufficient largess on your part I’ll be spending it on a new iMac (this short term fix I just got is proving to be more short term and less fix than I’d thought it would be).