7 ms·
Buy Nothing Day
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago[flagged]
- jazzyjackson 2y agoI'm recalling Bush insisting we "keep shopping" after 9/11, on one hand a rejection of intimidation, on the other an economic necessity.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoAll four of us are working today. So we're not shopping but we can't really do nothing right now. After work tho - we fully commit to nothing.
- ninetyninenine 2y agoYou mean move all the things I’m buying today to tomorrow day?
- afgrant 2y agoIt’s the same as trying to tell everyone to stop buying gasoline for a day.
- cess11 2y agoOnce a week would be a good start. Like practicing jews do.
- slothtrop 2y agoYeah, I don't like these gestures that are tied to a specific day. It's blue tribe signaling with no real sacrifice necessary. I believe the "minimalism" movement has been far more impactful in the long-run despite fewer adoptees, just by being a trend that capitalized on the benefits in its messaging. Those who optimize for minimalism consume less, but constantly.
- nine_k 2y agoThere are worse things, like switching off light and not using appliances for an "Earth hour", while making the power grid shedding the excess capacity frantically. If you want to make a difference, do something small, but do it every day.
- portaouflop 2y agoSome people find it such a challenge to not excessively consume they have to dedicate a special day for when they manage to not buy something for 24 hours - we’re so cooked
- ziddoap 2y agoI have a sneaking suspicion that the people who excessively consume are not the same people trying to encourage others to not excessively consume.
- nozzlegear 2y ago> we’re so cooked What does this mean in this context?
- potsandpans 2y agoIt means, "were fucked." Toast. Were done for. Stick a fork in us.
- nozzlegear 2y agoBut like, how are we fucked? What has cooked us and what are the effects of the cooking, I guess
- Scene_Cast2 2y agoI actually found Black Friday to help me be less focused on consumerism during the rest of the year. When I want to buy something, I typically jot it down on my "thoughts for BF" list. Then, when everyone is having sales, I can dedicate time and through the yearly purchases. Also helps prevent impulse purchases as well.
- yazzku 2y agoExactly. Plus you get all the discounts scavenging on excess inventory.
- knowitnone 2y agoexcessive inventory of items you don't really need but buy anyway
- skinkestek 2y agoWell some of us buy exactly what we planned to buy, only at cheaper prices, and after verifying with price comparison sites. Beeing unrich[1] for years have given me this skill. I don't frivolously spend money. [1]: wouldn't say poor as I have had a car most of my adult life, but definitely not rich, maybe "not always knowing in advance how to pay for food towards the end of the month" and "being very happy hand me downs" is a good explanation?
- Kwpolska 2y agoThat assumes that Black Friday deals are actual deals and there was no sneaky price increase two days earlier.
- linsomniac 2y agoOr: See if those things I buy regularly anyway are on sale day?
- knowitnone 2y agoEveryday is buy nothing day. Then buy only thing you need is food. Clothing, shoes are my only purchase and those are used. Most expensive purchase are glasses which I keep for over 5 years. Stop with the consumerism -> ego -> hubris.
- mckn1ght 2y agoPfft, look at this one that _buys_ their food instead of growing/hunting/foraging it. Just another mindless sheep suckling at the teet of profit seeking corporations! And I’m sure you built whatever computer you typed your comment on from pure raw materials, and then programmed the OS yourself? These kinds of purity tests have absurd logical conclusions. Why not view people with a little compassion and grace? Look, I’m all on board with reducing consumerism but AFAICT you have plenty of ego and hubris of your own. (Hint: if you’re trying to control others, you have ego.)
- Loughla 2y agoIt's not about buying nothing, to me. It's about being aware of what you're buying to avoid extreme consumerism. If you literally don't buy anything at all, what do you do for fun and entertainment?
- MarcelOlsz 2y agoWhat a perfect website to launch on my birthday haha.
- henry2023 2y agoHBD!
- MarcelOlsz 2y agoThanks!
- IAmGraydon 2y agoSo edgy!
- dang 2y agoRelated. Others? Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38398548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38398548 - Nov 2023 (2 comments) Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29347827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29347827 - Nov 2021 (3 comments) Adbusters: 25 Nov. Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037015 - Nov 2016 (2 comments) Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13036942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13036942 - Nov 2016 (2 comments) Buy Nothing Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4822951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4822951 - Nov 2012 (77 comments)
- jasonsb 2y agoLately, I’ve found it more satisfying to discover a reason not to buy something than to actually go through with a purchase. Now if I get an amazing deal on something that I really need, that's also nice, but most of the time it's just more rewarding to avoid buying unnecessary crap.
- Loughla 2y agoI regularly attend auctions because I buy, restore, and sell vintage woodworking tools as a side gig. The number of people who buy things only because the deal was really good is astounding. You didn't save any money if you don't need the thing you spent money on. I do not, have not, nor will I ever understand that mindset. My family, unless the thing we need is an actual emergency, writes it down on a whiteboard on the fridge. If we still need it 30 days later, we start setting price alerts and cruising eBay and other auction sites. If it survives the month long cooling off period, if we can't find it for half price we definitely don't need it. And as a bonus, we've gotten really good at finding things we actually do need for cheap when we actually need them (like school supplies or food and the like).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- itronitron 2y agoIn Austria, they call that Sunday.
- ratmeadow 2y agoRelated to consumerism; I would recommend reading the book "The Perfection Trap", which has an interesting take on the intersection between our economy and mental health. It really explained a lot for me, kind of an "aha" moment. Regardless of whether you strictly agree with every point made in the book, it does make you cast a critical eye to where we are headed on our current path of consumerism.
- keybored 2y agoHundreds of years of developing a global market economy where every participant is ever-more interconnected and unable to sustain themselves just based on their own group, families and wider community, culminating in the ultimate ideological reverse: blaming the leaf node participants for the economy that they are subject to. Not a contradiction but a demonstration of the fact that the leaf nodes are not the powerful entities in the system; the true powers that be are capable of the bizarre feat of blaming Joe Average for ruining the world. Any Call To Action that can be circumvented by buying all you need for the week on Tuesday so that you can By Nothing On Friday is just part of that ideological problem.
- Animats 2y agoAs we enter the holiday season, always remember that Christmas has two Ss in it, and both of them are dollar signs.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5IXlfJSEi4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5IXlfJSEi4
- Freak_NL 2y agoBlack Friday is one of those imported things we could do without. Did you know shops in the Netherlands are now massively participating in Black Friday? We didn't even have this 'event' ten years ago. Because of our Sinterklaas gift giving event on 5 December people would have been out shopping for presents in any case (like Xmas presents, just earlier and with the OG Santa instead of the Coca Cola dude), so in terms of footfall it doesn't change much, but it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up I guess. Refreshingly, one national household items chain (Dille & Kamille) closed its store in my town today, with a notice stating the staff was out picking up litter around the city centre instead of submitting to the consumerist Black Friday phenomenon. Interesting, but on-profile for their brand. Good deeds are a marketing opportunity too of course.
- nicbou 2y agoIn Japan too. Black Friday has become a meaningless global sales event.
- azaras 2y agoSpain too.
- alecco 2y agoIn many countries the new tradition is slowly raising prices for a couple of months and then do the discount. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all the stupid global corporate propaganda deception campaigns.
- Vinnl 2y ago
- nntwozz 2y agoThe problem with consumerism is a function of money and capitalism, in a perfect world where everything is made 100% free and fair and with no environmental impact the consumption behavior would be the same (or even worse). Would we still consider it a problem then? In Star Trek there is no money and you can replicate whatever you need/want. Is that utopia or are we still doing something wrong?
- paulryanrogers 2y ago> In Star Trek there is no money and you can replicate whatever you need/want. Where does the replicator input come from? What happens to all the matter that's produced? It's a fascinating idea, and I appreciate the exploration of a moneyless society. Yet even in that fiction they so often complain about the replicator quality, trade disputes, and resource wars.
- drdeca 2y agoIt would at least be significantly less of a problem, if items purchased didn’t have such negative externalities as part of their production. I don’t see why a culture significantly less prone to desiring items that aren’t actually all that beneficial, would be incompatible with capitalism?
- immibis 2y agoCapitalism is competition of the elite class based on their ability to sell things. They are incentivized to make people buy more things. A society where the elite class wants to make the lower classes buy more things will never be a society where the lower classes buy few things.
- drdeca 2y agoI guess I should clarify what I mean by capitalism: A combination of relatively free markets (e.g. present day markets) and private ownership of the capital which is used to make goods and services that are then sold. I think this is a relatively standard definition, but I still think it good to say it explicitly. Now that that has been said: What, like lower classes have zero agency regarding their desires? Are advertisements mind control or something? I acknowledge that cultural influences can be strong, and can influence desires like this, but I don’t see why it would be necessary within capitalism that those that hold substantial capital must collectively have a stranglehold on the cultural values of the population. Now, if people with power want to make it so that people in lower classes practically need to buy more things, by making them required for their jobs, that may well be feasible. Like, in a sense this has been nearly done with cell phones, and internet connection. But I don’t think “people buying things because they are needed for their job (or similar)” really counts as the kind of consumerism under discussion.
- sharpshadow 2y agoThe more people participate in Buy Nothing Day the bigger the urge for even higher sales on Black Friday. It’s a win win.
- nkrisc 2y agoMy new favorite holiday. Let’s import it to the US. ‘Tis the time of year when people love to give me and my family loads of shit we don’t want or need. And then it becomes my job to figure out how to best dispose of it all. They’ve given me the best gift of all, another chore I hate. And then I’m obligated to guess what shit other people want when they’re perfectly capable of getting it for themselves if they want. I like the family gatherings. I like seeing everyone and talking and laughing with them. I really do enjoy it. But I dread the part when it’s time to open all the wrapped up shit no one really needs. Even as a kid it made me uncomfortable but I didn’t know why. Looking back I see it was because even then I was realizing I didn’t need more toys and I was learning that even if I enjoyed it or wanted it, that feeling was fleeting and I would soon forget about it. It began to see how wasteful it all was and realize I was happier just not getting more crap I didn’t actually need. No more shit-giving this holiday, just enjoy each other’s company.
- incrudible 2y agoConsumption is good, actually.
- nicbou 2y agoCan you expand on that?
- Spivak 2y agoClearly it's going against the flow of the thread but this is right. All our salaries are paid not by wealthy patrons but by the flow of money through the economy from people buying things. If people actually stopped purchasing goods and services we would find ourselves in a depression and tech jobs are far far from the last to cut. Seems people didn't pay attention to the v in their macroeconomics class. If people don't spend it on things they actually want then the government has to step in and spend it on things they think people want and I assume folks intuitively grok that keeping the central-planning of the economy to a minimum is a good thing. Anti-consumerism can be a good thing for you as an individual or family but it's a virtue that is only afforded to you because most people don't join you.
- immibis 2y agoSounds like we have to destroy the earth or else we will destroy the earth.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoExcept when it's not. Like CSAM or McMansions or lifted trucks.
- ndileas 2y agoOne of those things is not like the others?
- paulryanrogers 2y agoI was trying to point out an absolute, like consumption always being good, doesn't hold with widely different examples. After all, there is nuance when things are consumed. Perhaps I should have phrased it differently.
- angry_moose 2y agoDoes it count if I just bought maintenance things for around the house I needed anyway? Got a free weekend, time to do some repairs I’ve been putting off.
- doublepg23 2y agoWith the advent of Amazon/online shopping. I find there’s a very short “I need X to fix Y problem -> order X on my phone -> Y will be solved Wednesday -> resume my current task”. I don’t feel like my being controlled by the Consumerism Phantom because I ordered some new towels and air fresheners. I tend not to go to the store otherwise except for food shopping which is ideally ALDI and a company I actually enjoy patronizing.
- askvictor 2y agoSerious question: what would be the impact to the economy, if, for one day, no-one spent any money, but did the equivalent amount of spending before or after (i.e. there was no change to the averages)?
- ninalanyon 2y agoThat was easy. I think I'll do it again tomorrow.