I’m going to buy something on “Buy Nothing Day.”

Buy Nothing Day: On November 25th people around the world will work to create awareness about over-consumption.

I’m staring at my computer with a “stank” face. I have a “stank” face because I’m looking at the Adbusters website for “Buy Nothing Day.” What a ridiculous idea; I mean, it’s a great idea, but a ridiculous motion – no one is not going to buy nothing for one day, or turn off their cars and electricity for 24 hours – we live in a society that depends on electricity and motor transportation… most of us aren’t Amish anymore. What if you live on residence and have to buy dinner for yourself? What if you have a project due the next day, and you need a night-light to write it out? Or what if you run out of toilet paper, and you have to go real bad? In this context, it would be kind of hard for some people to not buy anything for one day. But this campaign isn’t dwelling on the necessities, it’s dealing with over-consumption, and its objection is to inform people of how much they spend on useless “wants,” and not “needs”.
Chuck Klosterman tackles this notion in his book, “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.” In the second chapter of the book, Klosterman analyzes the video game “The Sims,” and his role as SimChuck (his character). After realizing that he was playing a virtual replica of his own life, Klosterman decided to get answers from the creator of the game.
“However, [Will] Wright bristled when I suggested that The Sims is mostly a glorification of consumerism that ultimately suggests happiness is available at the mall… ‘Materialism is the red herring of the game,’ he says. “Nobody seems to pick up on that. The more you play, the more you realize that all the stuff you buy eventually breaks down and creates all these little explosions in your life. If you play long enough, you start to realize that those things won’t really make you happy.’… Once again, Wright bristled; he asked if I was talking about the little person in my computer or the little person in my own mind. I told him that it was hard to tell the difference, because we both seemed to be doing the same shit ad neither of us knew why” (Klosterman, 23).
After speaking with Will Wright, Klosterman realized that he, and himself as SimChuck, were caught up in materialism. In the end, he found that in both his real life, as well as his reality Sim life, his possessions didn’t mean anything, and they didn’t make him any happier.
The objective of “Buy Nothing Day” is exactly the object of The Sims: in order to complete the game, you have to realize that material possessions aren’t important.


Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs a low culture manifesto. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.

"Buy Nothing Day Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters." Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters Journal of the mental environment. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .