|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
National Buy Nothing Day / Culture Jam |
Current rating: 0 |
by Radical Librarian
Email: jacobs (nospam) uiuc.edu (unverified!) |
22 Nov 2001
Modified: 24 Nov 2001 |
|
Fanclubbers say: Friday November 23rd is National Buy Nothing Day or for a twist, some folks are buying and immediately returning merchandise! To get more info, check out Adbusters website. |
Friday Sept. 23rd (or Saturday the 24th across Europe) is Buy Nothing Day!! (Forwarded by Radical Librarian)
We are a culture jamming group planning an action next Saturday 24 November (23 November in North America) on Buy Nothing Day. We need your help!
We are going shopping we want you shop too! We say don't buy nothing ....BUY EVERYTHING.....and then return it telling the shop why you are 'not satisifed' with their lousy product. Many stores have returns policies proclaiming they'll gladly return your money if you are not completely satisfied.
This is happening globally so you can fake-shop wherever you live. Adbusters are fully behind us, see the page on their web-site about us and we are featured us in the next magazine.
Fanclub is on the main Adbusters Buy Nothing Day page. (On
http://adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/ under UPDATES.)
You can get more info from our website http://www.fanclubbers.org
We want people to do stuff in other cities off their own back. Maybe you can support us in some way to make this a great day out shopping!
Get in touch let us know if you are up for it, tell your friends, spread the word
Fanclubbing = Anti-shopping as art
In this time of hysteria and constant paranoia, when America as being continually told that the patriotic duty of every citizen is to stimulate the economy by "shopping for victory". It's cheering to see that one enterprising bunch of artists is heeding that call in a way that makes at
least as much sense as our leaders' call to shop 'til you drop.
Fanclub are artists charged with a sense of mischief and a mission to throw a spanner in the consumerist machine. Fanclub have taken a fresh look at shopping and invested it with all the thrills you got way back when you shoplifted as a teenager; but this time, it's legal.
They call their version of shopping fanclubbing and they propose you try it out as part of the activities for Buy Nothing Day, an annual worldwide day of anti-consumption, which takes place on November 23rd.
Going shopping on Buy Nothing Day. Surely now: isn't that a bit contradictory? Well here's the catch. Fanclubbing involves going shopping at a store with a 'no-questions-asked' guarantee, buying an object, and immediately returning it for a refund. Then he or she turns right around and repeats the transactions again and again so on and so forth, ad nauseum. All this time, the store grits its teeth, and gets its guarantee tested to destruction.
What Fanclub wish you to do is get out there and do it yourself. Get out there and shop in circles and create your own anti-consumerist culture-jam for Buy Nothing Day. Tills will ring, yet not a penny will be spent, while shutters click and video cameras record the confusion as fanclubbing happens en masse. The results of this will be exhibited on the Internet as an example of what happens when we stop shopping and start playing.
So, is it a prank or is it art? Fanclub don't really care how you view it as long as you think about the nature of consumption. Fanclub want to wipe the smile off the caring face of global capitalism and show a glimpse of its real nature.
Behind the smiles, the 'no quibble' guarantees and the dead-fish stare of customer care lies the truth of a beast that exploits. A beast that doesn't like the taste of its own medicine. Fanclub want to use the ingenuity and humour of the individual to prise open a chink in global commerce's armour.
But Fanclub doesn't want you to stop there. They want to see customization, adaptation fitting fanclubbing to your own needs.
Want to make a point about sweatshop labour? Then go round and round with Nike products. Want to make a point about the mindlessness of entertainment? Buy a television and take it back tell them you don't like the programmes. Fast food get your goat? Try eating your Big Mac and then returning it to McDonalds. Or do you just feel like having a laugh? Do it in costume. Enlist your friends.
Be your own Fanclub.
---------------------------------------------------------
FANCLUB's webpage: www.fanclubbers.org
R.L. |
See also:
http://adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/
|
|
Another idea: "Just Tip" |
by Joe Futrelle
futrelle (nospam) shout.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
24 Nov 2001
|
Here's another idea which I tried to great success yesterday. Go into a service establishment with a tip jar (like a coffeeshop), and just leave a tip. Don't buy anything, just tip.
This bypasses the owners and pays the employees directly. |
