Spent force

Buy Nothing Day is supposedly being observed in 65 countries today – coinciding with America’s biggest shopping fiesta of the year – although its novelty is waning, even for the fella who started it all. Locally, a zombie walk through the Eaton Centre was beaten to the punch by a similar event with less diabolical intentions before Halloween. BND founder Kalle Lasn is now expressing contempt for the kind of sedition nurtured by the internet: "There are a number of people who think they are activists if they start a blog and talk sustainability," he tells Wired. The publisher of Vancouver-based Adbusters now wants to encourage the younger generation to step away from their computers. Well, the Canadian malls will only be more crowded according to this week’s survey from the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft, conveniently crowing that 40 per cent of people in this country are too paranoid about identity theft to shop online – compared to just 24 per cent stateside. This clashes with a study from the Retail Council of Canada, who claim "a meaningful number of Canadians are showing interest in online shopping during the holiday season". But less interest in meaningless statistics from companies helping news outlets whip people into a holiday shopping frenzy, given how the political pollsters will be taking precedence this year. As for the founder of Buy Nothing Day, tells Wired he’s ready for a brand new beat: "We are definitely going to try and launch social-marketing campaigns that encourage people to just unplug, just to pull out of the virtual electronic environment and try to live more than half their lives in the real world." Sounds like he’s run out of half-witted media-baiting gimmicks like the Blackspot sneaker and TV-B-Gone.

Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is [Wired News]