Saturday was Buy Nothing Day.Digital Media Manager HOWARD DAVIS reports.

In 1993 Kalle Lasn organised the first Buy Nothing Day - a rather unsubscribed event aimed at America and Canada. This year Buy Nothing Day was celebrated in 45 countries.

Kalle Lasn is the author of Culture Jam - a meditation on the globalisation of consumerism - and the founder of the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which he describes as "the journal of the mental environment".

Spreading more by word of mouth than by any real attempt at advertising, the Internet has played an integral part in the growth of Buy Nothing Day, a day which encourages people not to shop for things they do not need.

And nothing seems more apt. At the dawn of a new Millennium shopping is more of a pastime than a necessity in this consumer dominated society.

A slow-burning cultural revolution seems to be coming upon us, as highlighted by the protests in Seattle - and closer to home in London - last year.

Just last month the Guardian ran a three-part supplement called Dumb looking at the effect consumerism is having on the national consciousness; Naomi Klein's much lauded book No Logo, another diatribe on global corporatism, is being extolled as the new bible to counter the Sodom and Gomorrah state of Capitalism; and the most influential band of recent history, Radiohead, are vocal in the abhoration of the vested interest of multi-nationals and their effect on society.

In America Buy Nothing Day fell on the day after Thanksgiving, usually the biggest day of the American shopping calendar. In the UK, Buy Nothing Day fell on the last Saturday of November.

However, not everyone is impressed by the suggestion that we should forego buying items we do not need. In a move positively dripping with irony, Lasn tried to advertise Buy Nothing Day on the TV last year with an ad that ended: "Americans are the most voracious consumers in the world, A world could die because of the way we North Americans live. Give it a rest. November 24 is Buy Nothing Day."

The advert was vetoed by all but one TV station, despite all having free airtime to sell.

So, as the season of goodwill approaches and we dive headfirst into the maelstrom of Christmas shopping, it is worth remembering Buy Nothing Day.

As we wander around the soulless, Americanised out-of-town shopping malls buying copious amounts of socks and handkerchiefs we should remember that the average worker in the United Kingdom works more hours than any other European. Do we really want to spend our precious leisure time looking for ways to spend our wage the minute we get it?

www.adbusters.org

www.buynothingday.co.uk