So today is one of my favorite days of the year, as far as activism goes. It’s Adbusters’s Buy Nothing Day. The idea is to backlash against the uberconsumerism that is the Day After Thanksgiving by, well, not buying anything.

It’s, as they say, “A 24-hour moratorium on consumer spending. Participate by not participating.”

Also from their Web site:

“Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great‚ but they are band–aid solutions if we don’t address the core problem: we have to consume less. This is the message of Buy Nothing Day.” —Kalle Lasn

A quick perusal of the forums at adbusters.org didn’t bring up any events being planned in Las Vegas, or Nevada for that matter.

But really, you don’t need an event to be involved. Just, buy nothing. That’s all. That’s why I love it: it’s simple.

OK, OK – you’re dying to do more, right? Well, go to adbusters.org and participate by sending a nasty email to MTV for their refusal to give any play to an ad about Adbusters’s Buy Nothing Day. Their excuse? The ad “goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels.” Whoa. Nakedness and violence and stupidity can run amok on their channels, but not thought-provoking anticonsumerism? Whatev.

So if you agree that we consumers could use a little pallet cleansing, and you wish you’d heard about Buy Nothing Day before you’d wasted your morning standing in line at Mervyns, you can partially blame MTV. And send them an email.

Alternately, you can visit Emmily’s charity list post, to pick some causes to donate to in your friend’s name, in lieu of a tangible gift. Or, you can choose to only purchase tangible gifts from companies that are into charitable things themselves. In this case, visit Emm’s holiday shopping list with a purpose post.

Have a great day! Go make or do something pretty.

–Natalie