Former ad exec Kalle Lasn didn't want you to buy anything last Friday. S/he is protesting our consumerist culture with 'Buy Nothing Day,' asking people not to buy anything on the day after Thanksgiving. Wired caught up with him/her recently:
. . .the anti-holiday's founder, who acknowledged the internet's role in making BND a global protest movement, but decried the laziness of many bloggers and the digital generation's disengagement from the real world.
Wired News: How are you using the internet to spread the word about BND?
Kalle Lasn: BND was a relatively insignificant event in its early days. It wasn't until we put the campaign on the internet that it took off worldwide.... That synergy that we created on the internet was what really launched BND into the worldwide event that it is today....
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart's plan to destroy the Earth continues unabated. And s/he says we're disengaged from the real world?
About that. Here's another howler:
People who grew up with the internet or iPods, that whole digital revolution, are the first generation that spend more time in the electronic environment than they do in the natural environment. So 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.You know, the real world - where you have to have clothes to wear, and food to eat, and a roof over your head that Lasn apparently thinks you can just miracle into existence, because s/he
I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and spent $400 on Black Friday. It would have been $500 except I had a 20% discount. Does this mean Kalle Lasn hates me only 80%?