December 1st, 2008 / 2:28 pm
Web Hype

Buy Nothingness Day

Adbusters’ Buy Nothing Day, the symbolic commercial day after thanksgiving, passed again in futility. There’s something sadly ironic about a bunch of socialist Canadian intellectuals trying to brand anti-ads to people immune to marketing, and wondering why no one listens. One day, when people study this civilization, the Wal-Mart clerk being trampled to death by shoppers will be read as an allegory of our deep social pathologies.

Not trying to get too existential on your ass, but we are somewhat fucked, so I am hereby launching HTMLGIANT’s Buy Nothingness Day, everyday for the next year. What better way to blend free-market ‘choice’ with the thick vacuum of ontological negation?

Come on people, jump in the Seine.

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18 Comments

  1. drew

      being and nothingness is awesome.

      i tried to read it once but i vomited half way through the first page.

      i had to stop.

  2. drew

      being and nothingness is awesome.

      i tried to read it once but i vomited half way through the first page.

      i had to stop.

  3. Jimmy Chen

      reading it made me feel like Sisyphus, so i went back down the hill

  4. Jimmy Chen

      reading it made me feel like Sisyphus, so i went back down the hill

  5. kathryn regina

      jimmy chen you are the best.

  6. kathryn regina

      jimmy chen you are the best.

  7. pr

      i read some of that in college. i think i liked it. here’s a cool quote by somerset maugham:

      If then one puts aside the existence of God and the possibility of survival as too doubtful to have any effect on one’s behaviour, one has to make up one’s mind what is the meaning and use of life. If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good to come nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer to one of these questions is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.

      i’m planning on rereading the stranger -camus was another strange french dude- soon for this thing i’m working on…

  8. pr

      i read some of that in college. i think i liked it. here’s a cool quote by somerset maugham:

      If then one puts aside the existence of God and the possibility of survival as too doubtful to have any effect on one’s behaviour, one has to make up one’s mind what is the meaning and use of life. If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good to come nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer to one of these questions is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.

      i’m planning on rereading the stranger -camus was another strange french dude- soon for this thing i’m working on…

  9. Ken Baumann

      The Stranger is one of my favorites.

      Sartre is badass.

  10. Ken Baumann

      The Stranger is one of my favorites.

      Sartre is badass.

  11. Ken Baumann

      Essays in Existentialism is thick but worth it.

  12. Ken Baumann

      Essays in Existentialism is thick but worth it.

  13. drew

      re: camus – read the plague, amazingly awesome.

  14. drew

      re: camus – read the plague, amazingly awesome.

  15. Jimmy Chen

      i liked ‘the wall’ alot.

  16. Jimmy Chen

      i liked ‘the wall’ alot.

  17. Blake Butler

      liquidation rites is far and away his greatest
      far and away
      a masterpiece of understatement
      a tour de force
      one of the top 8 books according to the village voice’s gay pages

  18. Blake Butler

      liquidation rites is far and away his greatest
      far and away
      a masterpiece of understatement
      a tour de force
      one of the top 8 books according to the village voice’s gay pages