Reverend Billy smoothed his peroxide-blond hair and white suit, and proclaimed a novel solution to the US economic crisis: “Stop shopping.”
Reverend Billy is not a real reverend and his Church of Stop Shopping is not a real church.
But the faux pastor, William Talen, proclaimed what he called a very real message on so-called Black Friday, the busiest US retailing day of the year.
Joined by a brass band and congregation of about 100, many wearing green elf outfits, Reverend Billy danced around New York’s Union Square to promote “Buy Nothing Day.”
“Stop shopping, start dancing!” the faithful chanted under the eye of bemused policemen and rather more amused passersby.
Finally, the reverend and his flock halted outside a Starbucks cafe, bete noire of anti-capitalists.
“Friends,” Reverend Billy exhorted, his face and hands raised preacher style. “Friends, boycott Starbucks!”
The elves lifted their palms to the heavens: “Boycott Starbucks, boycott Starbucks!”
In a country where consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of economic activity, malls are the engine room of the economy.
And Black Friday, the first day of the commercially vital Christmas shopping season, is a crucial date in the retail calendar — even more so this year as stores slashed prices to lure fleeing customers.
The Church of Stop Shopping is on the margin of most debate here, but the crashing economy has left Reverend Billy and his elves feeling justified. Their supporters outside the US will mark Buy Nothing Day on Saturday.
“The chain stores and big boxes financed by Wall Street have isolated and hurt our families and hurt our planet,” Reverend Billy said as he caught his breath in the chilly afternoon. “Consumerism is not something you can build society on.”
Beth Sopko, a 46-year-old member of the brass band called the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, said “maybe now people will understand that shopping is not a cure-all. Shopping doesn’t save you.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, shoppers hunting gifts in the red and white tents of Union Square’s Christmas village took little notice.
However, there were expressions of sympathy.
“We’re constantly bombarded with messages that spending more makes you feel better, but that’s just not true,” said Ben Grosscup, 26, an organic farming organizer from Minnesota.
New Yorker Barbara Williams, 57, at first took the Rude Mechanical Orchestra for nothing more than more Christmas season street entertainment.
But she too thought the pranksters “have a point.”
“Still, I believe ‘moderation in all things,’” added the former teacher and saleswoman, who said the economic slump had left her struggling to find new work. “It’s true we’re tempted to spend on things that we don’t need, but you can’t exactly stop shopping, can you?”
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