Just some additional advertising for todays boycott.
Lots of naysayers trying to convince everyone not to participate, or to fragment efforts with competing ideas.
So much of our consumer culture is buying shit we don’t need like impulse buys and stupid movies and fast food. That’s profitable stuff, and skipping that for one day doesn’t mean you’ll just buy it the next day.
I don’t get this plan.
Even if people don’t shop one day, they will buy postponed items next day.
You are organizing the wrong thing, you need to build a platform and a troll farm.
European here. So how did this go yesterday? News coverage?
So what I dont understand is, even if one were to do a week long blackout of buying anything, we would still need to get milk and eggs and crap. So is the idea to switch from amazon to other stores or not spend altogether? Because not spending altogether is a pretty stupid and unrealistic goal.
One day won’t do much. I took it as a sign it was time to delete the Amazon and Walmart app from all my devices and move onto other services.
So… anything is a comic strip nowadays it seems.
I didn’t know about this and still participated by accident. What I’m trying to say is that if 1 day counts as boycott I’m severely concerned by the overreliance the general public has on those companies.
We need PERMANENT boycotts. DON’T GO BACK!! Abandoned them and leave them to rot.
Follow what I see every Canadian is doing in the grocery store. Look up the brand and if it’s American put it back and add to the permanent no buy list.
As an American I use Goods Unite Us to look up political contributions before buying
I second this app, I’m a big fan of the campaign finance reform score. If you want an easy way to fight the citizens united ruling, this is it.
Also want to give a shout out to https://www.opensecrets.org/. their site isn’t as easy to use as goods, but the have a lot more data and if you can’t find info about a company or politician on goods you can usually still find it on open secrets.
oh look. spaceX is at the top of 2024.
https://lemmy.socdojo.com/comment/963871
You may have just answered a specific wish I’ve had for a while… Thanks much
Just as a disclaimer, there are 10 trackers that Exodus detected that are embedded in this app. I’m not saying don’t use it, just promoting awareness.
Good to know. I don’t actually use the app since the website is fine, and I have Firefox with ublock origin for that. Appreciate the info though!
I did this for Facebook and some other companies like X and avoiding using Walmart back in 2010.
I mean im american but im pretty much like this. A bit limited with my wife but we don’t buy subscriptions, don’t have smartphones, and are getting our stuff second hand a lot now. Granted this has been a thing with us thats just been growing for like the last decade. Essentially we have just gotten more and more serious about and emphasizing more the first two parts of reduce, reuse, recycle.
I’m sure this one day boycott will be just as effective as the others were.
If you want results you need to put in time and have a target. Conservatives didn’t boycott beer, they boycotted Bud Light. They didn’t do it for a day, they did it until Bud Light gave up. Say what you will about the “why” of it, but it was effective.
I posted another comment but they are effective if strong enough. If their metrics crash today it will worry them. Later if it can be followed up by two days, three, a week. Its a message. There are some more targeted ones on the calendar to. Might have actually been more effective for the artist to do a remember one yesterday but then again its nice to do a solidarity one today. We shall see how much people care to send a message or not.
You’re assuming anybody outside of Lemmy even knows about this. I haven’t seen any indication of that.
I have, I received texts from friends and family about this protest that don’t even know what the fediverse is.
I don’t hang on other social media but im on them. my condo has a facebook page and I am looking for work on linkedin. I have seen it on these. but I can’t speak the the popularity because I only use these things the minimum necessary although the fact I saw them at all maybe says something.
A co-worker’s parents asked her about it and my coworker asked if I heard about. I think it’s spread further than you think.
The reality is that this blackout might not change the world, but it can send a message about how united people are.
I’m a cashier, I was pleasantly surprised when a customer mentioned the blackout to me on Monday. I didn’t think anyone was talking about it offline. I’m hoping with all my heart that work is dead slow today, but knowing how backwards the people in my town are, I know it’s a Pipedream.
My boss’s boss mentioned it to me last week. I would be astonished if he was on any social media. Then again, he surprises me pretty regularly.
They mentioned it on NPR during the hourly news headlines yesterday.
It’s a little bigger than that friend. It was on NPR this morning, FYI.
yup. all the news broadcasts. this is day of though and outlets had articles over a week ago about it.
Doing boycotts like this one is putting in time and having targets. No one thinks a single day of boycotting will change the world, it’s part of the process.
One thing that definitely won’t get results is listening to people like you who shit on every effort to get a movement going, which is happening. There will be a next step, and another, and maybe one of those steps could be boycotting a single company or product like the Montgomery bus boycott or Pepsi during apartheid.
Be constructive and not negative.
I laid out what an effective boycott looks like with a specific recent example that accomplished what it set out to do. I’m not sure how much more constructive I can be. What would you consider to be constructive if not that?
People have absolutely gotten to a point where they don’t want any criticism even if it is meant to help us come up with plans.
No plan or idea should be single in origin and it’s by the back and forth we find plans… But people are either right or wrong with no in-between in western culture.
Maybe, “This is good but y’know . . [example]” more than “this is dumb, a real [example]”
Retailers don’t give a shit about nobody buying anything on a particular day, if they’re all back the next.
This is a stupid idea.
I mean the point of it isn’t to deprive retailers of one day of profits altogether, it’s to show how much a sustained refusal to shop would hurt them. Whether or not it’s effective depends on how many people participate.
I don’t think it’s going to be effective, but I’m not going to be the reason it’s not. I can pick up my dish soap tomorrow
Another thing it does is helps people realize what power they have, even if one day of boycotting has zero impact on the economy or businesses. It gets those people who are participating started taking action, and thinking about their actions in the context of politics.
It’s a very easy first step, and if people find that they can do a day, maybe they’ll be okay with trying a week next time, or maybe showing up at a town hall seems easier. This is arguably more about getting people involved in the movement than actually sticking it to the corporations/oligarchy. That will come. But asking people who live paycheck to paycheck to boycott corporations for more than 2 weeks would be a huge ask without building up to it first.
This. It gets people used to the idea and shifts the Overton window of protesting, if you will. It’s only the conservatives over on lemm.ee that don’t like that idea.
Yeah, this is basically a trial balloon. How many people can we get to do this thing? Then, once you know, organize something that packs a bit more punch.
I don’t knock the fact that things need to be done, but a general strike would be more effective if you want them to notice what an economic blackout would look and feel like. No company is looking at profits at a one day scale, so point blank, no one up top is going to see any effect from this. The fact people are still going to get what they need, but just on a different day means the only ones who noticed this or were affected by it were the ones who participated not the rich fucks getting paid tomorrow instead of today. We need to work towards tangible goals that have something that can be measured and affect real change, not cause more people to feel apethic when their efforts go unrewarded.
I mean the point of it isn’t to deprive retailers of one day of profits altogether, it’s to show how much a sustained refusal to shop would hurt them. Whether or not it’s effective depends on how many people participate.
yeah but its not a question of whether or not it would hurt them, the answer is yes, you cant make money if people don’t buy shit.
Weird little story, but i’ve never seen a company do any sort of accounting for this kind of problem.
“That’s not going to do anything” They said, sitting on their asses, doing nothing, while others fought for change.
You can find this style of argument in virtually all discussions about protests and about whether they are okay or even effective.
Idk & idgaf, but you can’t deny, that this makes the whole issue a lot more visible than just doing nothing.
First, not going shopping for one day isn’t “fighting for change”, it’s doing the bare minimum to feel like you’re actually doing something.
Second, boycotts work, absolutely, but this isn’t a boycott. This won’t affect the overall sales numbers of these stores, just move them to a different day.
Finally, what are their demands exactly?
you can’t deny, that this makes the whole issue a lot more visible than just doing nothing.
Yes I can. Because what fucking issue is this about? What are the goals this protest is trying to achieve?
Making a fuss about nothing, and doing nothing with any lasting effect, is not a protest.
Having worked retail sales earlier in my life and working as a developer in e-commerce in later parts, single day drops mean nothing. They’re often a statical anomalies, even when there is a “reason” for it. If the business is short on monthly or quarterly goals they can always make up a single day loss with a strategic sale or product marketing & placement.
If we really want to hurt these companies, we need to orgaize larger than a single day of “fuck you”. A single day might be good for awareness, but TBH, it’s comes across more as virtue signaling and enabling social media bragging “I’m doing my part for TODAY”.
All that said, I am doing my part for today, and have been doing my part for quite some time now, and will continue doing my part for the coming months and years.
I used to deliver pizza, a long time ago.
The weather had a huge effect on sales, not just overall volume, but time and whether people ordered delivery or collected.
On cold and rainy days, for example, we got hammered on deliveries.
The people running big stores know this, they aren’t stupid.
It makes me think this is more of an effort to get people to feel apathetic. Get them trying to do something that they thought might create change but had no real material effect. What we need is a general strike if we want them to take notice. No garbage man cleaning the trash, no janitor cleaning the shit stains in their executive office, no valet making them park themselves, no drivers to drive their drunk coked up asses around, no cooks to prep their meals, no assistant reminding them they can’t keep track of their head without the people they try and fuck on a daily basis. That is something that even just a day would have them shitting bricks, and with no one to clean up for them, they would have to fester in the shit show they have made. That’s the only way we get them to take notice and realize the masses are serious about change.
I swear to god Americans will make any excuse they can to stay apathetic. You spent more energy bitching about it here than it takes to actually follow through.
They’ve repeatedly stated that the goal is to get people used to participating in an boycott while working towards doing it for a week or longer. It’s not supposed to have a huge impact.
This why I have no hope for America. We act like a protest should get us what we want overnight when in reality we’ll need sustain pressure in multiple ways for YEARS to have a real impact. It isn’t about doing one thing, it’s about doing everything you can.
Reddit/Lemmy bitches and moans when people don’t organize and bitches and moans when they do.
Where did I ever state that I didn’t participate? You are allowed to critique efforts and add constructive ways to improve these efforts. This particular goal is limited in where it has effect a better effect would be organizing general strikes. Donate to setup food banks with local growers, this way we have supplies that don’t rely on going to stores for food. Organize members to start a general strike. Do it first in captial rich areas, you don’t need to shut down your small local town but the areas where politicians and the uber wealthy aggregate. Come with supplies to help these people be able to shut down general services. Get support from small town doctors to set up popup clinics in the areas where these strikes will happen so the locals arent shit out of luck but turn down the rich and political class. This then puts pressure on those who need to feel it. And that would work better than boycotting amazon for a couple days when the cash cow for these companies really holding our society by the balls are data centers and cloud computing services. You don’t need the whole country participating in a strike you need to be strategic and apply pressure where it’s felt. Point blank that’s what will have a tangible effect and quickly.
yeah this whole time I was thinking about how folks are willing to put in an aweful lot of effort to say someone elses effort is not worth it. I have to say though I found three accounts to block through this by checking through account histories. either shills or alt fuck around accounts or just folks that don’t seem to interact in what I would consider a humanistic type of way.
It takes a few minutes to add constructive critism and point out where engery is better spent. We need decisive actions that apply the correct pressure at the correct areas if you want to see this cause material change fast as we need it. Read my other comment for how this could actually be achieved. Long story short organizing general strikes in areas where politicians and the uber wealthy aggregate effecting the luxuries they constantly are afforded and stopping the system for them could create more effect while not needing to try and get the whole country to mobilize but localized towns. Donations to local urban farms and small farms to create sustainable food sources if we were to have a general strike. Teaming up with medical providers to shut down hospitals and the like for politicians and the uber wealthy while creating popup clinics to support the locals in the areas these strikes happen would create enormous pressure without needing to try and mobilize the whole of the country.
Not only that but I haven’t seen a single actionable demand by the advertisements for this campaign. It’s a hollow, confused threat that simply doesn’t make sense.
Ironically I haven’t spent money anywhere today but that’s just because I spend most of my life trying not to pay giant chain retailers.
If someone wanted this campaign to work they would have united the whole thing under a banner or a brand, declared that this was not the first protest they would be staging, say something like: “this is only a threat, if companies don’t do X in 3 months we will organize a week-long blackout. Then if they don’t do anything after that week-long blackout we’ll do another one for two weeks or a month.”
That makes sense. That’s negotiation and it’s how you demonstrate the power the people hold.
The X should be something policy-based and actionable. It can be a huge sweeping demand but it has to be actionable. It should not be a laundry list of long term demands. Then, when you get that first demand met you can delay action and keep pushing later since you’ve proven the tactics work.
Compare that to what this protest is doing. It’s pretty far-cry.
I haven’t seen a single actionable demand by the advertisements for this campaign.
That is also a massive issue I have with this. What, exactly, do you want?
Its not a bad idea on its face. A sudden and sizeable shift in public economic activity on a given day would be meaningful if it could be invoked to put on pressure at strategic moments.
But “collective inaction” isn’t enough. I might have taken this more seriously if they were paired with pickets. Perhaps for a reason more explicit than “We’re generically unhappy!” Or if they came from someone I actually know, rather than a graphic plastered on my computer screen.
These seem like political action cosplay. If you’re not in a movement and you’re not using this time to coordinate further actions… hell, you’re not even asking where this meme came from or who authored it… then what are you doing? How is this different than Valentine’s Day, where you see a bunch of memes that tell you to go out and spend extra money? Who are you sticking it to?
That’s the other reason I dislike this idea, “we’re generically unhappy” isn’t really going to change hearts and minds.
You need a specific, actionable goal if you want something to actually change.
Boycott the companies that ditched their DEI initiatives until they bring them back.
What if my actionable goal is crashing the broken economy that’s burning our planet?
Buy fertiliser and diesel.
Everyone knows that puts you on a list
That’s not true, companies are plenty worried about this sort of thing. Look at how Bud light panicked over the kid rock boycott. If he can do it, anyone can.
I have no idea what you’re talking about here, what happened with Kid Rock?
He boycotted Bud Light because they did a promotional campaign that included a trans influencer on instagram. The stock fell 20% and basically made LGBTQ-related promotions a no-go for corporate America since.
The image fits, a kid throwing a tantrum, cause it’s really all they can do. I mean it’s nice to give the staff a slow day but the corporation and the people on top won’t even notice it
P.s. sabotage costs them more
if they’re all back the next.
Don’t worry, nobody is going to buy anything on February 29 either.
Funny enough the only people who are going to feel it are the low level retail managers who are going to get yelled at for not meeting their YoY, and then not a peep the next day when they do double the sales
Senior management at a big retail outlet aren’t stupid, they know sales can be fickle, and store staff don’t have any control over sales on a day to day basis. They will also know this event is happening.
Nobody is getting yelled at over this.
I already minimize the amount of money I spend on superfluous shit and I’m going to need food sooner or later. 🤷
Why tf do I keep seeing posts about boycotts and protests the day they’re happening
not sure but I can say this has been floating around for awhile as part of several on the fediverse with multiple dates. Since this is a cartoon they are just putting this up I think as more support than information. Here is a link from newsweek mentioning it a week or so ago and if you type in google feb 28th blackout you will see how many news places picked it up back then https://www.newsweek.com/nationwide-economic-blackout-february-28-list-stores-being-targeted-2030269 im not wild about the media coverage though as they say its all from one org and define it more narrowly than it should.
Because unfortunately the point of these protests isn’t achieving change, it’s patting themselves on the back for their “positive action” (despite how conveniently non-intrusive said action is their lives and how it requires absolutely zero risk or material sacrifice).
Since the point is to self-congratulate, no reason to wait, I guess.
Because this is the best people who are trying to be singular in deciding a low impact protest for their followers think of and rush to make it happen because instant gratification of a shorter turnaround time feels better with our shorter attention span.
I’m still quite annoyed that this is still thought of as some community action when it is more or less a small group of people getting some of their friends across a large global space to agree that it sounds good and then hope everyone else just agrees and does it with no end goal in sight.
It’s reactionary action without purpose or action.
It’s good people are doing something, but I can’t help but feel it would be way more effective if it was a sustained boycott of targeted businesses. Not buying anything for a year is impossible, but not buying anything from one particular store for a year is possible.
Could you imagine the dread corporate would feel if they saw Banana Republic get boycotted for 2025 and looked at the boycott schedule and their name was listed under 2026?
Yup. One day of no shopping means the big corps just weather a day of lower purchases and the next day people will be buying the stuff they skipped out on friday. It’s hardly a noticeable blip to them.
Yeah as much as id like to see pressures on some corps, I think it is better to target certain corps.
One day, as you said you are just buying the next day, or back loading a day earlier.
Who organizes this shit??? Can I learn about this ahead of time so I don’t see the post literally at 10:30 on the night of the same day??
Like literally
If your protest is convenient it’s a shitty protest. I’m sorry, but this is a shitty protest.
That an corporations don’t care about their daily numbers unless they are trending. Like, people won’t buy stuff today, so they will just go buy the stuff tomorrow. Monthly and quarterly profits took no hit.
Fully agree. While I wholeheartedly support the intent of this protest, it is entirely performative for the sake of the participants, not for the sake of actually affecting change.
Gotta start somewhere with people. The point is that anyone can do this, and it’s easy to do, but it isn’t really any more difficult to show up to a town hall. And while yes, you and I can (and probably do) take larger, more effective steps, longer boycotts, etc. We need numbers, and that, I think, is the real value of this.
A million times zero is still zero. We gain nothing by entirely performative action. Start somewhere, but make it somewhere meaningful.
Removed by mod
No thank you. I’m going to instead continue to rally against treating adults like coddled children and placating them in ways which dis-motivate them from actual collective action by convincing them that they’re already doing collective action. And I’m going to keep criticism bad ideas because good intention alone is not enough. I don’t give a shit about making people feel good or participating in the latest fun leftist trend, I care about meaningful impact.
Feel free to block me if your find your feathers unable to be unruffled.
Why would I block you, you’re your own biggest failure. That you are willing to put it on public display is an amusing commentary to me. Tagged and followed.
I suspect these types of actions are actually counter productive, because they take attention away from movements and causes that actually stand a chance of working, while having little to no effect on the business they’re targeting.
There’s no way enough people took this seriously to move the needle on daily sales more than the regular sales fluctuations these stores would see.
Honest question, what is an accessible first step for a population that has basically never performed any collective action that isn’t performative?
Is standing outside a local government building holding a sign to protest federal policy affecting change?
In my view, at least this one day action has a marginal economic impact. Holding a sign on your lunch break so you can post some pictures to Instagram is way more performative.
How about pooling money together and starting a competing co-op?
I agree! So let’s all stop spending today to get people on board and save a few bucks, then use that momentum to pool that money the next day.
People seem to dislike this protest because inaction is seen as ineffective and opposed to active protest. Its “too easy”, which puts a bad taste in their mouth.
But on the other hand:
- its dead easy
- has no barrier to entry
- has no regressive downside on those unable to spend
- even partial participation can add up
- is simple to communicate and organize
- doing it for one day makes it easy to see how you could do it for longer. The hardest part of any diet is when you just start out
If anything, I see putting the economic brakes on as allowing for more leverage and room to organize. If work is slow maybe you have more time to attend that protest; maybe you’re not in a rush to get back to the shop if it’s closed early.
But it doesn’t have marginal impact. It has zero impact. Whether you spend money on Thursday or Friday, the bottom line is the same. We are starting from the false premise that this has any impact, when the smallest amount of critical thought renders that false immediately.
Yes, get the hell out and stand in front of government offices with signs. Make noise. Be seen. Do anything other than pretending keeping your items in your shopping cart for one additional day has any impact.
That’s completely backwards. It costs elected officials and our corporate overlords LITERALLY nothing to ignore your protest. It’s bad PR at best. Even then, manipulating news coverage, headlines and soundbites is second nature to these people.
How long would an economic strike have to be for it to have an impact you won’t handwave away? There could be prepped food on shelves today that gets thrown out tomorrow. Do it over a weekend and no tickets get sold to a show. Do it for a week and logistics starts getting fucked up.
Standing around and making noise without any other change to your lifestyle or attempting to organize your efforts is completely hollow. Not to mention, infinitely less accessible to people who can’t afford the time or don’t have the physical ability to attend.
Do it for a week and logistics starts getting fucked up.
Yes, change the entire nature and scope of the protest and it might be impactful, I agree with you.
Do it over a weekend and no tickets get sold to a show.
…do you think people are still primarily buying event tickets from in-person box offices same day?
The point is that it has an impact that you’re arbitrarily ignoring. If you scale your sign holding and chanting up to 3 million people in a state capital then it might be impactful as well.
The key here is which of these is a more accessible and reasonable thing to ask people to do as a first action? Is it easier to organize 3 protests of 50,000 people in a month or have 500,000 cut their spending in half for a month?
Businesses tend to notice trends during economic upswings/downturns. To date, consumer spending has been steadily rising in no small part thanks to upward pressure on wages and inflationary pressure on prices. If we’re entering a recessionary spiral, you won’t need to have a “No Spending Day”. People will reflexively cut their spending when they lose their income.
Something like this might have more teeth if it was paired with protest marches or sit-ins or other actions intended to signal that prices had run away from incomes. But that doesn’t seem to be the message this meme is sending. Nobody is getting encouraged to stand outside a Target and wave a big sign that says “Stop Bird Flu! Make Eggs Cheap Again!” or picketing an Amazon Warehouse over low wages and long hours.
I disagree with both the premise and the conclusion. Even if skipping corporate stuff for a day is only a mild inconvenience, that is still obviously not convenient. Second, there’s no reason to suspect convenience should strongly impact effectiveness. How much did it inconvenience anyone to boycott South Africa in the 80s?
Maximizing effectiveness for unit of effort is smart. And when a tiny change in share price can make a big difference in CEO compensation, we’d be complete masochists not to use that in our favor. But also even if you’re into maximizing pain, if we wanna talk about permanently going after these corporations then it’s gotta start somewhere. And it’s best to start with getting people to do what’s easy.
I might agree if I believed there was any viable impact here, but even 1mil multiplied by zero is still zero.
This does literally nothing unless you make it a consistent thing.
Ok. Make it a consistent thing then. Starting today.
I’m already broke. I’m boycotting everyone except my landlord, Aldis, the liquor store, and my weed/psychedelic bro
What are you guys trying to achieve?
Mindless consumption will happen for the entirety of human civilisation. Übercorps will continue to enshitttify to no end, and people will eat the slop until it runs dry.
Why? Because deep down consumerism is a key pillar in people’s minds. The idea of buying and consuming is an act that must be compleeted, like it’s part of the Ten Commandments or the ending to a Iftar prayer. You see so much of this anti-consumerism rhetoric on social media but I guarantee that everyone in this thread bought something before, after or even on February 28, including the author of this poster.
The reality is, you have no power. People will continue to keep the slop mill running. Unless you want to start a mass brainwashing campaign and completely destroy the world’s economy, useless consumption will remain as a pillar of our society for centuries. This blackout achieved nothing, and further protests and blackouts will not do anything to change the system.
What’s the alternative? We live off the land? We completely stop trade? We live in a solarpunk fantasy that will never be achieved? Sometimes I think of alternatives to combat capitalism, but they always turn out to be 10 times worse.
You can make an impact on yourself, change what you do and consume, but 99% of the population will continue to praise Übercorps and be their personal shitter, making food for flies.
