Just some additional advertising for todays boycott.
Yeah sorry but I gotta go buy grape jelly today.
Never heard of this before. I like it, should be a weekly thing.
We have it every Sunday where I live, government-mandated. Not fun.
That would be something. Just every week we perform less and less economic activity to build up to something. Man a protest where we start at 1 day and build up to the whole week would be actually impressive.
Still likely have limited scope for who could actually participate but definitely be a bit more flushed out. Give time to build up steam and momentum and get a planned reaction.
technically anyone who honors the sabbath would be doing just that (im not religious but used to be somewhat of a religio/philophile).
I think doing a “Whiteout” would be better, where people only shop at pro-humanity or mom n’ pop stores. Costco, Winco, ect. People must spend money for their necessities and to enjoy life, but if that spending can always be directed into the pockets of decent people rather than Bezos, that would be far more impactful than a day of blackout.
In that vein, I think incentive programs to switch people would be ideal. Something like CostCo giving a free membership if you buy an amount of goods equal in value, and a free pizza/rotisserie/hot dog(s) for buying $15 of stuff.
Some are advertising this as anti dei so that would open up some. Like anything there are many grassroots around it so its not a single voice. im on the nothing from me today except for places were its so local I know the owner and their views and how they operate. That being said we are doing nothing today except my wife has a doctors appoinment which ah. we are not going to boycott healthcare as much as we sorta wish we could.
You wish you could boycott healthcare?
yeah its horrible but there is no real choice in it. Sure you can maybe find another doctor or such but in reality you really can’t.
You’ve lost me. Maybe because I’m not American and it wishes differently there.
Why do you want to boycott healthcare?
My partner is a clinical nurse and the local clinic is holding on by the skin of their teeth. Surviving on grant money, and if they go down it’ll be a 30 minute drive to the next town for medical assistance.
our healthcare is privatized shit. you get insurance through work mostly with no choice in what you have and then find a provider that takes it and then they ask for a credit card because the insurance system for billing is hard and they will not work through any issues and charge you but have a maximum out of pocket and if it does not show as coming from insurance it essentially dings you double and oh then they charge 10x the price because the insurance pays 1/10th the price but if they go after you for it they will be looking for the full inflated price and maybe cut you a deal and reduce it 20%. Im sure I missed a whole lot of other horrible things with US healthare but there is so much its hard to keep it all straight. oh every single hospital thing is going to create phone alls and work to get the payment done on the level of doing taxes that is also something you do not really know how bad it is till you do it american style.
I’ve seen other infographics for this protest encouraging that local business is still OK, not sure why it’s not all of them saying that.
So… anything is a comic strip nowadays it seems.
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.
If your protest is convenient it’s a shitty protest. I’m sorry, but this is a shitty protest.
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.
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
I might agree if I believed there was any viable impact here, but even 1mil multiplied by zero is still zero.
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.
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.
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.
Organize something better and shut tf up or just shut tf up. You’re just as bad as them with your piss poor attitude towards people that are at least trying to do something whether it complies with your own personal standards you fail to deliver on yourself, if you weren’t your own biggest failure you would be presenting your initiative piggybacking on this one instead of trying to downplay others.
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.
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?
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’m doing my part on accident by working from home… oh wait I bought something on Amazon this morning sorry :(
A single day isn’t going to do shit
Especially if you just shift when you buy something by a day. You still bought it.
it will for the weekly meeting where they go over metrics. its not going to solve all the problems we face. its not boom do this one thing and done. its just a thing for today for those who want to be part of it. obviously most of the whiners will not, at least I assume. maybe they whine and participate I don’t know. likely a mix.
Thank god I already did my shopping this week.
Thank God you also are fine again tomorrow.
Hey, did you know that half of all day to day retail spending is done by the economically top 10% of the US population.
These are people who for the most part don’t care about economic hardships of the lower classes and have closer to 65% of the liquid assets.They already under spend for their wealth and likely also won’t care about this. And will spend or not and make no impact.
Not to be negative, but to be realistic.
This is pointless.
Like literally without a point or purpose but to “show those business we mean business” and that isn’t an actual point and they don’t care about a 1 day shopping freeze.The reach on this with it already being the day of the protest is already a major hinderance to any progress hoped to be achieved and then we still don’t have a point.
Honestly we need to be deciding what change we actually want to have occur and start steering the ship that way little action at a time as possible but instead let’s just keep trying to make 1 day events a thing with the shock the wealthy see of us standing together enough to make them see the light of God and turn around and change for us. I’m sure that will eventually work even though it never has.
As someone confortably in that top 10% and unfathomably infinitely outside the billionaire club, I hope you know I’m on your side, and I do care.
Annecdotaly, the majority of my peers are as well.
Our complacency is a huge part of the problem.
But for what it’s worth, we’re increasingly waking up to the fact that we’re also quite fucked by all of this, in the long run.
I disagree. Your post is long but boils down to “I don’t think it will work.” Im fine if you choose to do it to humor us and would appreciate it.
It’s “I don’t think it will work immediately, for my specific goals.”
Are you speaking for me?
@HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com said:
Your post is long but boils down to “I don’t think it will work.”
My comment was an indication of what I think your post boils down to.
maybe something got lost in the mix but my reply was to Krauerking. I do find mbins threads get hard to follow after awhile though.
I named you specifically, that’s why you got a notification to my comment.
It boils down to a collection of reasonable thoughts and requests for a good protest and while I am participating through the sheer audacity that I purchase something every day like the people doing shein hauls makes me cringe it does not change my normal economic activity and therefore doesn’t change the companies you hope to take notice bottom line.
It’s about having people actually take some time to have critical thoughts about their actions and the ones we want to do to make changes.
Your dismissal is exactly how this fails to enact change.
The top 10% are split right now. Kamala won handedly with the professional managerial class liberals who form a big chunk of that 10%. A lot of them may not care about poor people, though a lot do, but most of them hate Donald Trump and Elon and what they’re doing to their beloved liberal institutions.
The reach is fine. There were many posts on this prior to today, and even my girlfriend found a post on it from tik tok or Instagram, it has spread. This one may not be that big, but if it does make a blip and the news covers it, then people will be more open and familiar with ideas like this or eventually a general strike.
Before unions became more formalized a lot of strikes would start out with a minority of the most militant workers striking, which would inspire others until the majority got on board. There were cynics like you, often paid by management, telling the militants that it was pointless and they wouldn’t accomplish anything, eroding solidarity, and sometimes if they eroded it enough the strike would break. Sometimes though they were able to push past that, strengthen their resolve and solidarity, and get their demands.
So if you don’t think something will work but support the cause, shut up. Your comments serve to erode solidarity and resolve which helps enemies of the cause. For what? So you can say i told you so when it’s done?
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 Fitr 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.
why not boycott all major corporations every day? it does require a bit of work, but the more money you spend locally, the better your local communities will be
That’s just not how our economy works. “Local” business is not making toilet paper from trees they cut down in their backyard.
I’m probably getting downvoted for this but I hate hate hate this “consumption is power” bull shit boycotts. Consumption is NOT power. LABOR is power. If you work at these large companies you have a million times more power and influence by organizing.
Boycott today if it makes you feel good. But it’s so incredibly missing of the point that I have to assume it is purposely missing the point of collective power.
Your power is in your ability to withhold labor. Not withholding consumption for one day that you’ll just buy the next day. Hell, if these planned organized single day boycotts, if they actually had an impact, would be a way to maximize profits to reduce labor requirements for those days. It’s so silly.
Organize your workplace. That is where your power is!
We need maps of what helps, and how much.
No more saying stuff doesn’t work and misses the point. Only pointing to where it is on the map. Better for organizing.
Sorry. If you’re actually asking but I thought I was pretty clear. Labor organizing is where power is. This starts at YOUR workplace. There are plenty of resources and “maps” to get you started but that is often very unique to your location and place of work. There is not a single meme image that I can post. This takes work. The start of that work is looking for labor organizing movements in your area and place of work. If there are no existing unions or labor movements you can contact the AFL-CIO or other organizations in your field. They can help you learn more about your resources.
This takes work. If I could post a meme image like the OP I would. But it doesn’t work that way. You need to be ready to do work. Talking to your coworkers, agitating, etc.
Chris Smalls is your inspiration but we need 1000 more Chris Smalls throughout the country. Not one day of a consumer boycott.
This is not about being a downer towards any movement. It’s about understanding that class war is always filled with distractions like these single day consumer boycotts that do absolutely nothing. People that are downers about them are trying to direct people towards what should actually be done. It’s not one massive movement out of the blue. It takes a lot of local and small work to even get to having any leverage at that scale.
Once we actually have a massive labor organizing movement in this country THEN the leaders of major unions can call for and organize something like a general strike. But that doesn’t happen on its own because someone posted a “general strike” meme on reddit. It’s takes a lot of work, organizing, and very specific demands, and strike funds.
But this all starts with you and the organization of labor in your workplace.
We are fighting capital. It doesn’t just end up with a bunch of peaceful protests and the capitalist class rolling over and saying “ok you can all have healthcare”. They have all the power of the police, state violence, and media agitating. It’s why you need massive organization, solidarity, and funding for your cause. And most of all very specific and united demands. Otherwise these movements quickly die when people can’t pay their rent or buy food.
I’ve never been in the US but I had the idea that a big slice of the working class in the US fits more the definition of slavery rather than workers. These slaves need to work to provide food and a home for themselves and their family and they can’t mess with their workplace. Wouldn’t it be easier to make voters aware when they vote against their own interests, starting with Trump supporters?
Oh trying to get class consciousness with maga has been going on for awhile and it is/has not been easier and its still ongoing. It actually goes way beyond a slice of the working class to. You have to be pretty high up to not be screwed if you get a medical condition that does not allow you to work and that was before this administration. There are for some reason a lot of folks in this country that firmly believes other people doing worse will make their situation better somehow. Its crazypants.
Okay, what helps? Standing outside Starbucks, Walmart, amazon warehouses, anywhere non-union, and spend your time trying to convince their workers to join a union. There’s a reason that, when the Nazis took over, “First they came for the Trade Unionists”. Don’t say nothing. Let’s Make More Trade Unionists
Would it be wrong to view this as economic accelerationism? Even if businesses can adjust to consumption cycles, not all consumption needs on one day translate to the next.
Skipping lunch at the diner might mean you increase demand for pb&j sandwiches, but you’re putting the waitress and cook out of a job. Maybe that’s just freeing up their labor to be put to more… productive endeavors.
Honest question, what’s your stance on hunger strikes or other protests outside the workplace? I’m of the opinion that, in 2025, any disruption is good disruption.
I’m not going to tell people how to organize. But a single day boycott with no demands or goals is not organizing. It’s almost alienating in a way. Now, if you got together with friends and did something else like made sandwiches and went to a park. Awesome! You did something and probably all talked about issues together today. That’s positive.
But if you sat at home and said nothing to anyone and hoped for some news story about a massive drop in sale and economic instability. Well, that didn’t happen. And so people can have different reactions to that. My problem is that I think the net reaction is negative. It makes people feel like collective actions are useless. And they are when it comes to single day consumption.
But collective actions and organization are the fundamental power of working class movements. But the working class has its power in labor.
Now, economic boycotts can have power, but not in the way this is being done. Take South Africa BDS movements for example. These put real economic pressures on companies associated with South African apartheid. But these movements had clear demands and no time limit on the boycotts.
Single day boycotts are essentially useless in my eyes. I don’t think they can ever reach the scale to do so. At least they never have historically.
Hunger strikes are only as useful as the attention that they can bring. I’ll use Gaza as an example. The people of Gaza on March 2018 protested they Apartheid state of Israel in a peaceful march towards the walls around Gaza. Hundreds of men women and children were slaughtered by Israeli snipers. And nothing changed. Acts of peaceful protest like hunger strikes or civil disobedience are only effective if they put public pressure on a population that is inactive. The Gazan people have no one that cared of the injustice being placed upon them.
When these types of peaceful protest are met with violence and silence from the media the only actions that oppressed people have left are in violent revolution.
Labor organizing is the only real alternative to violent revolution that has been proven effective historically. But those movements are often met with violence from the state.
I don’t know if that answered your question. But I think I hit some of it.
The engine of the modern economy is mass consumption just as much as labor, especially since a lot of labor is done overseas these days. Everyone not buying stuff from Amazon is just as much an existential threat to it as the entire work force striking. Either way you deny them there profits and force them to pay there fixed capital costs with no revenue.
You could argue it’s less feasible to organize the mass of consumers then it is to organize a workplace, but the power is still there either way.
Bottom 60% of earners in the US represent less than 25% of total consumption. The power is in labor and labor only, there’s a reason why we have plenty of historical examples of successful labor movements, not so much of consumer movements.
Not always possible. In rural areas, Walmart in particular is a mom and pop shop killer. Restaurants maybe, groceries and the like, this is not that universally possible.
Im guessing many folks or at least more than the usual percent on the fediverse do this to some degree. I have seen other comments about it and have done them myself. Its really not to much work to me but its a continuing thing. Regularly thinking about what else you can cut out or if you think you can finally cut out a particular thing. So im not where I would want to be and im past low hanging fruit and it will be slow going forward of where I am not but I will continue.
yet another classic misdirection from doing things politically to improve the political environment. And yet we wonder why everything sucks so much.
Go improve the political climate.
Cool. How?
idk go find local political organizations that align with your political views and ask what you can do to help?
This isn’t an either or situation, unless you were planning on buying a gun today to go shoot elon with, you not buying stuff today isn’t going to prevent you from doing whatever it is you plan to do to improve the political climate.
By the way, what is it you plan to do?
This isn’t an either or situation, unless you were planning on buying a gun today to go shoot elon with, you not buying stuff today isn’t going to prevent you from doing whatever it is you plan to do to improve the political climate.
and yet here we are wasting time about talking about how if i didnt buy shit today it isn’t going to influence things, instead of talking about how we could literally improve the political climate.
It’s literally a waste of time and everybody is too stupid to see through their own fucking hands.
By the way, what is it you plan to do?
more than u, if i had to guess.
IMHO we should have it every Friday or Every 28th or something like that.
