Just some additional advertising for todays boycott.
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.
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]”
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
if they’re all back the next.
Don’t worry, nobody is going to buy anything on February 29 either.
I already minimize the amount of money I spend on superfluous shit and I’m going to need food sooner or later. 🤷
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
There’s an ever growing chance shit like this just functions as pressure release psyops because it makes people feel accomplished while doing fuck all as everyone buys more the day before or the day after.
What people -don’t want to- understand is that for it to hurt the corporations, it’s got to hurt all of us. Either we give up things entirely like streaming and luxury goods or we do a general strike that costs millions of people their jobs or prompts a fascist crackdown.
The only good ways out of this spot were decades ago. Every path forward is miles of broken glass because of how propagandized a majority of this country is. Everyone wants to blame Trump or Republicans, but Democrats have spent at least 30 years with Clinton’s 3rd way dems (gay tolerant Reaganites) pushing the Overton window right.
http://politicalcompass.org/uselection2016
Hilary’s policy was assessed as farther right than Trump’s. Obama basically handed the Heritage Foundation everything they wanted.
These bullshit one day strikes aren’t going to save us and neither are the Democrats simply because if they were interested in preserving democracy, they wouldn’t have been slow walking us right for decades.
MIT lecture from 2014 about oligarchy controlling everything already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzS068SL-rQ
This eerily reminds me to the “minute of hate”
Yeah, there’s a body of research about social media both used to foster animosity as well as complacency.
Open letter to everyone who pooh-poohs this:
Participation is never useless. If you’re looking at this through the lens of “will this fix everything,” well of course it won’t. That’s because small efforts by themselves are not impactful.
But lots of small efforts, cumulative, over time, can be, and you have to start somewhere. Everyone who resists does so by taking on some amount of personal risk. Yes, this boycott is a very small personal risk. That’s fine. It will get people involved who were previously not involved. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
We need those people. We need their support, in whatever ways they are able to offer it. If your message is “don’t bother, it won’t work,” you are telling people not to be involved. If your aims are, for example, “armed revolution,” and you’re only considering the people who have the weapons and use them, you are completely ignoring all other aspects of conflict. In war, the people who pull the triggers are a minority of the opposing forces.
You have to produce equipment, food, clothing, shelter. You have to deliver those things where they are needed. You have to know where those things are needed. You need to plan and organize and communicate. You need to provide medical services.
And you have to do all those things not only for the “front line troops,” but for everyone.
Today’s boycotter can become tomorrow’s marcher, next week’s smuggler, next month’s partisan. Or medic. Or kitchen. Or driver.
All efforts, great and small. !Resist@fedia.io
The same people who complain about this will come back tomorrow and say “someone needs to do something about XYZ”. They never planned to do anything, they just like complaining.
I’m not trying to “Pooh pooh” anything, but I do wonder if the old way of doing things is really effective in today’s political arena?
Politicians these days only seem to care about re-election and since people now vote party over individual, I’m having a hard time seeing the effectiveness of such demonstrations. Other then letting like minded people know that other like minded people exist. Something that I think social media has been doing for a long time. But I don’t think politicians really fear this kind of thing anymore. I think they know that people are entrenched in their parties and once it comes down to filling out the ballot, they wont care who the person is as much as they do that they are voting for “their side”.
But maybe I’m wrong, which is why I’m participating today regardless of my ignorance.
And I’m not saying “don’t bother”. Try everything you can. I’m just saying that maybe it’s time we figure out new ways to do things?
Ideas come from people. The larger the pool of people who are engaged, the greater the likelihood that a “new way” will be invented. And that new way will need support in all kinds of ways from all kinds of directions, by all kinds of people. At some point, it’s a numbers game.
As long as we’re all pulling in generally the same direction, that’s a good thing. I don’t 100% agree with everyone who’s pulling generally in the direction away from fascism, and I know that some of those same people have various disagreements with me. That’s okay.
We don’t have to be in perfect lockstep to be pulling on the same rope.
oh man I have this in a lot of comments but businesses keep track of metrics down to the second. If it works there would be a severe drop in the graph today for businesses. Think in terms of how people react to the stock market diving three thousand points in one day. There is also a knock on effect in that lean pretty much won over six sigma for most bussinesses and they are highly reliant on historical metrics to do their ordering and supplying their spots from the supply chain. The leaner and more efficient the operation the larger the effect of an unusual drop in activity for a day. That is secondary again. Mostly its about making the graphs drop for the daily, weekly, monthly c-suite meetings.
When they can account for the anomaly, such as in the case of a blizzard or planned and openly discussed protests, they can easily account for the anomalous entry. If at the end of the quarter their books still balance because everyone spent the money on Thursday they would have spent on Friday then there is no actual impact being felt here. You are vastly overestimating the response to a single dip in the books while entirely ignoring the context around the dip.
sure if this is the one and only thing. its the opening salvo. a shot across the bow. they can ignore it but they can’t say they were not warned.
But again, you’re operating under this naive idea that any action is good and holds no potential for detriment. That’s just not realistic. If I need to get to France from the UK there are tons of valid methods to get you closer but donning concrete shoes with the intention of walking across the ocean floor isn’t going to work for obvious reason.
You’re not just suggesting folks brave the channel in their concrete shoes, you’re also trying to tell the rest of us that we’re not allowed to point out the obvious flaw in that plan.
That’s bullshit.
its the opening salvo. a shot across the bow.
You don’t even have an outcome you want to achieve. No goal, no demands, just a generic grumpiness.
It’s like a Monty Python skit.
I don’t think you realise how much noise there is in that data though. Things as simple as traffic, weather, sports games etc can have a huge effect on retail spending.
Even with the metrics these companies collect, I doubt you could conclusively say any change in sales was due to this.
I like how Douglas Rushkoff put it at Bretton Woods:
There’s like two kinds of proposals, and either one you make you get criticized. You make a big proposal, people say “Well yeah, but how does that work on the ground?” You make an on-the-ground proposal, people say “How does that scale to the whole thing?” Alright, fine, then let’s just die.
This is an incredibly reductive shit take that only serves to absolve you of any responsibility or criticism.
You may as well say “I am beyond criticism and reproach because I have good opinions.”
I’m sorry, I flat out reject the idea that any action is good action and that actions cannot be criticized or critiqued. Bad protest is not without impact, as it can disenfranchise and fatigue those who wasting efforts on futility. These people are going to think “but I’ve already been trying and nothing is working!”, when in reality it is not the lack of effort that is the error but the misplaced effort.
These people are going to think “but I’ve already been trying and nothing is working!”, …
Might just inspire some people to try something different, take on more risk. Maybe “don’t gatekeep resistance” and “this is going to take a long time and a lot of effort by a lot of people in all kinds of ways before any results are seen” are mindsets which end up being necessary to effect real, lasting change. Time will tell.
… when in reality it is not the lack of effort that is the error but the misplaced effort.
That you have only criticism and not ideas speaks volumes.
Boycott permanently.
March on your capital, daily.
Refuse to perform work.
Close your bank accounts and open credit union accounts instead.
There are hundreds of actual actions; that I didn’t list them doesn’t automatically make your shitty option good.
Those are all great ideas for people who have the latitude to perform them.
Are you marching on your capitol daily, refusing to perform work, and if you are, how long before you run out of money to pay your bills?
Some of the people who are moved enough from “being frustrated and not knowing what to do” into “joining a one-day purchasing freeze” are going to ask themselves, “What’s next?” And they might march next time. They might switch to a credit union. Then ask “What’s next?” Some are going to become connected into networks that provide them with new opportunities and ideas.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Everyone is not you, or me. Gatekeeping is divisive.
And likewise some are going to mistakenly thing this meaningless impact is meaningful and feel fatigued and defeated when they quickly realize it’s all just self-congratulatory.
I too can present convenient hypotheticals
People are going to feel more fatigued and defeated when marching on their capitol daily doesn’t produce results in days or weeks.
Of course some people are going to check out at some point. People have their own lives to attend to. That’s okay. They can check back in later when they’re able.
You think that this particular action is counterproductive. No one is forcing you to participate. I think that opposing participation in general is counterproductive.
I’m not opposing; feel free to continue these meaningless protests. I’m just refusing to participate in the performative part where we pat ourselves on the back and act like this is accomplishing anything.
Feel free to waste your effort, just don’t expect praise for it.
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
ive seen this promoted all over the place for weeks
Huh, guess I need to tweak my Lemmy feed then
Do you know about the nationwide general strike on March 14th?
Who’s organizing it? Is the UAW involved? Last time I heard, plans for the next general strike including nationwide unions were set for 2028
Until I see the UAW, USW, AEU, ASFCME, or CAW get involved it’s not a general strike. Keep up the effort, but to anyone actually organizing these things you need to get large labor unions on your side. Otherwise no one will notice.
As someone with a french background, I’m laughing my ass off.
There’s also a national protest on march 4th, check out !50501@piefed.social for more info!
Subscribed! I didn’t know 50501 was on the Fediverse
I think it’s a grassroots effort here, as 50501 seems to only be targeting mainstream social media according to their website.
You guys buy things every day ?!
As a family. yes. Especially groceries but often enough other things. Thats not important though. The important part is 50% or more (assuming maga won’t participate) of folks that might get something today don’t so that the metrics shows a massive drop in activity for one day. Company metrics easily show stuff. I worked at one that did superbowl ads and you could see the effect of the ad on the site. This is the time the ad ran and this is how soon google searches trended up and this is when visits to the site went up.
I dont have a car, so buy groceries and things in a lot of small trips of what I can carry. Maybe not every day, but at least every other day. Also keeps me active and walking since I like to have a destination / objective to motivate me.
If you buy one giant load from Costco a month, then I can see not needing to go out much but that’s just not possible for me.
Does seem a bit odd to me. I could fairly easily go for weeks where the only thing I buy is from Aldi.
if I was single I could see that but I do like to do more small shopping trips now buying fresh food. I don’t like the fridge being packed and I don’t like to be deciding if something is to old to eat.
Hardly need to go to the shops every day for fresh food though. Potatoes and cabbage last a while without any real change. Rice lasts essentially forever. Most fruits are good for several days at least.
works out best for us if we shop for that days or next days meals. also when I say fresh food I mean more greens, fruits, and such. I don’t really think of grains as fresh food because they last so long. Unfrozen meat to. Again though we want to use it well before bad so we like small amounts for the next few meals.
Cabbage is green
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.
As someone said in a different thread, it’s a first step in gauging support for a broader effort. It gives a sense of how effective getting the message out is, and how many people join on.
Well, seeing as I only found about this yesterday night, I’d say getting the message out hasn’t been very effective…
There is no way for anyone to gauge this. Retailers won’t release this data
That misses the point. Directional support is all that’s needed here as a start.
I think it’s been counter productive in that regard.
Anyone who put any effort in on the 28th will feel disheartened because nothing was achieved.
It really was not much effort. And since we’re all sharing anecdotal perspectives, I saw news about this weeks ago on here on lemmy, heard other people participating irl and find encouragement in tangible activities that could make a real impact over time. There are so few (by design) to begin with. Enough hate, if you have another idea consider yourself encouraged to go out and do a thing you find more meaningful. Otherwise, you’re just contributing to the problem at hand.
If anyone is interested this was apparently started by a group called The People’s Union. I get that 1 day isn’t that impactful in the grand scheme of things, cuz it’s not. But it’s about organization. It’s about coordination.
European here. So how did this go yesterday? News coverage?
Eh. By what I’ve read this was more ‘practice’ for a week long blackout. People don’t seem to understand though that those goods are needed period and all it will do is create a weird spike in supply/demand before and after the week/day. General focused boycotting on non-essentials is impactful, but one day? You’re just going to go out and buy the day before or after. That doesn’t even create a blip for suppliers.
I wonder what percentage of the population could do a week long blackout.
The AP ran an article on it
Buy Nothing Day has existed since the 1990s — I believe that Kalle Lassen popularized it in his ADBUSTERS monthly.
Coverage in AP and NPR is amazing progress.
When you find out most of the people live paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford to buy in bulk, or don’t even have a place to store it because they live in an apartment, is when you realize that only a certain privileged subset of them is able to participate in this type of passive protests…
I mean, I’ve been very poor. Not buying is the easy part when you’re poor - buying stuff is the hard part, so not sure what your point is on this one.
If you have money you can stockpile for the duration of an embargo. If you don’t you have to cave. That is the point.
It was 1 day tho?..
And bulk foods are significantly cheaper than non-bulk. So ate preserved foods / long lasting over fresh. I’d get bulk beans, canned spinach, canned mandarins, spam, bulk noodles, sack of potatoes, etc, so the argument doesn’t make sense there either. If I did get something fresh, usually it was fresh meat on sale that I could immediately cook or freeze if I could afford to buy extra for later.
Bulk is cheaper per unit. But if you can’t buy the unit… Please slow down and realize a day might be a bridge too far.
I literally sometimes was going a day without food, or on 400 calories or less. I’d lay with a pillow or a hard object under my stomach to calm the hunger pain. I’d drink a lot of water at once to feel full. I’d walk miles on my free days (when I had the energy) to the local forest to forage (mostly got nopales to make with eggs).
Bulk is cheaper overall. If you can’t buy the bulk unit, you can’t buy, well, anything, because paychecks aren’t daily (other than when working for tips, but you can save for specific bulk items then, and being a waiter can have food perks), and bulk items will last you longer than a day. Rice and beans last longer than a day, and a large bag of both of extremely cheap and can last you 5 days easily if you eat once a day.
You’re literally telling someone who was in extreme poverty how to survive extreme poverty.
I’m glad you’re no longer in extreme poverty.
I suppose the lifestyle and definition of poor is different in the US because, simultaneously, 60% of Americans live at or below the level of poverty and is one of the most overweight nations globally.
My assumption is that over several decades, ultra capitalism has forced everyone in the nation to consume on a daily basis. So, not purchasing something in one day is near impossible because of the way their society is set up.
And yet your failing to recognize that not being able to buy cheap bulk means buying more expensive per unit that is less up front?
So I mean my wife and I shop pretty much daily for the quality of life of fresh ingredients. she also has a hard time with carbs so what we buy is more for me.
I know, I’m just saying when poor you specifically don’t shop daily, because that also means more trips to the store, which is more trips to the store, which is more time and fuel. It’s easier to weather a boycott if poor than privileged as the original content I replied to mentioned.
This in the USA though.
I’m Finland, near daily trips can be cheaper, if shopping for sales, because you can usually walk to a market. But frozen vegetables are still usually cheapest for vegetable options. Canned items here are expensive. Bulk is still cheaper here too.
Buying in bulk was the point. When you can stockpile on idk, meat, toilet paper, water… Etc. For a whole month.
Who was saying the blackout was for a month???
And if in extreme poverty, you don’t eat much meat, it’s mostly eggs (years ago when they were cheap). Fresh meat was always an “it’s on sale because it’s expiring today” event that you’d buy as much as you can and then piece out to freeze for later while eating a bit that same day. Most of the time it was cheap canned meats you’d have coupons for ideally of you wanted meat, and you wouldn’t eat the whole can at once.
Water??? Really?
I mean, maybe you had a good intention, but you clearly have no idea what poverty is like. When you’re that poor you don’t buy water, you get what’s on tap - even if it smells strongly of bleach.
I’m not gonna read all that homie, when you clearly are out of your mind.
How the fuck did you conclude that when not reading something that’s nearly the same length as your initial comment?
I take that back, you don’t have good intentions, don’t care about the poor clearly, and are just trying to sabotage people’s organizing efforts while discussing in complete bad faith.
Lmao keyboard warrior.
Did you get triggered or offended when you read you live paycheck to paycheck?
Before anyone decides to reply to this person’s comment or reads it and thinks they’re being legitimate, read their replies to me.
They’re arguing in bad faith to undermine any protests and don’t care at all about whether someone is poor or not.
They’re arguing in bad faith
Who the fuck is arguing? You must be a retard who gets triggered and fights everyone. Did you just come from reddit? Lmao
Didn’t know it happened other than lemmy
Donating to non-profits is still cool though.
Positive boycotts are the best boycotts.
Otherwise people just delay consumption.
Like, i didn’t buy anything today not because of protest, just because i didn’t need too… Stuff like this will not be noticed
