Just some additional advertising for todays boycott.
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.
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!
100%, but why not both? amazon only got that big because we keep buying from it (that and all the government contracts). buying from local stores that also buy from local stores is the best from a purchasing aspect. and as far as data, that’s massively more important and valuable to them than your $
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.
An example of spending as power being a fallacy is high-quality products that everyone who buys them loves them. Then, to boost profits the company uses a lesser quality metal (like pocket knives, guns, etc.). It is short-sighted, but it may increase profits. If buying exerted power, companies wouldn’t trade out materials that people liked.
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.
Very well answered, thanks.
I think there’s generally poor discourse around protests. I appreciate the long form opinions that you and others have put together, but a lot of commentary is very reductive.
I get the “net negative” sentiment, but the only thing worse than feeling like you didn’t make an impact is feeling that while being berated as naive. For something as low stakes as a one day boycott, not much is lost if you use it as a case study to teach from. Here’s why it didn’t work and what we can do better. The important part of the discussion should be on building goals and organizing, and detaching those from the endorphins of political action.
I’m of the opinion that the only truly performative and useless protests are digital. If you went somewhere or did something (or changed plans to avoid either) you’re infinitely closer to making a change than putting a hashtag into the digital void.
The truth is we’re in uncharted territory. What does or doesn’t work may be unintuitive. Protests haven’t really happened:
- in the 21st century western world
- & against the massively expanded tools of surveillance
- & the highest wealth disparity in history
- & most communication channels and social spaces replaced by digital corporate platforms
- & the rapid fascist takeover of a government looking for their Reichstag Fire
The George Floyd protests in 2020 were the closest thing we’ve seen but today is different beast.
As an example, I get the feeling that organizing at your workplace won’t work for long. The administration would smash your legal right to unionize without hesitation. Similarly, signing up with the DSA might have been effective political action 4 years ago but put you on the no-fly list today. Maybe clandestine but highly visible protests (vandalism, sabotage, etc…) will have more impact than marching on Washington DC out of the gate? Time will tell…
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.
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.
If your protest is convenient it’s a shitty protest. I’m sorry, but this is a shitty protest.
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.
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Coprporates only understand 10k/10Qs, market caps, and wealth increase for shareholders. So, that’s right, quarter on quarter or year on year trend movements will be the only thing because certain EPS is not reached because sales was low, this is the only metric they will understand. I was watching a documentary once and there was a town or group of villages in India somewhere which had made a system to have near zero wastes in their eco system of crops and gardens and they went pretty much self reliant… I was like why can’t we do that… I don’t know whether that requires lots of research or whatnot… But if any significant group of people can do that, all of the system will come begging… On their knees or will try to destroy the doers.
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
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.
“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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
if they’re all back the next.
Don’t worry, nobody is going to buy anything on February 29 either.
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
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. 🤷
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.
I was gonna say. I go out and buy something about once a week… I realize I’m not the norm but for a single day to matter to most people blows my mind.
It doesn’t count as a boycott. It was a protest. A boycott is something else.
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
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?
I think the reality is no one knows what will work, and that’s why it’s important to try things.
It’s good to suggest new things too, but who are you addressing when you say maybe it’s time we figure out new things? I’m frustrated with the old ways too, but to do new things requires organizing and community building around a new idea. I don’t think it’s very constructive to hand wave at the internet and say “we should do something new” without any suggestion or effort to plan something.
Organizing isn’t my skill set either, so I think it’s important to support what does come along even if it isn’t the ideal thing we’d like to see. Nitpicking every effort for not being perfect will drain energy out of the participants, and it’s good people are trying things. Just my 2 cents.
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.
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.
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
FYI unfiltered “All” had plenty of it.
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
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.
Why are strikes planned on days I need to travel? /s
European here. So how did this go yesterday? News coverage?
The AP ran an article on it
Didn’t know it happened other than lemmy
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.
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.
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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
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.
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
cabbage and potatoes sorta fall into this middle zone for us. Like with rice and flour we have it on hand because it lasts to long but with potatoes and cabbage they last awhile and there is a lot or reasons to buy a lot (when twice as much potatoes is a dollar more). So we tend to buy them for a meal but then we keep in mind with future meals to use up whats left. Because of that we tend to buy them on a really great sale and then make it a point not to buy once we have used them up. Less so with cabbage where usually any leftovers will just bleed into one or two more meals.
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…
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.
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.
Donating to non-profits is still cool though.
Organising is now just posting the day of
I wasn’t going to buy anything today anyway, easiest boycott I ever saw.
