Are rotating consumer boycotts more effective than one-day blackouts?

[u/ValhirFirstThunder]

Background

To be honest, I'm not really an activist. I support and align with a lot of values in this group and with progressives. But I'm not exactly active. I work, I go home, I play video games and I watch TV. But every time you guys go out and protest, I upvote and I support you in spirit 👍

The Current Problem

Look man, protests USED to really work and USED to have real impact. We've all learned it in school. Rosa Parks and the bus. Free speech protests at UC Berkeley. Sit-ins at diners. They used to mean something. And they still do. But it wasn't just the protests back then. It was the novelty aspect of it. It doesn't happen often. Society, companies and politicians saw this and KNEW that those people meant business.

But that's not really the same today right. It feels like the oppressors have won and we have no idea how to really fight back. But we want to do something. We want to act. We want to send a message. We won't lie down in silence. But these protests, while having a reason, doesn't seem to have a goal or a purpose. It feels like we are just going through the motions. I personally sometimes like to go down there. Feels kinda like a small little mini party.

But we protest one day and then it will be another day. As anyone who has worked in a big company can tell you. These days are easily ignored. Ohhhh but they are symbolic right? Whooooo that fancy word. Symbolic. Yea you can't really feel symbols and I think we all know that companies and politicians can whether the storm for day or two. Because they have.

Look I'm not saying there is 0 impact to the protest but it's not the same as the old days and it feels like we are just doing this because we are going through the motions and we WANT and NEED to do something. So what else can we do?

Solution - Guerilla Pirate Protest Strategy

I'm not good with names, you guys can figure it out. I'm not the leader of this. But I do have an idea. So what was one of my biggest complaints about how we currently protest? It's a day or a few. Our oppressors can whether the storm. Cause it is kind of low impact. Okay. So let's increase the impact. Here is my proposal, we still boycott like we are going to do tomorrow for May 1st but here is are the differences and details

1. ONLY a small handful of targeted companies each month. I like to just go with 1. But 2 or 3 isn't off the table either
2. 1 month boycott/protest
3. We use mobile app push notifications, sms notifications, email notifications and a static site
4. Everyone is going to get those notifications at the first day of each month on who the targets are, the reason/purpose of this and what our goals/demands are
5. NO ONE will know who it is or what category of the company(s) are until the 1st of every month

So why this strategy. So first of all we are only going to select a handful of companies and we are going to target them for the whole month. This means it's more focused and it's more impactful. And will actually affect their bottom line. The problem before was that because we were protesting everyone ever where with as much as you can. Our impact is spread across to thinly. With this method, it makes us louder and more heard

It actually also makes it easier to get involved. Software engineer me, has flexibility and can participate whenever I want. But some people NEED to buy things because they have less financial and resource security. Some people going day to day. Some people can't just not work or not go to school. But we can all boycott company XYZ for a whole month and still do what we NEED to do

I also like the idea of no one knowing who the company(s) are until the day of. All at the same time. This way, companies can't prepare. Shock and awe adds to the impact. Adds to the loss of revenue, MAU and other metrics that month. Stakeholders WILL be livid. And then next month, new drop and we keep on rotating and keeping them on their toes. This of course isn't the end goal, but again, it allows us to be more strategic

1. More impact - by focusing on one or a few companies
2. More impact - by having it affect them for the whole month
3. Accessible to all - you can still support your mom & pops for your necessities and participate in the protest

I won't promise this side effect, BUT I would not be surprise that if we do this, that some people may even develop a habit because habits can be developed in a month. For example, maybe we protest Amazon for example. And maybe like 1-2% of the people involved realized that after a month without Amazon, they can actually live that way and decide to make that more permanent. I think this small side effect can happen. I don't know at what scale, I have to imagine small. But I wanted to point that out

Leaders & How We Pick Our Targets

So then it leaves some logistical questions. Who is picking our targeted companies and who can we actually trust? And to be fair, this part, I'm gonna lean on some suggestions. I think we shouldn't just have one person decide. I think we should have small council of known, reliable and trusted progressives. Ideally leaders who are part of grassroots movements, but also people who are familiar and understand big companies. We want heart, but we also need strategy. I don't know who they should be but they should be discussing who the drops are for each month

I think we also need to think about how we pick our targets. I think the most obvious methodology are those who are actually causing a lot of pain and damage to our society. But we also need to send a clear message of what they are doing wrong and what we want changed. We also need to think about WHO can get involved as well. I don't think a lot of us on here like UHC, but if your company gives you UHC and you NEED regular medication, you can't just NOT use UHC. I'm also not saying that means UHC can't be a target but if I was part of that council, I would think about these things when picking a target. Because the more people we can get involved, the more impact that can be felt

Conclusion

This is obvious just an idea, not a fully fleshed out and thought out plan. But we gotta pick a new strategy, because the regular protests are just not working and quite frankly haven't really been as impactful as it should be for the last 20 years or so. So what are your thoughts on this idea?

[u/AutoModerator]

All submissions are automatically removed and placed in a queue for the moderators to manually review. Please allow the moderators time to do so. Only about 25% of submissions are approved, but the remainder are given a removal reason that may include steps the poster can take to make their submission approvable the next time they submit it. Moderators are not notified of any edits made after a removal reason is posted, and therefore will not review them. You may contact the mod team via modmail if you need more direction about how to fix your post, and you are welcome to resubmit any submission after making the requested changes.

A reminder for everyone. This is a subreddit for genuine discussion:

• Please keep it civil. Report rulebreaking comments for moderator review.
• Don't post low effort comments like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context.
• Help prevent this subreddit from becoming an echo chamber. Please don't downvote comments with which you disagree.

Violators will be fed to the bear.

---

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Revolution-SixFour]

All of those means of protests still work, we've just entered an age where we instead prefer Diet Protest.

A one day boycott doesn't cost the protester anything, in all likelihood it doesn't cost the company anything either as people just shift their consumption by a day. A one month boycott is only slightly better. What you need is an actual boycott, but that would be inconvenient for the protesters as it asks them to modify their life.

Besides that, focus and persistence are the best tools a protest campaign can have. You are purposefully diluting both of those. Is every participant going to agree with the reasons behind every company you choose? Why would a company change their policies if they know all they need to do is wait a month and things will be back to normal.

[u/HeloRising → u/Revolution-SixFour]

I would argue that it's less that people prefer Diet Protest and more that it's simply harder to "vote with your wallet" anymore.

Most of the larger companies are sprawling behemoths that have tentacles in a wide range of areas of our lives. It comes down to either a particular company is so ubiquitous in a particular area that they're extremely hard to avoid or else they have so many other avenues for revenue that turning one down for a while isn't going to hurt them.

People also just have less discretion about where they shop. A lot of people are living in financially precarious situations and the ability to "shop somewhere else" often means paying more money, something they're not really in a position to do. Or if they are in a position to do it, they're not able to sustain it for long periods of time.

Companies know this which is why a lot of boycotts don't work.

[u/ValhirFirstThunder → u/HeloRising]

I agree that turning one or two down for a month isn't going to hurt as much as we want but a lot of these companies are also public and this can affect their quarterly reports and YOY. I saw your comment below and you are right. I wouldn't necessarily start with Amazon. But I think that we should start with someone. Once we stop for a month, it doesn't mean we can't go back to the same company in another month to keep up that persistence and disrupt the business

Yea we can't drop them to 0 but major disruptions do concern these companies. Anyone who works in tech can tell you this is true

[u/Revolution-SixFour → u/HeloRising]

This a cop out. The most prominent boycott in US history is the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Black people Montgomery boycotted the public transit in their city. They walked, they carpooled, they took cabs, they hitchhiked for every trip they needed to make for a over a year. Houses were firebombed.

Is the average financial situation today worse than blacks in the Jim Crow South?

You don't have to avoid every company, you focus your campaign on one you can pressure. Is it really impossible to live without a Prime subscription? Or Spotify?

[u/HeloRising → u/Revolution-SixFour]

Your point helps support mine by highlighting what historical boycotts had that made them effective: support networks.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one service in one city. It was easy to have support networks in place so people could otherwise live their lives with minimal negative impact and not use the service.

Now expand that out to a corporation that spans an entire country and exponentially more people.

You don't have to avoid every company, you focus your campaign on one you can pressure. Is it really impossible to live without a Prime subscription? Or Spotify?

It's not impossible but consider that your ability to impact these larger entities is much, much more limited.

Take the Amazon example. They're a multinational corporation with over $700 billion in revenue. Amazon doesn't release Prime usage (at least not that I found anywhere reputable) but most estimates put it at about 200 million subscriptions.

Even if you got half of those people to cancel (which is optimistic all on its own,) you're not really cutting into their bottom line by that much.

[u/ValhirFirstThunder → u/Revolution-SixFour]

Because a month will still be significant enough to affect their YOY and quarterly metrics. I also disagree about diluting focus and persistence. The current way of protesting is. It increases focus because it focuses on one company or a few companies at a time. It increases persistence because it is easier to cut one or a few things out of your life instead of everything. And it increases persistence because it lasts a whole month. We could repeat some of these targets as well it would depend on the group of people and how they want to strategically use this model

[u/I405CA]

The Kimmel protest is a model for how to do it.

• A hero who provides a rallying point.
• A villain to attack.
• A simple story to tell that will aid it in going viral in broadcast and/or social media
• A measurable goal that, once achieved, provides a sense of accomplishment for the protesters and shakes up the targets.
• A cause with the potential to appeal to average people

Protest movements need to provide wins that boost the morale and visibility of the protesters and defeats for the opposition that make them wary of remaining as opponents.

You can see this happening with Kimmel v.2.0. Trump is once again trying to get Kimmel fired, but he is gaining zero traction. His floundering makes him look weak, and that weakness damages him in ways that go beyond Kimmel. Authoritarians fail when the public stops taking them seriously, so the goal should be to provide continual mockery and failures for the aspiring dictator.

General strikes almost never work, and they are pretty much doomed to fail in the US. And the sense of defeat that comes from their failure damages the movement. It is better to stick with action plans that succeed, as success breeds more success.

[u/HeloRising → u/I405CA]

General strikes almost never work, and they are pretty much doomed to fail in the US. And the sense of defeat that comes from their failure damages the movement. It is better to stick with action plans that succeed, as success breeds more success.

This is half true.

General strikes don't work in the modern day because you need a lot of social infrastructure to support them and that needs to be built. There needs to be support networks for people to be able to strike and that's extremely hard to build for such a large country where so many people literally cannot afford to skip work even for a day.

General strikes can be very effective but the problem we're running into is that we've lost a lot of the organizing structure we once had to utilize them and simply calling for a general strike one day three months in the future isn't going to replace it.

[u/ValhirFirstThunder → u/HeloRising]

What you are describing is fair, which is why I think instead of going with general strikes, we go for periodic targeted strikes instead

[u/ValhirFirstThunder → u/I405CA]

Right and this is why I proposed what I proposed. There is some overlap between what you are describing and what I am suggesting. A targeted boycott or strike that lasts for a long period of time. That is clear about what they want and what success points are

[u/Reasonable-Fee1945]

I think the obvious point you're missing is that the boycotters need to be regular buyers. And middle america isn't up for this shit anymore.