Devils Panties 02/28/2025

Lots of naysayers trying to convince everyone not to participate, or to fragment efforts with competing ideas.
So much of our consumer culture is buying shit we don't need like impulse buys and stupid movies and fast food. That's profitable stuff, and skipping that for one day doesn't mean you'll just buy it the next day.

European here. So how did this go yesterday? News coverage?
- No impact. Every where I went was busy as fuck all day yesterday.
  
  ... Did you go just to check it out?
- 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.
- Didn't know it happened other than lemmy
- 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.
  
  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.

One day won’t do much. I took it as a sign it was time to delete the Amazon and Walmart app from all my devices and move onto other services.

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.
  
  There is no way for anyone to gauge this. Retailers won't release this data

So what I dont understand is, even if one were to do a week long blackout of buying anything, we would still need to get milk and eggs and crap. So is the idea to switch from amazon to other stores or not spend altogether? Because not spending altogether is a pretty stupid and unrealistic goal.
- My main complaint is that anything not bought on the day of the blackout will just be bought the following day.
  
  Better protest is to act as if there is a recession. Buy only what you need, and if possible seek an alternative from a smaller manufacturer. As aways don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Do et, Yankies. STICK IT TO THE MAN

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"
- 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.

We need PERMANENT boycotts. DON’T GO BACK!! Abandoned them and leave them to rot.
Follow what I see every Canadian is doing in the grocery store. Look up the brand and if it’s American put it back and add to the permanent no buy list.
- As an American I use Goods Unite Us to look up political contributions before buying
  
  I second this app, I'm a big fan of the campaign finance reform score. If you want an easy way to fight the citizens united ruling, this is it.
  Also want to give a shout out to https://www.opensecrets.org/. their site isn't as easy to use as goods, but the have a lot more data and if you can't find info about a company or politician on goods you can usually still find it on open secrets.
  
  Just as a disclaimer, there are 10 trackers that Exodus detected that are embedded in this app. I'm not saying don't use it, just promoting awareness.
  
  https://lemmy.socdojo.com/comment/963871
  You may have just answered a specific wish I've had for a while... Thanks much
- I did this for Facebook and some other companies like X and avoiding using Walmart back in 2010.
- I mean im american but im pretty much like this. A bit limited with my wife but we don't buy subscriptions, don't have smartphones, and are getting our stuff second hand a lot now. Granted this has been a thing with us thats just been growing for like the last decade. Essentially we have just gotten more and more serious about and emphasizing more the first two parts of reduce, reuse, recycle.

It's good people are doing something, but I can't help but feel it would be way more effective if it was a sustained boycott of targeted businesses. Not buying anything for a year is impossible, but not buying anything from one particular store for a year is possible.
Could you imagine the dread corporate would feel if they saw Banana Republic get boycotted for 2025 and looked at the boycott schedule and their name was listed under 2026?
- Yup. One day of no shopping means the big corps just weather a day of lower purchases and the next day people will be buying the stuff they skipped out on friday. It's hardly a noticeable blip to them.
  
  Yeah as much as id like to see pressures on some corps, I think it is better to target certain corps.
  One day, as you said you are just buying the next day, or back loading a day earlier.

Who organizes this shit????? Can I learn about this ahead of time so I don't see the post literally at 10:30 on the night of the same day??
Like literally
- 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
  
  There's also a national protest on march 4th, check out !50501@piefed.social for more info!
  
  Why are strikes planned on days I need to travel? /s
- ive seen this promoted all over the place for weeks
  
  Huh, guess I need to tweak my Lemmy feed then

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.
- 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?

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.

So… anything is a comic strip nowadays it seems.

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.
  
  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.

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.

Well, how'd everyone do? I had to order some magic cards so I stayed up until midnight to do it lol. I also need to replace a pvc pipe under my kitchen sink so that waited until today and I've been getting water from the bathroom...
- I heard buying local is fine so we got some sandwiches from a local restaurant, but other than that, we just stayed in. So success on our parts I think!
  
  I see no problem with that. The taco bus down the street isn't a part of the oligarchy, ya know
  
  I didn't know about it. Tried to pull into Kroger after work and couldn't find a parking spot. I'm going to say it is likely even the stores didn't know about it. Ended up saying forget it, skipped dinner and picked up something from the mom and pop liquor store instead. That about sums up America for me right now
- It was easy for us as we have cut out a lot of consumerism to begin with so we are not the best household for it. Would be interesting to hear if folks who are the type getting deliveries every day stopped for yesterday.
- I "broke" about 8pm ET to donate to Ukraine. I know we were boycotting Visa/Mastercard too, but after yesterday's shitshow I felt like solidarity was worth more than my boycott.
  Otherwise, it was fine. I've already been heavily limiting my spending since the inauguration anyway, after admittedly overspending at the end of the Biden term to prep for impending tariffs.

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!
  
  Generalstrikeus.com
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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.

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.
  
  Yeah, this is basically a trial balloon. How many people can we get to do this thing? Then, once you know, organize something that packs a bit more punch.
  
  I don't knock the fact that things need to be done, but a general strike would be more effective if you want them to notice what an economic blackout would look and feel like. No company is looking at profits at a one day scale, so point blank, no one up top is going to see any effect from this. The fact people are still going to get what they need, but just on a different day means the only ones who noticed this or were affected by it were the ones who participated not the rich fucks getting paid tomorrow instead of today. We need to work towards tangible goals that have something that can be measured and affect real change, not cause more people to feel apethic when their efforts go unrewarded.
  
  I mean the point of it isn’t to deprive retailers of one day of profits altogether, it’s to show how much a sustained refusal to shop would hurt them. Whether or not it’s effective depends on how many people participate.
  yeah but its not a question of whether or not it would hurt them, the answer is yes, you cant make money if people don't buy shit.
  Weird little story, but i've never seen a company do any sort of accounting for this kind of problem.
- "That's not going to do anything" They said, sitting on their asses, doing nothing, while others fought for change.
  You can find this style of argument in virtually all discussions about protests and about whether they are okay or even effective.
  Idk & idgaf, but you can't deny, that this makes the whole issue a lot more visible than just doing nothing.
  
  First, not going shopping for one day isn't "fighting for change", it's doing the bare minimum to feel like you're actually doing something.
  Second, boycotts work, absolutely, but this isn't a boycott. This won't affect the overall sales numbers of these stores, just move them to a different day.
  Finally, what are their demands exactly?
  
  you can't deny, that this makes the whole issue a lot more visible than just doing nothing.
  Yes I can. Because what fucking issue is this about? What are the goals this protest is trying to achieve?
  Making a fuss about nothing, and doing nothing with any lasting effect, is not a protest.
- Having worked retail sales earlier in my life and working as a developer in e-commerce in later parts, single day drops mean nothing. They're often a statical anomalies, even when there is a "reason" for it. If the business is short on monthly or quarterly goals they can always make up a single day loss with a strategic sale or product marketing & placement.
  If we really want to hurt these companies, we need to orgaize larger than a single day of "fuck you". A single day might be good for awareness, but TBH, it's comes across more as virtue signaling and enabling social media bragging "I'm doing my part for TODAY".
  All that said, I am doing my part for today, and have been doing my part for quite some time now, and will continue doing my part for the coming months and years.
  
  I used to deliver pizza, a long time ago.
  The weather had a huge effect on sales, not just overall volume, but time and whether people ordered delivery or collected.
  On cold and rainy days, for example, we got hammered on deliveries.
  The people running big stores know this, they aren't stupid.
  
  It makes me think this is more of an effort to get people to feel apathetic. Get them trying to do something that they thought might create change but had no real material effect. What we need is a general strike if we want them to take notice. No garbage man cleaning the trash, no janitor cleaning the shit stains in their executive office, no valet making them park themselves, no drivers to drive their drunk coked up asses around, no cooks to prep their meals, no assistant reminding them they can't keep track of their head without the people they try and fuck on a daily basis. That is something that even just a day would have them shitting bricks, and with no one to clean up for them, they would have to fester in the shit show they have made. That's the only way we get them to take notice and realize the masses are serious about change.
- Not only that but I haven't seen a single actionable demand by the advertisements for this campaign. It's a hollow, confused threat that simply doesn't make sense.
  Ironically I haven't spent money anywhere today but that's just because I spend most of my life trying not to pay giant chain retailers.
  If someone wanted this campaign to work they would have united the whole thing under a banner or a brand, declared that this was not the first protest they would be staging, say something like: "this is only a threat, if companies don't do X in 3 months we will organize a week-long blackout. Then if they don't do anything after that week-long blackout we'll do another one for two weeks or a month."
  That makes sense. That's negotiation and it's how you demonstrate the power the people hold.
  The X should be something policy-based and actionable. It can be a huge sweeping demand but it has to be actionable. It should not be a laundry list of long term demands. Then, when you get that first demand met you can delay action and keep pushing later since you've proven the tactics work.
  Compare that to what this protest is doing. It's pretty far-cry.
  
  I haven't seen a single actionable demand by the advertisements for this campaign.
  That is also a massive issue I have with this. What, exactly, do you want?
- Its not a bad idea on its face. A sudden and sizeable shift in public economic activity on a given day would be meaningful if it could be invoked to put on pressure at strategic moments.
  But "collective inaction" isn't enough. I might have taken this more seriously if they were paired with pickets. Perhaps for a reason more explicit than "We're generically unhappy!" Or if they came from someone I actually know, rather than a graphic plastered on my computer screen.
  These seem like political action cosplay. If you're not in a movement and you're not using this time to coordinate further actions... hell, you're not even asking where this meme came from or who authored it... then what are you doing? How is this different than Valentine's Day, where you see a bunch of memes that tell you to go out and spend extra money? Who are you sticking it to?
  
  That's the other reason I dislike this idea, "we're generically unhappy" isn't really going to change hearts and minds.
  You need a specific, actionable goal if you want something to actually change.
- 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?
- The image fits, a kid throwing a tantrum, cause it’s really all they can do. I mean it’s nice to give the staff a slow day but the corporation and the people on top won’t even notice it
  P.s. sabotage costs them more
- if they’re all back the next.
  Don't worry, nobody is going to buy anything on February 29 either.
- Funny enough the only people who are going to feel it are the low level retail managers who are going to get yelled at for not meeting their YoY, and then not a peep the next day when they do double the sales
  
  Senior management at a big retail outlet aren't stupid, they know sales can be fickle, and store staff don't have any control over sales on a day to day basis. They will also know this event is happening.
  Nobody is getting yelled at over this.
- I already minimize the amount of money I spend on superfluous shit and I'm going to need food sooner or later. 🤷

I work at a Costco in Western Canada. Today (28th) was a little slower than slower than normal, but well inside the normal ups and downs we see. All of us are curious to see if the 1st is busier to make up for it.

There's a boycott today?
- Yeah, take all the money you would spend today, and spend it tomorrow. Power to the ….
  
  A boycott should be held until the brand changes position, if only for economic gain. A day of boycott would affect next quarter reports negligibly, if at all.
  
  Didn’t you heart it? No gas! That will show them!!
- I'm permanently boycotting Amazon, Walmart, Target, U.S. automakers (that includes parts purchases as I do repair vehicles from time to time.) Facebook (including marketplace) and starting a local online forum. I never did use anything else much and I've been boycotting Reddit obviously. Online streaming companies. Finally taking steps to completely degoogle, although yt will be difficult, but i've been leaching off of them ad free for, since the site started, so I'm costing them a lot of money I think. I could just auto download into my seedbox so they can't track me. I'm going to make sure to buy used items when I can. Go to my local shops more and the farmers market. I'm also going to plant more variety in my garden this year, it's usually not worth it, but this year I'm full of spite.
  I honestly got lazy about avoiding these companies, and it's time to take it seriously again.
  
  my big sins currently are amazon and google with a dash of microsoft given linkedin and github. I think that is it but I could be missing something. I don't plan on stopping were I am at with reducing.

Organising is now just posting the day of

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

Without any replacements, this boycott isn't going to last. We should be promoting alternatives with the blackout too. Costco isn't available everywhere.

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.
- I'm not from America and the answer is still no

Got food at the local donut shop. Ate lunch and dinner from a food truck. The real way this could work is if everyone does this everyday and avoids non local chains.
- While this is par for the course for me, I imagine lots of people across the states have had their local stores run out of town over the years, making this much harder. Other times, local stores are more expensive at a time when people really can’t be paying more.
  Hopefully, it does help by getting people to consider local where they can. But I do think some people vastly overestimated this one day.
- The poor get mud water called Tim Horton's, as their rents double and they are forced to fund our government buying 50% of all mortgage bonds to reward existing asset holders.
  Maybe if we rout out the corruption we can achieve a higher standard of living and allow productivity investment, so Canadians can afford nice coffee from a mom and pop establishment whose rents are also ballooning.
  
  It costs next to nothing to make coffee.
- Ate lunch and dinner from a food truck.
  Where did they get their produce from? Probably Walmart.
  
  Most of the long term people get theirs from sysco or some other commercial provider. I know one guy who goes to costco one town over to buy some of his. I know I'm not going to let a few people too lazy to try prevent me from doing what I can to limit these price gouging companies.

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.
- 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.

How'd that go then.
- As a retail manager it was business as usual, except an extra amount of Trump supporters being extra vocal about why they came out to 'stick it to the libs'. We actually did more business that day than we did the prior year.
  A one day event isn't a boycott of you just give the same people the money the next day. If you want to make a difference, you have to make bigger waves. Stop shopping at Walmart forever. Don't buy another Nestle product. Cancel your Amazon prime and start buying local.
  
  so was there additional business the next day as well then?
- I doubt we will know for sure for a few days but I don't see anything so far to indicate it had a big effect. Still this is just a start. No one thinks any single thing will be silver bullet.
  
  I'm happy to stop buying American but have no idea if it would make any difference, or even have the desired effect.
  
  boycotting movements are over long time .this was only done one day

I wasn't going to buy anything today anyway, easiest boycott I ever saw.

There's no way this had any affect. I like the sentiment but it won't work.
- Businesses seeing a drop in revenue as a result of a random patchwork organized online effort for a temporary boycott won't have any effect?
  Of course it can. If businesses see it's possible for people to exercise economic control against them, it makes it just that bit harder for them to expect no resistance going forward. People see the result of their actions and are more likely to engage in other boycotts going forward, and businesses then have to be afraid of future targeted boycotts hitting them harder.
  You don't successfully get a company to back down on anything with the threat of a boycott, if that company has no reason to believe you're even capable of boycotting them. Doing something like this makes it abundantly clear that it's possible, and thus increases the likelihood of businesses taking future boycotts seriously.
  And if you want to say it won't work, then I'll tell you that as a cashier at a smaller local grocery store, today I saw nearly half of all transactions done in cash (usually it's 1 in every 5-6) to avoid giving credit card companies money, an older woman explicitly mentioning that she was disappointed she had to use her Visa card because she didn't have cash on her, and on top of that, I also saw a reduction in purchases of non-necessities (about a 20-30% overall volume reduction in total purchases) on top of people swapping out brands I'd usually see purchased like Coca Cola with smaller local drinks instead.
  If this is what's happening at the small local grocery chain, then you might be able to imagine what was happening (or rather, not happening at all due to people staying home) to the large big box store down the road.
  
  I think it could work but literally no one knew about it today, and so if there is a dip there is no way for anyone to attach it to a movement vs a quiet Friday. I didn’t even figure it out until yesterday on blue sky.
  
  Businesses seeing a drop in revenue as a result of a random patchwork organized online effort for a temporary boycott won't have any effect?
  No it won’t. This just means people buy the stuff the another day and is absolutely meaningless to their bottom line

Donating to non-profits is still cool though.
https://transrescue.org/donations/bis-donation-form
- Positive boycotts are the best boycotts.
  Otherwise people just delay consumption.

Hey, did you know that half of all day to day retail spending is done by the economically top 10% of the US population.
These are people who for the most part don't care about economic hardships of the lower classes and have closer to 65% of the liquid assets.
They already under spend for their wealth and likely also won't care about this. And will spend or not and make no impact.
Not to be negative, but to be realistic.
This is pointless.
Like literally without a point or purpose but to "show those business we mean business" and that isn't an actual point and they don't care about a 1 day shopping freeze.
The reach on this with it already being the day of the protest is already a major hinderance to any progress hoped to be achieved and then we still don't have a point.
Honestly we need to be deciding what change we actually want to have occur and start steering the ship that way little action at a time as possible but instead let's just keep trying to make 1 day events a thing with the shock the wealthy see of us standing together enough to make them see the light of God and turn around and change for us. I'm sure that will eventually work even though it never has.
- As someone comfortably in that top 10% and unfathomably infinitely outside the billionaire club, I hope you know I'm on your side, and I do care.
  Annecdotaly, the majority of my peers are as well.
  Our complacency is a huge part of the problem.
  But for what it's worth, we're increasingly waking up to the fact that we're also quite fucked by what the billionaires are up to, in the long run.
- I disagree. Your post is long but boils down to "I don't think it will work." Im fine if you choose to do it to humor us and would appreciate it.
  
  It boils down to a collection of reasonable thoughts and requests for a good protest and while I am participating through the sheer audacity that I purchase something every day like the people doing shein hauls makes me cringe it does not change my normal economic activity and therefore doesn't change the companies you hope to take notice bottom line.
  It's about having people actually take some time to have critical thoughts about their actions and the ones we want to do to make changes.
  Your dismissal is exactly how this fails to enact change.
  
  It's "I don't think it will work immediately, for my specific goals."
- The top 10% are split right now. Kamala won handedly with the professional managerial class liberals who form a big chunk of that 10%. A lot of them may not care about poor people, though a lot do, but most of them hate Donald Trump and Elon and what they're doing to their beloved liberal institutions.
  The reach is fine. There were many posts on this prior to today, and even my girlfriend found a post on it from tik tok or Instagram, it has spread. This one may not be that big, but if it does make a blip and the news covers it, then people will be more open and familiar with ideas like this or eventually a general strike.
  Before unions became more formalized a lot of strikes would start out with a minority of the most militant workers striking, which would inspire others until the majority got on board. There were cynics like you, often paid by management, telling the militants that it was pointless and they wouldn't accomplish anything, eroding solidarity, and sometimes if they eroded it enough the strike would break. Sometimes though they were able to push past that, strengthen their resolve and solidarity, and get their demands.
  So if you don't think something will work but support the cause, shut up. Your comments serve to erode solidarity and resolve which helps enemies of the cause. For what? So you can say i told you so when it's done?

Everybody will just buy more shit tomorrow. Are you people afraid of going into the streets?

What are you guys trying to achieve?
Mindless consumption will happen for the entirety of human civilisation. Übercorps will continue to enshitttify to no end, and people will eat the slop until it runs dry.
Why? Because deep down consumerism is a key pillar in people's minds. The idea of buying and consuming is an act that must be compleeted, like it's part of the Ten Commandments or the ending to a Iftar prayer. You see so much of this anti-consumerism rhetoric on social media but I guarantee that everyone in this thread bought something before, after or even on February 28, including the author of this poster.
The reality is, you have no power. People will continue to keep the slop mill running. Unless you want to start a mass brainwashing campaign and completely destroy the world's economy, useless consumption will remain as a pillar of our society for centuries. This blackout achieved nothing, and further protests and blackouts will not do anything to change the system.
What's the alternative? We live off the land? We completely stop trade? We live in a solarpunk fantasy that will never be achieved? Sometimes I think of alternatives to combat capitalism, but they always turn out to be 10 times worse.
You can make an impact on yourself, change what you do and consume, but 99% of the population will continue to praise Übercorps and be their personal shitter, making food for flies.
- I was agreeing with you at first -- that the protest has no meaningful effects unless it is prolonged -- but I stopped here:
  Sometimes I think of alternatives to combat capitalism, but they always turn out to be 10 times worse.
  Market socialism.
- Yep. You can boycott one individual company, and that's a very effective way to enact change, but you can't really boycott everything.
  Buy local day would have been much more effective.

My wife told her family and all of them are very enthusiastic to join (20 ish people). Unfortunately I still have trouble convincing my family that Trump shouldn't be allowed to do illegal things

I think doing a "Whiteout" would be better, where people only shop at pro-humanity or mom n' pop stores. Costco, Winco, ect. People must spend money for their necessities and to enjoy life, but if that spending can always be directed into the pockets of decent people rather than Bezos, that would be far more impactful than a day of blackout.
In that vein, I think incentive programs to switch people would be ideal. Something like CostCo giving a free membership if you buy an amount of goods equal in value, and a free pizza/rotisserie/hot dog(s) for buying $15 of stuff.
- I've seen other infographics for this protest encouraging that local business is still OK, not sure why it's not all of them saying that.
- Some are advertising this as anti dei so that would open up some. Like anything there are many grassroots around it so its not a single voice. im on the nothing from me today except for places were its so local I know the owner and their views and how they operate. That being said we are doing nothing today except my wife has a doctors appoinment which ah. we are not going to boycott healthcare as much as we sorta wish we could.
  
  You wish you could boycott healthcare?

As expected, nothing came of this. Don't be pathetic. Stop buying from red states and wacko Trump supporters everyday.
- Stop buying from red states
  how am I supposed to do that? The nearest blue state is 8 hours from me
- Stop buying from red states
  No wheat? Even imported Italian pasta is made from American Durum wheat. (Yes Italian pasta companies import US wheat, make pasta from it and then sell it as Italian.)
  
  Sure. Eat a potato from a local farm.
- how so. have you been at the meetings? Even the companies won't bee looking over the data till monday earliest.
  
  Companies look at quarter to quarter metrics. NO company of any size looks at day-to-day metrics.
  
  This is the first I've seen and I'm on Lemmy several times a day every day. 11:16pm Feb 28th. Another said they first saw it at 10:30pm.

I wish I had boycot money.
- Don't let anyone else buy you anything either.

What everyone need to do is target all their stock and funds of a particular company…. And sell that shit. Short it. Buy their competitor’s stock.
- There are some very intelligent people in the stock market, who don't care about this cause. They will happily buy the stock you're dumping.
  As for the shorting, Game Stop was shorted more than the value of the company. Do you know how that ended?

First I've seen extending this to restaurants. That seems a bit much. Most restaurants around me are small businesses. Not cool for the folks trying to keep a single place afloat.
- I think it means more applebees and tgif and chilis and such
  
  And if you go to a locally owned restaurant, pay with cash. Fuck visa/mc/banks and their merchant fees.
- Small business owners are for the most part Republicans and are a large reason trump got elected. They may have closer ties to the community but fundamentally they still are capitalists and will vote for and support monetarily the party that cuts regulations and taxes. Restaurant owners, big and small, are the backbone of the campaign to stop minimum wage increases. They need to know, just as much as the big business owners, that austerity like this has consequences.
  If you want to support the staff, which may struggle through this, buy the cheapest thing on the menu and leave a huge tip.
  
  "small business owners are for the most part Republicans"
  What?

So we dont buy anything for one day and then go back to ordering on amazon and that will have an effect on… something. Ok got it. Idiots.
- It's supposed to be baby steps towards concrete action.
  Kind of like if a smoker goes a whole day without smoking. Yea in the long run it's not gonna make a difference, but it's a start towards breaking the addiction.
- HEY YOU'RE RIGHT! The people organizing and participating in this believe that this one day of action will solve every abstract problem that exists! I also have simplistic understanding of protest and goals! I also prefer to be snarky at anyone attempting to voice dissent towards the insanity happening in our country!
  I'm really sorry to go over the top here, but seriously, there's no fucking handbook for what we're going through right now. There's no questgiver telling us concrete steps to take down objectively evil people. There's just people trying to figure out how to connect with each other and how to collectively voice dissent. Maybe we should give more credit to people doing imperfect things than to those doing nothing other than pointing out how imperfectly those things are.
  
  Did you forget to take your midol today?
  I stopped being an amazon customer years ago. I’m just saying this is objectively stupid.
  
  The snarky attitude is totally uncalled for, and you're arguing a point nobody has made.
  Nobody has said this will solve everything, but this isn't a new idea, and I've yet to see any evidence it solves anything at all.
  Even if we did get a statistically significant number of people to take part, they'll just buy shit the next few days after instead.
  If you want to get people on board, you need to provide some evidence it will actually do something at all
  
  there's no fucking handbook for what we're going through right now
  There are literally thousands of books about how to resist fascism. It has been a mainstream topic for decades now.
  For starters:
  Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook
  On Tyranny
  Fascism Today
  The history of boycotts shows us that sustained boycotts can be enormously effective. During the civil rights movement, the Montgomery and Tallahassee bus boycotts ended racial segregation on local bus systems. Sustained boycotts were also instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa.
  Maybe we should give more credit to people doing imperfect things than to those doing nothing other than pointing out how imperfectly those things are.
  Criticism is essential to building stronger movements, and any organizer worth their salt can handle criticism without an emotional outburst.
  People doing things imperfectly can be more harmful than just not doing them at all. One-day boycotts damage the reputation of boycotts as a whole, which makes people more reluctant to participate in them because they view them as pointless and ineffective.

No Restaurants? What? We're afraid the authentic turkish food place down the block is colluding with Trump, now? Idiocy.
- Yeah dude didnt you hear? If you dont spend money at your local mom & pop shop trump will get impeached

I found out about this yesterday. I don’t know what happened to the messaging, but lucky i saw it in time on blue sky.

you don’t have all the cards!

Forgot about this, but luckily I never really buy shit other than food.

IMHO we should have it every Friday or Every 28th or something like that.

Thank god I already did my shopping this week.
- Thank God you also are fine again tomorrow.

I've been seeing maga dipshits saying that they will be buying more today and will enjoy the short lines, just out of spite. So if we all start saying we like shit they do, will they stop. Like reverse scycolgy? Could they really be that dumb?......please!
- yeah of course there are going to be some of those but they are going to be the hardcore idiots rather than the leopards ate my face ones. at least presumably but who knows with these yahoos.

boycotts dont work but ill support any attempt at it, sure.
- Boycotts do work. Starbucks has actually had to admit their sales went down due to the boycott. The problem is that these things take time and doing a boycott for a day or a week doesn't really impact these corpos bottom line where they actually notice.
  
  It's different when targeting a specific business as that kind of boycott can continue indefinitely. A boycott against spending any money or going to any business can only last so long and therefore companies will see a downturn and then probably a spike in sales as people buy a bunch of stuff at once that they were planning to buy during the boycott. I agree with the other comments that organizing workplaces to eventually form the base for a real general strike would be a more effective strategy to actually hurt businesses.
  
  again these are initial salvos. they will notice a massive dip for one day. there are other more targeted ones.
  
  Yeah their sales went down, but did it change anything about the way they do business?
- Exactly. Withholding consumption is not where our collective power is. Withholding Labor is where our collective power is. These "consumer power" movements are so incredibly capitalist brained. Our working class is so brain rotted by capitalism that they can only think of "power in the hand of consumers" which is one of the biggest most obvious lies capitalist tell.
  
  I once read a quote by someone that went roughly like "Voting with your wallet means the ones with the biggest wallets get the most votes" and it has stuck with me ever since.
  
  This implies your power only extends to the company you work for. How are we going to change companies with workers outside of our collective interest? How are we going to change Twitter, we aren't going to be able to convince the well paid workers over there to strike because there creating a right wing propaganda machine. How are we going to change companies that exploit labor in the third world? If everyone in the u.s. who worked for temu strikes they could still manufacture and send there cheap plastic over here through the mail.
- boycotts dont work
  South African apartheid was brought down by a boycott. Another example is the Montgomery bus boycott initiated by Rosa Parks which ended in integrated buses.
  Of course, these boycotts lasted for longer than one day. I think if there's enough participation in this single-day boycott, somebody will come up with one that's more sustained.
  
  Neither of those were consumer boycotts though

This can have an effect in exactly two ways:
retailers lose a bit of profit because they cannot optimize their staffing for this one day. They might be a little less profitable because they have one person at work who is not needed, for example. They might also get mad customers the next day when everybody goes back shopping and they haven't prepared for it. Similarly, they might have to throw away a few fresh products and not have them in stock later.
if (and only if) people buy the stuff they need somewhere else instead. If this is about grocery shopping, well, you need groceries at some point. Doesn't matter much for the retailer when you buy it (apart from 1), as long as you buy it consistently at their place.
I support the protest, but if you want to make an impact, use that day to find alternative places to do your shopping in the future.

I get this, but as a small business owner who is already struggling, I worry about this and the other upcoming days.
- I think the complete blackout is misguided. If we want to make a real difference, stop shopping at Amazon, Walmart, Target, Whole Foods etc. and replace them with locally owned businesses. I am not going to not get lunch from the mom and pop vietnamese restaurant down the street as a way to stick it to the oligarchs. It makes no fucking sense.
  
  Did you check with each of those businesses to make sure their supply chain and product offering is clean? Are those pho ingredients from a locally sourced farm? Does that farm run off of any big brand farm equipment? Hope they don't need to buy new pots and pans off of Amazon to keep up with demand...
  The point of a blackout is you can't really choose which parts of a fundamentally broken system you want to support. These oligarchs didn't gain total economic control by producing a single widget you can avoid or a single store you can boycott.
  
  I agree as I am like that but the thing is once your perm out it won't really show up. Honestly the biggest effects is if very consumerist people do it. Its sorta a threat that they may become like us if they don't change their ways.
- Don't worry, you'll make it up tomorrow.
- If you make handmade items or refurbish things or do services there is a good chance people will not boycott you. This is more about corporations. If your a retailer I would ask that you participate although may be a bit late. Close for sales, don't put in any orders, and instead say you will be open for people to hang, discuss, play games, whatever.
  
  I am a retailer, and unless you are going to pay my bills, I cannot afford to participate.
- I’m supporting my local businesses!!!
  ..by buying an eightball

Never heard of this before. I like it, should be a weekly thing.
- We have it every Sunday where I live, government-mandated. Not fun.
- That would be something. Just every week we perform less and less economic activity to build up to something. Man a protest where we start at 1 day and build up to the whole week would be actually impressive.
  Still likely have limited scope for who could actually participate but definitely be a bit more flushed out. Give time to build up steam and momentum and get a planned reaction.
- technically anyone who honors the sabbath would be doing just that (im not religious but used to be somewhat of a religio/philophile).

Ok I know about the other ones but what's the bad stuff target did? Besides the general capitalistic crap.
- Todays is broad based. A drop out day. You will see folks making fun here saying everyone will buy the stuff tomorrow but that is fine. The ideal thing is the metrics show a massive crash in economic participation for one day. Todays lean systems rely on predictive patterns and it is a message even if they get it later. Messages like these can be powerful.
  
  So the metrics show that our is it just wishful thinking?
- They pulled their pride month merchandise and cut DEI programs after pressure from conservative groups. So if they're gonna choose them over us then we have to actually make it a choice and punish them, otherwise they'll just cave to conservatives every time since the liberals will just buy stuff any way.
- Only thing I've heard about is cutting all their DEI programs.
  
  That's good enough for me

Shit, I wasn't on here. Tell you what, make another Devil's Panties Blackout in six months. We encourage people to stock up on canned foods that can be eaten later, and bathroom items, soaps, whatever. Friend groups are established for the blackout just in case somebody loses something. It might last more than a week, maybe even a month. We should post this in streamers' chats to encourage people to spread the word; this will be on fun streams where it will not be intrusive. Make sure to target people who can remember to do things, or use it as an opportunity to help people to remember schedules. People will stay with each other to get along.
- The comic has nothing to do with it outside of supporting it in todays comic. Here is a better reference for the actions https://moist.catsweat.com/m/Resist@fedia.io/t/880512/Upcoming-US-Protests

Hahaha this boycott was Dead on arrival
- "One day boycott with no terms or conditions, that'll show em!"
  I mean, I'll still do it because why not? It's easy (which is part of the issue), but like...this will do nothing.
  
  The way I see it, you have to start small before you can go big. Get people used to the idea so when you call for a general strike later, it doesn’t seem totally outlandish.
  
  A one day boycott is a start. It will get people thinking about where and when they buy stuff. And maybe thinking about other things and the possibility of doing them. Like a general strike.

Let me know how that turns out.