this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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Just some additional advertising for todays boycott.

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[–] MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 23 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 10 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Gotta start somewhere with people. The point is that anyone can do this, and it's easy to do, but it isn't really any more difficult to show up to a town hall. And while yes, you and I can (and probably do) take larger, more effective steps, longer boycotts, etc. We need numbers, and that, I think, is the real value of this.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee -1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

A million times zero is still zero. We gain nothing by entirely performative action. Start somewhere, but make it somewhere meaningful.

[–] Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Organize something better and shut tf up or just shut tf up. You’re just as bad as them with your piss poor attitude towards people that are at least trying to do something whether it complies with your own personal standards you fail to deliver on yourself, if you weren’t your own biggest failure you would be presenting your initiative piggybacking on this one instead of trying to downplay others.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 points 7 hours ago

I suspect these types of actions are actually counter productive, because they take attention away from movements and causes that actually stand a chance of working, while having little to no effect on the business they're targeting.

There's no way enough people took this seriously to move the needle on daily sales more than the regular sales fluctuations these stores would see.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee -1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

No thank you. I'm going to instead continue to rally against treating adults like coddled children and placating them in ways which dis-motivate them from actual collective action by convincing them that they're already doing collective action. And I'm going to keep criticism bad ideas because good intention alone is not enough. I don't give a shit about making people feel good or participating in the latest fun leftist trend, I care about meaningful impact.

Feel free to block me if your find your feathers unable to be unruffled.

[–] Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Why would I block you, you’re your own biggest failure. That you are willing to put it on public display is an amusing commentary to me. Tagged and followed.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

And I have no interest in trolls looking to bait me with insults, so I'll do us the favor and just block you from my side instead then.

[–] Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Calling you out on your critique of others while failing to living up to the very same standards you set for others isn’t trolling. You’re projecting onto others while you fail to do anything yourself while judging those who at least try something. #yobf

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Honest question, what is an accessible first step for a population that has basically never performed any collective action that isn't performative?

Is standing outside a local government building holding a sign to protest federal policy affecting change?

In my view, at least this one day action has a marginal economic impact. Holding a sign on your lunch break so you can post some pictures to Instagram is way more performative.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

How about pooling money together and starting a competing co-op?

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

I agree! So let's all stop spending today to get people on board and save a few bucks, then use that momentum to pool that money the next day.

People seem to dislike this protest because inaction is seen as ineffective and opposed to active protest. Its "too easy", which puts a bad taste in their mouth.

But on the other hand:

  • its dead easy
  • has no barrier to entry
  • has no regressive downside on those unable to spend
  • even partial participation can add up
  • is simple to communicate and organize
  • doing it for one day makes it easy to see how you could do it for longer. The hardest part of any diet is when you just start out

If anything, I see putting the economic brakes on as allowing for more leverage and room to organize. If work is slow maybe you have more time to attend that protest; maybe you're not in a rush to get back to the shop if it's closed early.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

But it doesn't have marginal impact. It has zero impact. Whether you spend money on Thursday or Friday, the bottom line is the same. We are starting from the false premise that this has any impact, when the smallest amount of critical thought renders that false immediately.

Yes, get the hell out and stand in front of government offices with signs. Make noise. Be seen. Do anything other than pretending keeping your items in your shopping cart for one additional day has any impact.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 0 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

That's completely backwards. It costs elected officials and our corporate overlords LITERALLY nothing to ignore your protest. It's bad PR at best. Even then, manipulating news coverage, headlines and soundbites is second nature to these people.

How long would an economic strike have to be for it to have an impact you won't handwave away? There could be prepped food on shelves today that gets thrown out tomorrow. Do it over a weekend and no tickets get sold to a show. Do it for a week and logistics starts getting fucked up.

Standing around and making noise without any other change to your lifestyle or attempting to organize your efforts is completely hollow. Not to mention, infinitely less accessible to people who can't afford the time or don't have the physical ability to attend.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Do it for a week and logistics starts getting fucked up.

Yes, change the entire nature and scope of the protest and it might be impactful, I agree with you.

Do it over a weekend and no tickets get sold to a show.

....do you think people are still primarily buying event tickets from in-person box offices same day?

[–] stickly@lemmy.world -1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

The point is that it has an impact that you're arbitrarily ignoring. If you scale your sign holding and chanting up to 3 million people in a state capital then it might be impactful as well.

The key here is which of these is a more accessible and reasonable thing to ask people to do as a first action? Is it easier to organize 3 protests of 50,000 people in a month or have 500,000 cut their spending in half for a month?

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

But this continues to ignore the entire crux of the argument - if you're supposed to give me $100 on Wednesday but don't give it to me until Thursday, by Friday I'm still holding $100. Period. End of discussion.

I don't know why we keep pretending there is more to this. There isn't.

Again, my argument isn't that scale and scope don't exist, it continues to be that any number times zero is still zero. Period. You are being led astray into feeling impactful so as to dissuade you from meaningful impact. This isn't harmless, and this isn't without intention.

When politicians see you gathered outside their offices, you're right, they can absolutely close the blinds and ignore you. But at least they understand you care enough to make a stand and they have to put in the intentional effort to ignore it. When the powers that be see shit like this first off they don't even have to ignore it because it's literally nothing and will resolve itself in the books literally in the same week. They don't see people who care enough to take a stand, they seem people who wanted to participate in a trend.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world -2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

My brother in Christ it's the exact same thing with any protest that isn't en masse or an extended occupied disruption. My original question was "do you have any better ideas" and you clearly don't. Why take the time to shit on it?

Edit: also not having $100 for multiple days is an actual impact that you're ignoring. If you've got a bill due on one of those days you might be on trouble

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Literally any action is better, and again, just because an idea has good intention doesn't make it beyond criticism. Acknowledging and discussing the reality isn't "shitting on" something, and the suggestion that it is is driving towards ignorance that benefits noone.

Furthermore, I don't need to know how to repair a roof to identify a leak. Instead of trying to fight my suggestion that this is meaningless, why don't you try instead to prove with any kind of verifiable reasoning or evidence that this protest will be impactful. Give me some kind of source that supports this idea that doesn't fall down to "I think" or "it might."

You guys are the ones making the claim here - that this protest is viable. Fucking back it up.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world -2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

🚨THE

🚨PROTEST

🚨HAS

🚨AN

🚨IMPACT

I've walked you through it multiple times and you just choose to ignore it. If 300 million Americans did this for one day there would be an economic shockwave, businesses don't budget around NOT HAVING REVENUE. Even IF they make up the difference later.

Next time I'm a day late on rent, I'll just tell my landlord me having money tomorrow is just as good as today. I'm sure he'll accept that as payment.

So then is your argument it won't be widespread enough to have an impact? Because that's not the criticism you're offering, you're completely dismissing it.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

🚨 BEING

🚨 LOUDER

🚨 AND

🚨 MORE

🚨 PASSIVE

🚨 AGGRESSIVE

🚨 DOESN'T

🚨 MAKE

🚨 YOUR

🚨 POINT

🚨 MORE

🚨 VALID

Show me the impact. Give me examples of comparable protests and show me the real world verifiable and measurable impact which they have resulted in.

My argument is that the scope and scale of this protest renders it moot. These are real factors.

And paying your monthly rent with established due dates is non-comparable to additional discretionary spending which is tracked in market quarters. Not to mention the fact that tons of us have had to give our landlords rent checks late tons of time before and the overall impact is the goddamn same.

So again, show me the relevant example of comparable impact and I'll concede. Otherwise, I'm going to keep rightly telling you that your performative protest is about your own feelings rather than any actual impact.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world -3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

You're clearly upset because you THINK it won't have an impact and you WISH they were doing something else. Which is weird because this protest doesn't preclude them from doing anything?

Its not like I'm choosing to use a sick day today or next week to attend one protest or the other.

I'm sad I can't get you to understand how businesses run or basic economics. Even if you pretend no businesses are running on fumes and that missing a payment doesn't have an impact for anyone doesn't make it true.

Or what about this brain blast: not all demand is the same. If I skip lunch today I won't buy lunch twice tomorrow to make up for it... If everyone did that, all restaurants lose 3% of their monthly revenue automatically. Is that not an impact? Is there a magic percentage that it needs to meet to be "impactful"?

Did you ever consider what would happen if it wasn't just you but everyone in the city was late on rent? You're conflating an individual action's impact with collective impact. Your landlord can price in some percentage of missed payments the same way that a store can price in shoplifting. Being drastically off on that estimate is still a problem.

Again, if you're arguing the protest won't be widespread enough that's fine. You could even argue that small businesses will be unfairly targeted by this protest and I'm here for it. But ineffective is not the same as performative.

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I continue to wait for examples from comparable scenarios that support the claim being made.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world -3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I just gave one, please continue to ignore it 👌

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

No, you didn't. You gave a hypothesis and then justified with assumptions, providing absolutely nothing concrete to support them beyond "trust me bro".

Give me any kind of data to support the claim.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world -1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Brother: restaurant no get money, money no come next day.

That's not making any assumption. This type of protest hasn't been tried in America at scale, how can I possibly present data. Who knows what the impact will be, why don't we find out before we lable it pointless?

Do you have any data showing that me standing in front of my city hall on Tuesday with a sign makes a difference? Because it's been tried quite a few times since Occupy and nothing has improved. Or is that also operating off of "trust me bro"?

This is coming from a person who wants to do both. Is your argument that we should do nothing?

[–] Vespair@lemm.ee 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I want you to know that I am treating your concerns seriously and have been writing a response, but it is already 5000 characters long and I need to eat dinner, so I hope you will allow me the courtesy of replying in time without assuming that I am either conceding or disregarding your comment.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world -1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Save yourself the trouble, this isn't going anywhere

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

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.