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Just some additional advertising for todays boycott.
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.
Do et, Yankies. STICK IT TO THE MAN
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.
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.
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?
No I was just working then running errands then had dinner reservations for my sister's birthday before this whole thing was given a date.
Well that all checks out... This time 😝
The AP ran an article on it
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.
Less than 10 % if shops introduce discounts during the week
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
So… anything is a comic strip nowadays it seems.
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.
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.
I didn't know about this and still participated by accident. What I'm trying to say is that if 1 day counts as boycott I'm severely concerned by the overreliance the general public has on those companies.
There's an ever growing chance shit like this just functions as pressure release psyops because it makes people feel accomplished while doing fuck all as everyone buys more the day before or the day after.
What people -don't want to- understand is that for it to hurt the corporations, it's got to hurt all of us. Either we give up things entirely like streaming and luxury goods or we do a general strike that costs millions of people their jobs or prompts a fascist crackdown.
The only good ways out of this spot were decades ago. Every path forward is miles of broken glass because of how propagandized a majority of this country is. Everyone wants to blame Trump or Republicans, but Democrats have spent at least 30 years with Clinton's 3rd way dems (gay tolerant Reaganites) pushing the Overton window right.
http://politicalcompass.org/uselection2016
Hilary's policy was assessed as farther right than Trump's. Obama basically handed the Heritage Foundation everything they wanted.
These bullshit one day strikes aren't going to save us and neither are the Democrats simply because if they were interested in preserving democracy, they wouldn't have been slow walking us right for decades.
MIT lecture from 2014 about oligarchy controlling everything already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzS068SL-rQ
This eerily reminds me to the "minute of hate"
Yeah, there's a body of research about social media both used to foster animosity as well as complacency.