Talk of a “Feb 28 Economic Blackout” is spreading on social media. What is it?
A social media phenomenon where people don’t shop on Amazon for a day, then spend the next day acting as if they single-handedly stormed the beaches of Normandy while being on Amazon and ordering everything they were going to order the day before. Somewhere, a random bean counter is mildly inconvenienced for about 5 minutes while making minor adjustments to a month-over-month P&L statement to account for this while the rest of business goes on as normal.
These protests accomplish nothing. Corporations know that at most, people just end up pushing off their purchases by a day or two, and know that these events can simply be ignored, and everybody in both the corporate and government world knows that the vast majority of people aren’t in a position where they can keep up this kind of protest for more than a day or so even if they wanted to, let alone have the willpower to do it. It would be mostly a symbolic gesture that everybody involves knows can be waited out.
It’s the adult equivalent of “I’m going to hold my breath!”. That’s nice, kid. You’ve gotta breathe eventually. If you’re not willing to all but cut yourself off from society, put your own job at risk, etc. for a prolonged period of time, this will accomplish nothing but giving yourself a huge dose of copium. And most people are neither willing nor able to do that.
Bigger stuff does need to happen. Nobody in power is even really opposing the bad stuff happening.
But this movement will still have power. It doesn’t have to be a fatal hit, to be effective. The power doesn’t come from striking, it comes from engaging the masses and giving them direction, people are scared, they’re not going to go from 0 to 100, it needs to start small. People want to do something and doing something will give them hope, which is desperately needed right now. One day may not feel like much, but the companies would feel it, and be scared, especially if a lot of people participated. They would feel the absence, and know how huge the numbers are, against them. It’s a shot over the wall. It’s a display of power, it’s a warning shot.
It also has the power to get people on board for longer term methods, people start thinking about what they’re buying and what they can go without, on an individual basis, re-examining what they’re buy and from who. It might cost $5 more from the small seller, but the small seller makes it themselves and doesn’t support fascism.
We have all the power really, we just need to unite in one flock of movement. You’re right, we could all go in for the death shot, stop buying from one company entirely, one by one, collapsing them, but how do you organise that when algorithms are controllable and all the social media are owned by these people who are, essentially, the enemy. (except tiktok, that was popular / populated enough and not owned by the same people, hence the hostile take over, they were organising over there, and Bam, instantly organised a hostile take over. Look up tallgirl6234, on tiktok, she organised a massive 3 month long boycotting set up, starting with Kelloggs and including all the other evil overlords)
Big movements, can and do start small. People need to hear about it, and more will join, that alone has ultimate power. The most important thing is numbers. Plus those billions in profits, come from the billions of people. Getting billions of people together, and then doing some capitalism damage, starts somewhere. Join every movement. One or more might be the steamroller that takes it all down.
A social media phenomenon where people don’t shop on Amazon for a day, then spend the next day acting as if they single-handedly stormed the beaches of Normandy while being on Amazon and ordering everything they were going to order the day before. Somewhere, a random bean counter is mildly inconvenienced for about 5 minutes while making minor adjustments to a month-over-month P&L statement to account for this while the rest of business goes on as normal.
These protests accomplish nothing. Corporations know that at most, people just end up pushing off their purchases by a day or two, and know that these events can simply be ignored, and everybody in both the corporate and government world knows that the vast majority of people aren’t in a position where they can keep up this kind of protest for more than a day or so even if they wanted to, let alone have the willpower to do it. It would be mostly a symbolic gesture that everybody involves knows can be waited out.
It’s the adult equivalent of “I’m going to hold my breath!”. That’s nice, kid. You’ve gotta breathe eventually. If you’re not willing to all but cut yourself off from society, put your own job at risk, etc. for a prolonged period of time, this will accomplish nothing but giving yourself a huge dose of copium. And most people are neither willing nor able to do that.
Bigger stuff does need to happen. Nobody in power is even really opposing the bad stuff happening.
But this movement will still have power. It doesn’t have to be a fatal hit, to be effective. The power doesn’t come from striking, it comes from engaging the masses and giving them direction, people are scared, they’re not going to go from 0 to 100, it needs to start small. People want to do something and doing something will give them hope, which is desperately needed right now. One day may not feel like much, but the companies would feel it, and be scared, especially if a lot of people participated. They would feel the absence, and know how huge the numbers are, against them. It’s a shot over the wall. It’s a display of power, it’s a warning shot.
It also has the power to get people on board for longer term methods, people start thinking about what they’re buying and what they can go without, on an individual basis, re-examining what they’re buy and from who. It might cost $5 more from the small seller, but the small seller makes it themselves and doesn’t support fascism.
We have all the power really, we just need to unite in one flock of movement. You’re right, we could all go in for the death shot, stop buying from one company entirely, one by one, collapsing them, but how do you organise that when algorithms are controllable and all the social media are owned by these people who are, essentially, the enemy. (except tiktok, that was popular / populated enough and not owned by the same people, hence the hostile take over, they were organising over there, and Bam, instantly organised a hostile take over. Look up tallgirl6234, on tiktok, she organised a massive 3 month long boycotting set up, starting with Kelloggs and including all the other evil overlords)
Big movements, can and do start small. People need to hear about it, and more will join, that alone has ultimate power. The most important thing is numbers. Plus those billions in profits, come from the billions of people. Getting billions of people together, and then doing some capitalism damage, starts somewhere. Join every movement. One or more might be the steamroller that takes it all down.