boy...cott?

English is a peculiar language where individual words are contain a subtly distinct definitions based on who is saying them, where they're saying them, and who they're saying them to. We drain words of meaning and then imbibe them with something new and close enough to the original. The result is a collective, shared, vague understanding of a term that collapses when discourse progresses past the superficial.

Pop quiz, what is a boycott?¹

1. Not fucking with an icky company/person because they're doing something gross/unethical/the vibes are bad/handling a topic I don't like.

2. A r/malelivingspaces situation when a couch serves as a cot/bed/clothes hamper/closet/cry for help.²

3. Collective, organised action to weaponize purchasing power, or the willingness to abstain from purchasing, to exert pressure onto a firm, government, or individual to enact political, societal, or legal change.

It's option three (3). Online, it's often option one (1). For violations big or small, and grievances real or perceived, the "boycott" has become the go to suggestion if seldom followed through implementation. The idea of the boycott, of using our purchasing power to enact change, slots nicely into our ongoing obsession with purity through good consumption. Less cynically, the readiness to cry out for a boycott illustrates our understanding of the limitations of individual action and an appreciation of existing as subjects under capitalism — cash is king and the powers that be care mostly about their bottom line.

For me, option one (1) is about your personal line. It's important to maintain (unless it's a bad line), but hard to enforce and importantly individualistic. Maintaining these lines is healthy boundary enforcement if you know your scope. There are things I will not do, or watch, or play, or buy, because I object to some aspect of either their subject matter or their production. I do this for my own comfort, both for my peace of mind and to signal a pain point for others interacting with me.

In the press build up to the film "Cold Pursuit," actor Liam Neeson volunteered a story about a time in his life where he fantasised about murdering a black man (any of us) in retribution for the rape of a close friend. 'I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody – I’m ashamed to say that – and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could,” another pause, “kill him.'

This has obviously stuck with me and I find it impossible to watch a movie starring Neeson without thinking about how he was primed and willing to do a hate crime. I have not seen the new Naked Gun film, which I hear is excellent, and when asked 'why I have not' I explain. If my aim was to prevent production companies from hiring Neeson, my individual consumption practice is negligible. So in the absence of creating a boycott, in expressing my abstinence from watching a Neeson picture, I am at most telling you that I would rather not talk about the man.

If uncoordinated, individual action is useless in enacting change, what is effective in shifting the status quo? Organisation. Here organisation refers to assembling a group of individuals, united in a shared purpose if not necessarily yet agreed upon method. Any form of mobilisation or agitation requires organisation beforehand and it's why the most effective boycotts, protests, marches, etc., tend to be planned by established organisations. If you're having trouble picturing this, think of a union at work. Ideally, a union should be formed before it is explicitly necessary. When it's contract negotiation season you do not want the added pressure of simultaneously organising people while trying to coordinate sit outs, strikes, etc.

Building from a pre-organised base allows for nimbleness - quick reactions to developments - and the construction of institutional knowledge. The latter is important for not only connections to other groups but also boycott engineering.

boycott engineering

The big advantage of a boycott is how relatively easy (at least compared to other forms of collective action )it is to partake in. Even if one is not planning a march, there are inconveniences including but not limited to taking time off work, finding a baby sitter, willingness to be confronted by opposition etc. While participating in a boycott is often embracing an inconvenience, it does not typically drastically change the day to day operation of the participant. This relative passivity is also its biggest weakness. A boycott is a long term act often performed for months if not years. It lacks the immediate energising and mobilising power of something more direct like a march or a sit in. Therefore it requires careful engineering to be effective. A good boycott often has expectations that are plausible to adhere to long term but not crippling. If you've ever wondered why a boycott might ask you to specifically abstain from purchasing a specific product or service from a company versus completely shunning the company, this is in part the reason why. It is more feasible to ask people to boycott a luxury service/good, such as Xbox, than it is to ask them to completely remove more pragmatic products, such as the Microsoft office suite or the Windows OS, from their lives.

Another reason why boycotts are often specific is deliverables. In targeting a specific area, it's now possible for the organisation to report to the base (you and me) the results of the actions taken thus far. This is important in re-energising a movement and giving a boycott a second wind. Victories have the added bonus of bringing more people into the mobilisation.

you should feel good

An underrated aspect of boycotts is that they are designed to keep you connected to a broader movement. In the 21st century you are either experiencing or spectating injustice and horror. It is difficult and at times irresponsible to be optimistic about the present trajectory of our planet. The boycott, this tiny block that can fit into the Tetris of your life, gives you back something. You may not have the time, the energy, or the know-how to do more and if that's eating at you then a boycott can be a balm for your soul.

you should feed bad

I know what I just said but this is a know yourself moment. If you feel like a boycott is not doing enough or it's moving too slowly, it might be! Can you do more? Boycotts are outreach. You hear of the boycott, you not only learn about the violations of an employer or firm or government, you now know of an organisation attempting to do something about it. That is your rabbit hole. Your call to arms. Maybe for a completely different organisation or someplace more local. You are hearing the call to get active.

a boycott can't topple a corp

Probably not! Not by itself at least. But what else are you doing? Seriously read over this piece until you get why this is sort of nonsense. Sorry!

sometimes you think it's option 3 but it's really option 1

There is a lot of lashing out on the internet when someone steps over the invisible line to violate a code of conduct that is presumably intuitive. The conflation of personal lines with moral impetus can be, at best, unproductive but is often harmful. A group can agree that something is unjust but without coordination on how to tackle it, there will be cross-talk, there will be wasted time, and ther will be hurt feelings. Coordination also allows for more input: do we have a clear picture of the situation? Are we acting on behalf of someone else? Do they accurately represent the aggreived? And sometimes most importantly, are we aiming at the right target?

For example: game developer ZA/UM followed up their breakout hit Disco Elysium with this year's Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. This was after the messy and publicised ousting of multiple of Elysium's chief creatives. The comments under Parade's debut trailer were primarily of one genre: a refusal to purchase the game on principle. This was declaring a personal line. In glowing posts about the game post release and under some reviews, many commenters chastised anyone with anything positive to say about the game. This was projecting that personal line as a collectively ethical stance without doing any of the work to coordinate action. This "boycott" is not interested in changing working conditions at ZA/UM or the reinstation of the aggrieved parties. It is not acting on behalf on the aggreived — at least I could not find a formal call for boycott and if there was one I can not find guidance as to how to adhere to one. Put succinctly, it's vengeance.

The boycott in this contemporary form is jungle justice but even less coordinated. It is what many think about when they hear "boycott" and it's made talking about actual organised boycotts exponentially harder. This is cancel culture so if this your idea of a boycott, of course you're going to think they do not work.

carbon offsets

This is a relatively new one to me and it baffles and boggles. There's an acknowledgement of a boycott, an acknowledgement that it's important, and then a violation of the boycott in the next breath. This is either well intentioned dumbassery or a disgusting appropriation of a movement to maintain the veneer of progressiveness without doing the miniscule amount of labour a boycott entails due to entitlement or something similarly vapid. You cannot ask people to keep in mind the suffering of a people and the call to care about it through a specific method while doing the thing that violates that method. We are the commentariat. We talk into microphones and press keys on the keyboard and if at the first hurdle — at the lowest rung where a toddler can step over it — when we can put into practice an iota of the politics we ramble about we fall face first, then there should be accountability. You are presenting a false alternative model of adhering to boycotts to an audience that, while often adults, are shockingly impressionable. To that adult audience, you should demand more. If not adherence to a supposedly valid boycott then provided reasoning. "Do you think it is poorly engineered?" "Do you think you are an outlier because adherence will have a disproportionately negative effect on your comfort or income?" Have the conversation. To endorse a boycott and violate its terms is, to me, worse than disagreeing with boycott. We are pulling in one direction and I would love to know why you are pulling in another while going on about the importance of the work.

In our globalised world where corporations pierce their tendrils through every territory and every facet of our lives and the political map is drawn in thick marker with only state murder allowed to travel across with impunity, the boycott as a tool, even when slight, is one of the only ways for us to unite.