Headlines throughout the past year denote an encouraging trend: Boycotts are making a dent in woke companies’ bottom lines. Still, there’s plenty of work to be done. Dethroning massive corporations hostile to traditional values that have nevertheless dominated industries for decades and provided products and services that are staples of our culture won’t happen overnight. What’s necessary is a continued, coordinated effort by conscientious consumers determined to fight back against ideology saturating nearly everything.
The good news is that boycotting, done right, blossoms forth myriad personal benefits that go beyond putting propagandistic executives on notice and righting society’s ship into a calmer current and back toward a more traditional port. I’ve found that minor sacrifices and perceived inconveniences often result in beautiful, surprising instances of serendipity that enrich my life. The discipline involved in self-denial, too, has helped me keep my priorities in check, simplify my life, and feel more satisfied with less.
HOME ECONOMICS: THE HUMAN COST OF THE AFFORDABILITY CRISIS
Let’s first look at the positive change boycotts have brought about already: Anheuser-Busch continues to lose millions of dollars months after making transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney the face of Bud Light, and top executives at the beer giant are dropping like flies. Target’s sales are also struggling after the retailer’s Pride month merchandise launched about as successfully as Elon Musk’s Starship rocket. Over at Disney, speculators posit the reason the release of the ultrawoke — sorry, "reimagined" — live-action Snow White musical has been delayed an entire year is to give Disney time “to scrub politically correct elements in response to backlash,” as Fox News put it.
This chain of events reinforces recent Gallup polling showing that the number of people fed up with corporations taking public stances on current events is surging — up to 60% this year from 52% in 2022. Clearly, we’re not alone.
Yet choosing an alternative beer in a nation where the barrier to crafting a brew seems to be the ability to grow facial hair and wear a flannel shirt isn’t hard. Finding an alternate one-stop shop at which to buy paper towels, cute candles, and affordable dorm room furniture presents slightly more of a challenge, but Target doesn’t even serve popcorn and Icees anymore, so the retailer had one strike against it even before it started selling Bye Bye, Binary books to children.
The difficulty comes in trying to refrain from all the other things the ideological tentacles touch. In my book, Woke-Proof Your Life, I include a list compiled by my friend Dave Seminara of woke companies that should be boycotted. The list is long and comprehensive — and intimidating. Everything from Absolut vodka to Lego to PetSmart supports some sort of radical liberal cause. It also doesn’t help that so many hallowed brands share a perpetrator parent: Johnson & Johnson, for instance, makes Tylenol, Neutrogena, Aveeno, and Listerine. Mondelez International is responsible for basically everything worth eating: Oreos, Cadbury Dairy Milk products, Toblerone chocolate, Sour Patch Kids, Trident gum, Honey Maid graham crackers, Ritz Crackers, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese.
The temptation is to throw up one’s hands, take a few preemptive Tylenols, and go on an Absolut and Sour Patch Kids bender till Target’s “Live Laugh Lesbian” shirts are all you can buy. Or, as Seminara put it, resign yourself to “eating nothing but Goya food and wearing loincloths made from Mike Lindell’s pillows.”
It’s true that Jeremy Boreing and his “woke-free” Daily Wire elves have their work cut out for them in producing a value-aligned product to rival everyone on the woke companies list. But take it from a child deprived by her very conservative parents of tasting the forbidden Fruit by the Foot (General Mills was on the Christian Action Council boycott list for supporting Planned Parenthood back in 1990): You’ll be fine. And with the right attitude, you’ll be more than fine. You’ll thrive.
Take a deep breath and remember there are many ways to boycott, including “micro-boycotting,” which Seminara practices by limiting what he buys at woke companies rather than eliminating his purchases altogether. It still makes a difference. In fact, a 2018 study by University of Pennsylvania researchers found it takes roughly 25% of the population to overturn established social behavior, with the authors noting, “The only incentive was to coordinate.”
I’m personally more of a cold-turkey type (read: lacking self-control), and the biggest step I took to minimize patronizing companies opposed to my values was to delete my Instagram and Amazon accounts altogether. If you take a gander at the woke boycott list, you’ll notice a huge portion of the companies are involved in technology and online services. Not only is social media an easy way to disseminate liberal propaganda (and censor opposition), but it’s also a Pandora’s box of overconsumption. Since doing away with Instagram, I am aware of fewer things I “need,” and I feel freer from wanting things in general. Targeted ads and the materialistic lifestyles of influencers have a way of working their way into your psyche, and if an app tempts you to consume unnecessary, morally tainted stuff, cut it off.
Amazon, at first, was tougher to live without, for obvious reasons. Now, though, months on from canceling my account, I possess the bless-your-heart conviction of a debutante armed with complete clarity post-breakup. When an item I’m searching for pops up as available at Amazon, the idea of buying it there feels mildly shameful — the same sensation I get after watching trashy TV or recalling that I ever consumed Taco Bell.
But Amazon and Walmart are "so cheap!" you say. Yes, they are, and I appreciate that not everyone has the luxury of paying double for everything simply to stick it to Jeff Bezos. That said, in my own experience, eliminating Amazon eliminated a lot of less-than-premeditated purchasing (“impulse buying” just sounds so manic), leaving me the flexibility to spend a bit more here and there. It has a way of balancing out.
As I’ve made a concerted effort to get out of the common “buy everything online” rut, I’ve again been spending less on things ill-begotten from the woke list, and less overall, as actually leaving my house and going to a brick-and-mortar store takes much more effort than clicking twice and having a left-handed banjo end up on my doorstep two days later.
The fact that I feel the need to consult a list before making a purchase these days is unfortunate, but boycotting has helped me foster healthier relationships with myself, my possessions, local merchants, and even God. Striving to contain my spending to a few approved sources is hard, but it also serves to remind me constantly that life, and therefore every action we take, has purpose. Once I made my consumption habits more intentional, to borrow a new age word, I gained a renewed appreciation for products, services, and the people responsible for them. I’ve also been focusing more on the consequences of bleary-eyed consumerism and how sometimes doing without strengthens the virtues found in detachment, i.e., knowledge that we are made for more than acquiring as many things as possible as quickly as possible for as cheap as possible.
Reflecting on my ramped-up boycotting journey brings to mind many highlights. After Lowe’s sponsored critical race theory training that involved urging white employees to “cede power to people of color,” I decided to buy every home improvement item I could at the local hardware store that’s been owned by the same family for more than 100 years. Its prices are higher, yes, but I also have to drive farther to Lowe’s and get lost in aisles that make me feel like Kevin McCallister in New York City (if only Donald Trump would show up and point me in the direction of the premixed all-purpose drywall joint compound). At the local store, by contrast, I’m greeted by one of a handful of employees I know by name. They know me, and they know my projects, too. They’re knowledgeable, helpful, and happy to advise. I trust them, and as we wait for the paint to be mixed, we chitchat about happenings in town and our lives, and our friendship grows with each visit.
My brother had a similar experience in boycotting his local Kroger. He decided to go to an independent butcher store instead and was delighted by the personal interest the proprietor took in helping him learn about all the different cuts of meat and how to cook them.
Perhaps it’s a butcher shop thing, but I’ve encountered the same thing in frequenting a family-owned meat market in my town as opposed to the grocery store chains. The owner told me he gets the meat from local family farms, with whom he’s established a trusted relationship over time. The meat doesn’t have to travel as far, and in addition to being fresher, there’s better quality control. If there’s ever a problem with a piece of meat, he can tell you within a day exactly where it was sourced.
Likewise, I've been buying my new go-to coffee from a shop in town that gets it from a roaster the next county over. I’ve been to the roasting store and talked to the owner about his reasons for starting his own coffee shop. He’s a strong Christian and wanted to establish a wholesome environment where the community could connect. The coffee beans are from farms in Africa and South America that he visits regularly with his typically college-aged employees. My coffee beans are costlier than Starbucks, but I am happy to pay a few dollars more to support the Christian man’s mission. Plus, his product is high quality and, unlike Starbucks, excellent tasting. What’s more, when I buy it from my hometown coffee shop, I get to flirt with the “morning coffee crew,” a group of retired octogenarians who get together every day at dawn, which is a surefire way to put an extra pep in your step.
This is not to say, obviously, that none of the people working for woke companies are competent and kind. But I’ve found that businesses embracing traditional values are more likely to attract and keep employees inclined to contribute to a community that hinges on Judeo-Christian principles.
If you’re looking to infuse a bit more boycotting into your life, I recommend zeroing in on two basic concepts: simplify and localize. Take your time, evaluate what you really need, and don’t be intimidated by the adventure that may be involved in acquiring things (it’s fun, I promise!). Try not to allow the game of boycott whack-a-mole consume you and destroy your home life, either, but pray for guidance in boycotting strategically and in a health-giving way. You’re not going to be a Puritan at the end of the day. We live in an abundant world, and there are tons of companies that are either anti-woke or neutral.
And if you ever find yourself obsessing over a product you just can’t seem to live without, I find it helps to imagine buying it from Vice President Kamala Harris as a cackling store clerk.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Teresa Mull is an assistant editor of the Spectator World and author of Woke-Proof Your Life.
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