All form of resistance is meaningful.
We all know the world is spiraling towards a future ruled by techno-fascist oligarchs, hell-bent on capitalizing on everything and everyone. After all, in a surveillance state, you are not only a cam girl for the police, but also the product. What you buy, what you say, what you desire, and even what you think are all data points that companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Spotify can grab and monetize. The moment we stopped being labeled as customers and became consumers was the moment the products we bought became less valuable than the data they could harvest from us.
For those of us who were paying attention, we saw this coming a decade ago. In fact, a dear friend of mine in college coined the phrase “data mine your ass”—and here we are, sixteen years later, and they are, in fact, data mining our asses.
So what, then, can we ever hope to accomplish in the face of a William Gibson–style dystopian cyberpunk future—and present? Simple: choose when, where, and how to engage.
We still live in a capitalist society, and to drive that capitalist society, they still need us to buy their products. The simple answer is: don’t. Buy used, buy cheap, pay with cash, buy only what you need, and engage only when you have to. Get rid of your smartwatches—they track your health data and sell it to insurance companies. Use analog. When and where possible, pirate your media. Do you really need that new foldable iPhone? No, so don’t buy it. Do you need to engage with bots online, designed only to drive engagement, incite anger, exhaust you, and wear you down? No. Delete the comments and block them. Share the information you can, and when you can. Read a book on physical paper—not digitally, not through electronic ink, and not through an online platform that can alter or erase the text on a whim.
“Gulf of America”? Not on physical maps. Digital technology has now made it easier than ever to erase, change, or omit facts that were once universally known as a given. Yes, the Earth is flat. We updated that textbook last week. Didn’t you get the new edition?
Since we are now the products, our dollar—or what few dollars we have left—matters even more. Where we shop, how we shop, and how we fight back through the very capitalist structure is simple: boycotts. They work, and they have worked in the past, from the farm workers in Delano in the late 1960s and early ’70s, in which the father of one of our activists, Peter Escobar, participated as a young boy, to our eleven-week boycott against Spotify for running ICE and DHS recruitment ads. Boycotts are the most effective and powerful tool the worker and the consumer have in our toolbox. A strong enough boycott can get CEOs fired, just like at Target. A strong enough boycott can get Spotify to cancel a $100,000 government contract to act as ICE’s propagandist. Maybe a strong enough boycott against the new Harry Potter series can save trans lives.
Until the societal fabric of the world changes, boycotts remain the best and most powerful tool we can use to force these multibillion-dollar companies to sit down and listen to us. Because we are the product, because we are the consumers, because we can win when we collectively pour our time, resources, and energy into an effort to make the world a slightly better place.
Because as we have seen, with enough collective effort, not only can a group of misfits force Spotify to capitulate, just like we accomplished this past January, but force AI companies to cancel the building out of data centers across America’s heartland. Things may be dark, and grim, and we still have a long battle ahead of us, but make no mistake, the only thing that has ever changed the world is a small group of dedicated men and women working together to make it a better, safer and kinder future. So how can you keep helping? Well, you can cable your Hilton credit card, cancel your memberships, and email them why, because they are providing shelter to masked thugs kidnapping men, women, and children on our streets. Tell them that you will not participate in a system that profits off of the tears and blood of brown people. Especially as the holidays roll around, tell Hilton that housing ICE is participating in war crimes.
“Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along with it too.”
― Ulrike Meinhof - founding member of the German Red Army Faction -
