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Welcome to I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today, a conversational, culture-savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone sideways. We’re here to unpack the issues that boggle our minds, all rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy, and a little humility.
Chris Bevolo (00:00)
Another thing that's maybe equally as disturbing is how dependent I am on these brands and their products,
episode seven of I'm Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today. This is our conversational, cultural savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone sideways. It's still going sideways, Des, turns out after episode seven. I thought things would be all straightened up by now, but they are not. So we are here to unpack the issues that boggle our minds, all rooted in little history, a little culture, humor, a little group therapy, and a little humility.
I am Chris Bevello, your host, co-host, owner of Bearing 287. We are an organization that's fighting the good fight to make the world a better place for all and the sponsor of the show. And I'm joined as always by my co-host, Des Ray, who is a social impact comm strategist by day and who spends her nights remixing history to make sense of the present high, Des.
Desiree Ep7.2 (01:12)
Good morrow Christopher. We're in the diagonal. I don't know, like it's going sideways. It's going upside down. It's going diagonally. I just want off of this roller coaster and help.
Chris Bevolo (01:24)
Do you,
we'll have to do a podcast about that very thing you just said. Like, do you think we're ever gonna get off this roller coaster?
Desiree Ep7.2 (01:30)
I mean, I think like it's training our bodies to just be used to this. Like, it's, yeah. Like maybe, I mean, they're trying to get us back to the 50s when everything was allegedly calmer. Calmer for whom? But
Chris Bevolo (01:36)
I don't know.
Great! What do mean, Tess? It was so good back then.
I don't know what you're even talking about.
Desiree Ep7.2 (01:50)
I remember it fondly.
Life was great in the 50s.
Chris Bevolo (01:52)
Gosh, well, we're gonna
Today we're gonna tackle related to the world going diagonal and upside down and sideways boycotts and boycotting brands. Because we have been talking, we had a whole episode dedicated to what do you do, how do you take action and really focused on running for political office. So this is another thing you can do. Rather than just talking, you can
walk the walk with your money. But it turns out it's actually a lot more difficult than it seems, at least for some of us. And so we're gonna spend a lot of time on why it is, it can be very difficult to boycott in the way that you really want to. And also why boycotts a lot of times don't work and how we can make them more effective. So we're gonna spend time on that, but we cannot dive into that until we talk about the cultural event of the year.
which is the Super Bowl.
Desiree Ep7.2 (02:53)
Bonito Bowl!
Chris Bevolo (02:55)
So, did you watch the whole game?
Desiree Ep7.2 (02:57)
I did not. This was the first year that I was not in advertising. So I didn't have to watch it for the commercials. So I didn't like part of me kind of like, like I like to. But I just I was like, you know what? I'm going to treat myself and sit it out. But I did tune in for the Bad Bunny, the halftime show. So that was very, very exciting. We almost missed it. It just dawned on me. It's like, we should find it on streaming or however we get.
television and like right as we found it, was starting. And I thought I was being early by like 30 minutes, but apparently football games move fast in the first half.
Chris Bevolo (03:35)
They move
fast and then the halftime comes for the Super Bowl and it takes forever. It took him a long time to get to the show, but clearly there was good reason for that because it took him a long time to set up for that amazing performance. So what did you think of it?
Desiree Ep7.2 (03:49)
I loved it. Of course, I don't speak Spanish and didn't understand a single word, but I felt it because I have a lot of Latino friends and been around Latin culture. So just like so many different things I felt culturally. And I just was like so excited for this community to feel so seen and felt and all of that. And I even got teary eyed in a few moments.
But yeah, was really exciting. What about you?
Chris Bevolo (04:20)
I loved it.
I just thought it was a phenomenal performance. I honestly don't think I've ever heard Bad Bunny's music. And we talked about this last show where I'm way too old to be in that loop of hip music. But I thought the music was phenomenal. It makes me want to go listen to that music. But the whole production was great. And I will admit, we've got to admit our own biases and our own flaws.
There was an icing on the cake aspect knowing that, holy cow, this is gonna drive some people bat shit insane. And certainly enough, it has. All I have to do is point you to Megyn Kelly whose face literally melts on the video of her talking about it. All the way, and even though there was nothing about it, nothing, there was nothing that, even Green Day didn't.
go there with any kind of political statement. In fact, it was the opposite. It was a message of belonging and all of us together. like there was nothing with them, nothing, but still I'd like that part of it. So I'm just acknowledging like, you know, there's a little bit of, there was a little bit of hate. I don't know what you would call that. It wasn't hate watching. was hate, hate imagination bubble in my head. Just thinking of the people who just, we're gonna, we're gonna go crazy.
Desiree Ep7.2 (05:42)
We're not. Well, it's like they said the same thing about Kendrick Lamar last year and it's like.
Yeah, we age out of the connection to some of these music artists and that's fine, but we can give them opportunity to shine. But I'm curious your thoughts on some of the commercials. So I guess my question is, and this is what I was gonna ask about, because you know a lot of times the commercials will kind of signal unity, belongingness, and the like over the last several years. What did that look like this year, especially knowing that, yeah.
Chris Bevolo (06:07)
You know what this commercial
signaled to me? They signaled this. keep your head down. No, don't, no, we don't want to say anything. Like it was just completely bereft of anything that would offend anybody. They also turned out to be the most boring collection of ads I've ever seen in a Super Bowl. I mean, I
I was left impressed by with maybe two or three. I mean, honestly, the one that I loved the most was definitely had a patriotic bento, which was the Budweiser one where the Clyde still protects the little eaglet and it grows. I mean, that was beautiful and touching and definitely Merica, but still it was a great ad. There was an ad, the ad for Lay's where they kind of show like the farmers and, you know, the family.
generations of farmers love a farmer moment. And then it was an ad, which is hilarious because I have no idea what the brand was for, like what the commercial is for. But it starred or one of the stars and it was Ben Stiller, who was like a singer and he was getting one up by his partner. And so at one point he climbs up on top of this huge like stage thing and jumps off and he, you know, it's one of those things where they show him jumping and then they show a dummy falling and hitting everything.
Desiree Ep7.2 (07:07)
We love a farmer moment.
Chris Bevolo (07:33)
and then maybe laugh out loud, but I have no idea what the ad was for. I saw this great TikTok and of course I should figure out who actually said this in the TikTok. I have no idea who it was, but I thought the point was great, which was Super Bowl ads used to be a creative outlet for short form video that we didn't have anywhere else. Nowhere else did you go to get all this short form video in one place. There was something different about it.
just having access to all that one place. Well, that's completely gone now. We have that every single day. And so, you know, the person was kind of positing, does that take the luster and the wonder and the excitement out of these ads? And I think that's probably true. But honestly, it goes back to your first point, which is they're just tedious. And as somebody who has spent most of his life in advertising and marketing,
Desiree Ep7.2 (08:10)
Yeah.
. .
Chris Bevolo (08:30)
I just go, God, this is you're spending $7 million just to air this thing, what along create it. And this is your ad? still, there's always been that level, but all of them, it's so disappointing. mean, I don't know. Advertising seems like a dying art.
It's dying. Maybe that's harsh.
Desiree Ep7.2 (08:52)
Well,
mean, when, when, well, when the actual consumers have the tools at their hands and have all of the creativity and they can just like whip out stuff like all day long, it's kind of hard to compete with that, especially given like where your clients are or the strategy or what have you. I don't know. I'm not in that world. but that it,
kind of leaves you a little empty of being able to really express that creativity at the level that you're seeing on a day-to-day basis on social, on YouTube. Like I'm wholly inspired all day long by stuff that I see that used to be inspired by music videos on MTV, RIP. But yeah, it's like where's the fun, where's the creativity on broadcasts anymore? Broadcast is dead maybe.
Chris Bevolo (09:38)
Well, I think that, yeah, I think that
in the same TikTok, the guy made the point that Saturday Night Live is suffering from the same thing. Saturday Night Live used to be one of the few places you could see skit comedy. You could see a skit that was five minutes long, and there was a wonder to that and an originality to that. Well, now that's, the guy said, every day Saturday Night Live appears, there's 20 videos on TikTok that are more funny than any of the skits. So I don't know that,
Saturday Night Live has gotten less funny. I just think like the bar's been raised because of the volume of what we have access to, the democratization of creativity in some ways. And those places where it was just kind of like protected and singular, like the Super Bowl ads or Saturday Night Live, it now has to compete with nonstop, you know, content of exact same nature from all kinds of sources. And it's just not going to be able to compete with that. So I don't know.
Seems good. This seems like a good theory.
Desiree Ep7.2 (10:39)
Yes, indeed.
Chris Bevolo (10:39)
Yes, indeed.
Okay, so let's talk about boycotts. This was super interesting because this came up and again, you and I are really like, okay, here we are, we're not even supposed to be here, like we said earlier, is this roller coaster ride gonna end? Is the car's gonna jump the track and crash and burn? Is it just a forever ride? What are we gonna do? What do we have to do this? And so boycotting came up.
And I started doing research on my own, Des, and I started kind of facing some things that made me very uncomfortable about myself. And so I thought, okay, I want to explore those. So I'm going to kind of like, I don't know, can you say cut open a vein anymore? Is that like, it's probably not right. Like that used to be an innocuous statement to say you're going to like be open and honest, but I'm not sure we can, we should say that anymore.
Desiree Ep7.2 (11:25)
Yeah. Thank
Chris Bevolo (11:36)
So first of all, we're gonna get into the history of boycotts. We're gonna talk about why boycotts work and why they don't work. And we're gonna talk about how they personally affect us. But let's just kind of briefly recap why we're here talking about boycotts, right? So this really kind of started with, or at least our conversation did, with the, it was a general strike that happened in Minneapolis on January 23rd. Now, if you remember, that was a huge protest, tens of thousands of people.
and also a general strike. That was the day before Alex Pretti was murdered. And then a week after that, there was a national strike. And we're going to try to separate strikes out a little bit from this because you can have a general strike, which is essentially a boycott, but most strikes are labor oriented. And this is less about not showing up to work or...
having a strike at a particular organization or a particular industry, it's more about personal choice in boycotting a brand that lines up with your values or doesn't line up with your values, I guess is better put, right? And so there's been a ton of chatter, I'm sure it's all in your algorithm, there certainly is in mine, about identifying the brands that are supportive of ICE and boycotting those. There's been a lot of stories about
countries in Europe, particularly Denmark, boycotting United States products because of Trump's disturbing proclivities, threats, whatever you want to call them, against Greenland. And then this really came to a head in terms of a topic when Scott Galloway, who is somebody that we will have to have a podcast on Scott Galloway because he's such an interesting person to kind of try to figure out because sometimes...
Desiree Ep7.2 (13:24)
. .
Chris Bevolo (13:27)
He does great things. Like I think this resistant unsubscribe movement he started is great. And then other times he speaks out of his bleep hole and he's want to punch him in the side of the head and go, dude, you don't know what you're talking about. Stop talking to such confidence. Right. But in this case, uh, he's landing square squarely on the side of democracy, uh, fighting authoritarianism, fighting a lot of
what the Trump, uh, administration is doing. And his point is, look, they don't respond to threats. In fact, they thrive.
They thrive in the chaos they create. But Trump in particular responds to financial pressure, particularly the markets, particularly companies that come to him and give him money or, you know, he does not, he wants to be seen as somebody that is a master of the economy, despite all signs otherwise. so Galloway's movement, again, I said it, resistance subscribe is really
He identifies 18 brands that he recommends people stop using. And they're primarily tech brands because all of the tech bros, all the tech oligarchs, all the tech billionaires are supporting Trump in one way or another, whether it's explicit support or whether it's Tim Cook, who just made himself look so bad in his actions, if you are on one side of the fence anyway. So.
So that is now a huge movement that's moving forward. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. first of all, Des, that's a lot. And there's more, obviously. We're going to dive into more. But are you, let's talk about our personal situations. Let's start with you. Are you boycotting anything now intentionally? And are you planning, I guess that's a redundant statement. If you're boycotting something, it's intentional. Are you boycotting something now? What are you boycotting? And are you planning to boycott anything else?
Desiree Ep7.2 (15:22)
Well, man, like I feel like we've been boycotting things our entire lives, like throughout different iterations. So I appreciate this right now because it's like, yeah, hit them where it actually hurts them. but yes, I've been boycotting target for a while because of, you know, their DEI backlash and, know, acting like they're very much about the community, but then like sliding back.
I have been off that hateful chicken for over a decade now, that chicken that shall not be named. I don't go there. from the South there's been the Cracker Barrel, which that one hurt, because you love, you love a Cracker Barrel, love the crack. and then, but looking at this list, it makes it really hard. but also I live such a, like,
really specific fringe life that a lot of the things that I consume or shop or where I eat or drink aren't necessarily chains anyways, unless it's chilies. I love, I'm always down for chilies. Please don't ever do anything hateful chilies. That's like my closet secret. Like I want that El Presidente, I want those translucent chips.
Chris Bevolo (16:25)
Yeah, of chillies. They can be hungry.
Desiree Ep7.2 (16:36)
But anyways, so yeah, like as a queer person, as a, you know, black person, like there's always been kind of something that has kind of popped up. But what about you?
Chris Bevolo (16:48)
You know, I was surprised when I started listening that I actually had been boycotting things successfully, but there's also failures in there. So the longest boycott I think I have is Facebook and that's 2018. And I hate all things Mark Zuckerberg. I've made that known in every format that it's allowed and the Cambridge Analytica and the way they were using their data. And I think he's just a, I think he's a sociopath who has nothing. I don't even think he has his own best interests first and foremost. I think he's just like a
I'm not sure he's human. So I stopped Facebook and then I stopped Instagram a year later. I boycotted all things Musk. Now I jumped off Twitter in 2019, that was before he bought it, but the Tesla looks like a super car, but I've avoided it. I had the opportunity to use Starlink out here at the cabin. Luckily I didn't have to use that. So I've been successful in boycotting Musk. I've boycotted Uber since their, this is what's interesting. I can't remember.
what triggered my boycott of Uber. It's been years and I think it had something to do with maybe the sexual harassment that was going on, their treatment of their workers. Yeah, I can't remember. We as a family boycotted, I can say the name since we still use it, Chick-fil-A for years. The irony of course is I have plenty of LGBTQ plus people in my life, in my family.
Desiree Ep7.2 (18:00)
There was something.
Chris Bevolo (18:14)
Some of them even use it, but it's still a conversation, but we have used it for sure. We all as a family boycotted Disney when they suspended Kimmel after that nonsense. And I know I had to tell the kids and they were bummed, but supportive, but we just rejoined a couple of weeks ago. You know, they went back on Kimmel and frankly, I want to rewatch Andor and that's the only way you can watch it without paying for it again. And Andor is...
And Andor is a must now. If you haven't seen Andor, you have to watch it now. You have to have to have to. We also just started boycotting Paramount Plus. And I have been, you brought up Target. I have been doing a fairly good job of boycotting Target. And I have plans to boycott other brands, which I'm going to talk about here in a second. the struggle with Target and what I'm realizing with some of these other ones,
is part of the crux of the issue for me. So is it okay if I kind of go into this little personal rabbit hole? Anything you want to reflect on in my list of, my short list, really, of boycotts before I do that?
Desiree Ep7.2 (19:22)
Yeah.
No, those all make sense. I'm sure I'm forgetting things that I don't even remember why I just don't go there like Uber, for example. But yeah, let's let's get on your rabbit hole.
Chris Bevolo (19:41)
Okay,
you know, Target's a perfect example because when, we're gonna go through this a little bit later, because this is really personal to those of us that are living in Minnesota, particularly given what's going on with ICE, but it's been a struggle in our family to move away from Target. And I really want to go after those brands that are actively supporting ICE because of what ICE is doing in my own community.
I also want to go after, I know don't laugh at me, Des, because I just said we eat Chick-fil-A, but those brands that are explicitly or even implicitly sexist, Rachel, transphobic, homophobic, this is a way that I feel like I can really fight, right? American Eagle's a perfect example. So with their Sydney Sweeney, Seagile nonsense, would love to cut them out, and have cut them out, but that's not.
It's not like I used to shop there in a regular basis. Also, all of the tech overlords, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, Ellison, maybe even Tim Cook, but this is where it's gonna get interesting. But I'm really struggling with this. And it just caught me as I was going through this research and I'm like, yes, all the things I just said, I wanna do. Why aren't I doing those boycotts? What have I been struggling for?
So some of the ones, let's just look at some of the ones in Scott Galloway's movement, right? He lists 18. So he's got Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. I'm already out on Meta, right? And he makes a really good point. They're not asking everybody to boycott all of these, but pick, right? I really want to boycott Amazon, and I've wanted to boycott Amazon for a year, and I haven't done it. Why is that?
Right? Paramount Plus wanted to get out of it. We finally did that. But what about like TikTok and its new ownership? Right? What about OpenAI, which is heinous in many ways. AT &T, huge supporter of ICE. FedEx, UPS, how am I shipping things? Home Depot and Lowe's. And then here's the one that maybe just fall to my knees, Marriott. no. If I have to boycott Marriott, like I can't travel. what am I supposed to do? So.
What is going on here? And so I kinda, it kinda made me face some things, Des, that I'm not particularly excited about, right? If I can't cut off, I don't know, Netflix, let's say I wanted to cut off Netflix, this probably would be the one that remains, in the face of what's happening in Minneapolis and with this government and in the world, then what the hell am I even doing?
Like I'm supposed to be this next chapter supposed to be about fighting the good fight, right? It's supposed to be about making the world a better place for all. And I can't even stop watching a show on a streaming service. That is disturbing to myself. Another thing that's maybe equally as disturbing is how dependent I am on these brands and their products, right? Tim Cook is just embarrassing himself left and right.
And I understand why he's doing it, but still, is anybody gonna stand up to this nonsense, right? But I can't even imagine my world without Apple. How would I do that? This laptop is Apple, these AirPods are Apple, this phone is Apple, all of my photos are Apple, all of my music is Apple. Like, how does that even, how do I even begin to go there? And then finally, oh, go ahead.
Desiree Ep7.2 (23:27)
Well, isn't that the point? Like that's.
Chris Bevolo (23:28)
Well, just, yeah, let me get, just let me get through
my mea culpa and then you could, because the last thing is like, I'm self aware of the privilege I have in even having this internal debate. Do you see what I'm saying? Like I'm sitting here like, gosh, hand wringing over these things and like, dude, there are people out there that have no choice in some of this, right? And are being directly hurt. So what the hell is your problem? So yes.
It is the point, but it is very hard. We're gonna talk about why it's hard, but all of that made me aware of how hard this is and yeah, had to look in the mirror.
Desiree Ep7.2 (24:10)
What I mean by the point is, is that that that's why they that's how they designed all of this. Everything was designed for us to be addicted to it, to be completely dependent on it, for it to be our entire ecosystem. And that when it comes to this moment, it's going to hard for us to get off of that teat, because we've been thriving on it. So with the apple, like I'm yeah, I'm fully like, you know what mean? Like help.
Chris Bevolo (24:30)
Yes.
Desiree Ep7.2 (24:38)
cause I'm not going to Android, like are you green bubbles? No, thank you. But again, that's a privilege. And then with of course the socials that is all about finding all uncovering all of the different formulas to keep us completely addicted. Amazon's in another one. mean, again, like that's in a way it's almost like they're protecting. They, the system has already protected themselves from this. And also the fact that
Chris Bevolo (25:04)
Yeah.
Desiree Ep7.2 (25:06)
That's just very United Statesian of us to want all of our deep creature comforts and that we can't give that up because like everything is about convenience. I'm pointedly saying the United States and not America because the America as Benito Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl had mentioned like America is more than just United States. But yeah, it's it's
Chris Bevolo (25:26)
Those are my favorite TikToks by the way. Whoa,
the America is just the United States of America. Like people are very upset about that. Sorry.
Desiree Ep7.2 (25:37)
Nah, babe, it's like a plethora of countries over here, but okay.
Chris Bevolo (25:41)
So, yes, I get all of that, but it really, when you stop and think about it, it really is eye-opening. It has been eye-opening for me because all of that is true. Nevertheless, it still, you know, it just causes me to really stop and rethink a lot, not even just about boycotts, but about how you live your life and what you depend on, what really matters.
Right? Like, oh no, how do I cut my 17 streaming services down to two? Like honestly, like what, what kind of life am I living that I feel like I can't cut out 15 streaming services? I'm exaggerating, but it's seven to two or seven to one. It's a lot. Um, and it's, know, to your point too, it's, you know, okay, so I'm to cut out Amazon because I order from Amazon all the time. Oh shoot. That means Kindle.
All of my Kindle books are on Amazon. All right, well, I'll just use Audible because he's Audible for, you know what? Amazon owns Audible too. So, yeah, you know, it's, it is so wide reaching when you start thinking about all this, that is, it is pretty scary. Do you want to, do you want to give us a little history on how we even got to this place? Because, you know, it's not new.
to think about boycotts, getting back to that subject. I mean, our country's kind of started on a boycott, was it not?
Desiree Ep7.2 (27:19)
It did. I mean, but essentially before I jump into that, mean, essentially though, it's about the idea of the monopoly.
is the thing that Bernie Sanders basically warned us against all those years ago and has been of like, what could come of this? And it said, yeah, like you think about only a handful of people own all of these things that are connected to us that are keeping us like tied down. I know for me personally, I have been, I did that like deep soul searching myself and was just like, wow, look at yourself. And I've started.
So I have started de-Amazoning my life. I ordered a Roku, not from Amazon. Like I went to, ugh, went to Walmart, which that's what I've been actually boycotting for a number of years. But the fact that they're not even the bad guys anymore at this point, like is mind blowing. But I will say this is essentially business opportunity for them because they are looking at being that deeper competitive to Amazon because they have their own.
Chris Bevolo (28:09)
.
Desiree Ep7.2 (28:22)
I don't want to call it drop shipment, but e-commerce business that they're really building out. So yeah, I went there in order to Roku so that I can throw or burn my fire stick away with the whole idea of what is it else that I'm like getting rid of? with Spotify. Spotify was the hardest for me because I'm such a music freak and I have like a million playlists.
Chris Bevolo (28:41)
Yeah.
Desiree Ep7.2 (28:50)
But I am finally making that transition to co-bus and just in doing it, a friend of mine sent me some stuff and I was like, you know what, let me do this. Let me stop being a little baby. But I feel like just like during the pandemic, this is where we had kind of that time to reflect on ourselves and what we actually want in our life. I think during the pandemic had to do with like, I'm actually enjoying not having those people in my life anymore. So maybe I'll keep a little bit of peace and not like once we're out of the lockdown, connect back with them. But.
I think that's a time right now it's given us a time to reflect on that and actually say like, what am I prioritizing in my life? So it's streaming. I'm like, actually, I'm to be more intentional. I'm going to Canopy, which is by the library, provides you films, television shows, all kinds of stuff. Mubi, I'm a huge like cinephile freak. So I'm loving all of the independent films and foreign films that are on there. So I'm trying to go there more intentionally. But yeah, it's so many but.
about the history. So yes, our country essentially was based off of a boycott. Well, we started for religious freedom as we talked about in the last episode. But once we got here, we still were paying England, the UK, our little duckets and we said no more in a way of a little Boston Tea Party in case you remember that from your history classes back in the day. But this was a part of the colonies boycotting English.
and about the taxes, because we love to talk about taxes. But after that, then of course we get to more modern times. And by modern times, going back to the 50s that we talked about earlier, the Montgomery bus boycott won Rosa Parks legend, refusing to give up her seat on the bus. To paint a picture of what is actually the struggle and experience of the black American in the South and in the US in general.
Chris Bevolo (30:44)
.
Desiree Ep7.2 (30:44)
But what I love about the boycott, the Montgomery bus boycott is that, you know, these people, it wasn't about convenience because that means they're going to have to walk and find a way to work. And that this was about community, that this was like OG mutual aid, where those that had vehicles were able to kind of do like essentially runs to drop it, pick everybody up, drop them off at work, pick them up from work,
Chris Bevolo (31:10)
Okay.
Desiree Ep7.2 (31:10)
bring them home. Like that was such a community effort.
And that was such a touchstone because there were so many of black folks that were using these buses and it just made it really, really apparent. And then of course there is, I was actually, cause you know, history nerd, I've been watching the CNN documentary series, and the ones that they do the different decades, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, the nineties, like I'm finally watching it after like 12 years.
Mostly
because I'm so curious about what the hell happened leading up to like why the 70s and 80s were such like a hell hole for cities. So I wanna see what happened to get us there. But anyways, there was the NAACP boycott of white owned businesses in Claiborne County. This is in Mississippi, of course, connected to the civil rights. But this was that having more of that nonviolence that we saw there.
Then getting to the 80s and well actually this started in the 60s, but I remember hearing so much about it in the 80s and 90s This is the anti apartheid. This was about South Africa their own version of essentially a segregation a house so many different entities companies countries were like no we are not buying and having any kind of trade any kind of goods with you and in fact what I love also and that I learned was that
Chris Bevolo (32:08)
Okay.
Desiree Ep7.2 (32:32)
Reagan had vetoed the Congress had come up with a piece of legislation saying that they were essentially pulling out of all of that.
And Reagan was like, no, no, no, we vetoed. like US Congress is like, love your veto, but like we're doing this and was able to move past the president's veto. Other boycotts, Nike. Nike stays like in the drama. But this was in the 90s around the sweatshop.
Chris Bevolo (32:52)
Yeah.
Desiree Ep7.2 (32:59)
which, know, these things are still happening, unfortunately, not with Nike, but with the other entities. but you remember hearing so much about like, my God, child labor, these sweatshops. so there was all of this great deal of work, to make sure that the co-founder Phil Knight, publicly committed to changing the company's practice and what have you, even to modern day Nike, boycotts where we saw essentially, because of the Colin Kaepernick.
Chris Bevolo (33:27)
It's
in.
Desiree Ep7.2 (33:28)
experience and they're really double down on being that that brand that is committed to something. You you hear a lot of folks who were then essentially burning or going to get rid of their Nike shoes, but that really counteracted a by cot, which all of the sneaker heads then bought up a bunch of Nikes because it made it like such a mute like, so your little dad white Nikes with the blue like.
Like no one cares that you are not buying Nikes because like the culture is rallying behind it. So that was like one of those moments where it kind of like flipped on its head that particular boycott. And then more present day, North Carolina, you they took, the state took billions of dollars of hit because of their anti-trans bathroom legislation from 2017, where different companies, sports, concerts, all kinds of people pulled out of North Carolina to make a point.
And then that more present day Bud Light fiasco of a couple of years ago where had no business trying to act like they were up down with the cause and sending a Bud Light to excuse a Bud. Well, I can't remember if it was a Bud Light or a Bud Heavy, but sending that sending that to Dylan Mulvaney and then completely leaving her hanging out to dry once that did not go well for them and their more conservative constituents.
Chris Bevolo (34:39)
Bud Light.
Desiree Ep7.2 (34:53)
Um, but yeah, we've had a history of these boycotts, um, some very successful, some very like, w what are we even doing? But it's gotten to this point where it feels like, like I said earlier, I'm like, I don't know. feel like I've been boycotting something of some iteration throughout my entire life. But right now it especially feels like, Oh my God, like, where can we even shop? Where can I even go? What am I supposed to do? How do I get my entertainment? Where do I go? Like everything is so tied. And so if.
Chris Bevolo (35:08)
.
Desiree Ep7.2 (35:20)
Essentially all of the, not all of them, think like HBO, I'm like looking at this list praying that HBO is still fine. But yeah, like when all of our lives are so connected, how do we cut the cord? Like I guess we just like go touch grass and hang out with each other and not be on these devices. Like,
I mean, I guess maybe once it warms up, I'm down for that, but right now it's really hard.
Chris Bevolo (35:41)
It is very hard. We're going to talk about why it's hard, even if you're committed to it. But the one I would add to that list, and we talked about already, is Target. It's so personal to those of us in Minneapolis, because Target, first of all, not everybody knows this. Minneapolis has quite a few Fortune 500 companies headquartered there. 3M, Best Buy, Target is one of the biggest.
And Target has always been the consummate corporate citizen. Just throughout its history, it's always done so much for the community of Twin Cities, donating part of its profits to help those less privileged, just a ton of stuff. And they've also supported LGDVQ Plus with the Pride Parade, which I know is a whole other thing, because it depends on who you talk to, whether that's a good thing or a thing, but they've done it.
And what happened was, I can't remember when this was a few years ago, they had Pride merch in their stores and some right wing, I don't know what you call them, saboteurs, I don't know what you call them, but they were going around and they were videotaping and kind of misrepresented what was there. And a lot of it was like, oh, you're encouraging young children to turn trans because of this clothing, right?
And so it was ridiculous and it was classic, but they caved to it. They caved to it and they said, you know, hey, we're worried about violence against our workers and so we're going to take this stuff off. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out. By taking it off, you're basically granting these people their point. You are agreeing with them by doing this. And so first there was a little backlash against Target, but it was pretty small because of the merch. Then there was a much bigger backlash against Target.
because they pulled the merch. And then there was even finger backlash against Target last year because they basically said, hey, we've accomplished DEI, so we're out on DEI. Now, a lot of this has kind of got along with leadership changes. And so the most recent CEO is not, he's not handling any of this the right way, at least in many of our opinions, right? So now here we are, 2026, you got ICE killing two people in Minneapolis. You have,
You know, a lot of violence, a lot of unlawful behavior by these federal agents is awful. It's still awful, by the way. Time out. It's still awful in Minneapolis. Please stop talking about Minneapolis and past tense. All of you out there writing stories about it. It's still going on. And you get this, I don't know, this was actually after the killing of Alex Pretti, you get this letter from 40, I think it was 40 CEOs from Minnesota.
And they were all, and it was all just like, it was horrible. Cause the language was essentially like the two sides need to get together and cooperate. It's like, hello, this isn't a what, this isn't a two sides of the issue kind of thing, particularly for the people that are suffering here. And a good friend of ours, cause I wrote about this in the 1985 report and a good friend of ours, Alex, or Alex, Ryan Coliani posted, when has threading the needle ever worked?
Because all you're doing is your, you know, these milk toast, weak ass, weak sauce statements do nothing to show that you support the community. And so I wondered as whether, you know, some of these organizations do need to go back to taking a stronger stand, because then at least there's clear choices out there. Because right now it's hard to find those choices. know, Target could, Target could,
help their sales which have continued to go down. In fact, there was some people thinking at the end of last year, they're going to recover from all this DEI backlash and then they just jump in the fire again. But it's just a perfect example of, boy, you know, it's hard to find somewhere to go. We try to go to Costco. Costco doesn't have what we need on a weekly basis. We will probably end up or I will probably end up
trying Walmart more online. But my wife is just, and we'll talk about why my wife still uses Target even though she hates all the policies. It's kind of the rationalization that a lot of us find ourselves in, which is like, hey, she gives in so many other ways, it's insane. She's a trauma therapist on the front lines helping people. like, God love her. It's like, I don't have time. I do not have time.
Like she's working late every night helping these people and I don't have time to like consciously think about getting my groceries somewhere else. So she's like, if you want to do it, be my guest. And so now that's kind of the decision I have to make. Do I want to take that on? And she's got a point. You got a good point.
Desiree Ep7.2 (40:43)
Yeah, I mean, for me, like I.
Target is usually just kind of a, I'm getting some like maybe beauty products, hair products, maybe some home decor. But to me, I think of it now is it's a lifestyle change. And I think this idea, which Scott kind of talks about, it's like, okay, you have to go more than just like a day. That's not gonna solve anything. So he's saying a month. And the way I'm thinking about it is, or lifestyle change, I keep it up because like, if they just bounce back, they're gonna be like, who cares? I was all for nothing.
And that there are so many local grocery stores and chains and mom and pops and like, yeah, we have to do a little bit of research to do that. But for the most part, like my groceries, I get them from the grocery store. don't, because I think Target is like overpriced on things or something. I don't know. Or doesn't have all the, but if that's what you're used to, and especially I imagine if it's in Minnesota, like y'all probably have like the most robust ass like Target. Then like maybe other cities do. I have like a little like.
Chris Bevolo (41:43)
It's supertarget.
Desiree Ep7.2 (41:45)
urban, like small super
Chris Bevolo (41:46)
It's a supertarget,
Desiree Ep7.2 (41:46)
target. so I could see where it's harder. now don't let there be an H E B Texas is H E B. Like that's my heart. Like I wish there was H E B in every single state. That is the best grocery store chain and all of the land. but I could see where, yeah, but again, it's, when I think about it, it's, how can I support local? How can I not buy new all the time? And again, it's more of this thinking of
lifestyle change, muscle memory, and like figuring out these different pathways. Now, when it comes to the digital products, it's definitely much harder because like, who am I going to get like two days shipping from? Since I've started, I'm like, I've had to wait like almost a week to get stuff like shoot me in the face. Like I can't. But again, it just means I need to. Hey, I'm getting low on this now. Do not wait until the last minute to order.
It's online directly from the organization company or Walmart online or stuff like that. I don't know. But what am I even saying that I'm saying Walmart so many times?
Chris Bevolo (42:49)
Well, I mean, we're starting to dabble little bit into the struggles and why we're talking about this now. Again, a couple pieces of research. We're not alone in struggling with this, right? Because
You know, we all have very, why don't we all, you and I for sure, and I bet our listeners have very strong values and beliefs in certain ways. And we know that one of the ways to apply kind of our will to try to change things is through boycotting, but it's a struggle. So there was a survey done by PSOS about boycotting specifically. It was done in March of last year. And they were really interested in looking at what they called the say-do gap.
This is Ipsos, I said PSOS, it's Ipsos, sorry. The say do gap. So people say a lot of things, Des, I'm raising my hand as high as can go, but then they don't do as much as they say they're gonna do, right? So 26 % of those surveyed had stopped buying a product or service for political reasons. So that's about a quarter of us in the month prior to the survey, which isn't bad. 61 %...
said they were able to reduce spending, but to your point, but stopping would be impossible. And 51 % said they tried to reduce or stop, but they were challenged by changing their shopping patterns. And then this is also interesting in the research about Bud Light, the original backlash and then the ultimate backlash to the backlash for Bud Light cost it 18 % of its sales.
Now, what's interesting even more than that is Northwestern did a survey or study that found of 133 political boycotts, none that they'd studied up to that point, and that was up until 2005, had more than a 1 % impact on sales decline. So, Bud Light was extraordinary in that sense, but also the flip side is like, my gosh, to your point, like, we can all stop for a month, but is that gonna really have any...
any impact at all. just, it'd be good to kind of go through some things that we've found of why this is hard. I'll try to go through them pretty quick and then you will get your input on each one. So one of them is, you know, it's difficult to replace some of the things that we want to boycott. And I think there's specific examples of that, but the biggest one for me is Apple. It's just the whole ecosystem.
of how everything works together and replacing that would be almost impossible. I could certainly replace Chick-fil-A's chicken sandwich. McDonald's chicken sandwich is like just as good, let's be honest. But as you've already kind of talked about, if you're gonna boycott something, you're either gonna have to replace it with something else or you're have to do without, right?
Desiree Ep7.2 (45:45)
Yeah, that's the that's definitely the the rub of this because so many of these things that are listed I'm looking at the the resistant unsubscribe website right now and it's like Yeah, I'm like, guess technically I could go to a PC or build my house one build me a like a laptop or something and But when you're thinking about this though, it's like, okay, what can I do?
And not like beating ourselves up over like, God, I gotta cut out all these things, but like thinking about like, what is it that I can do? So with Spotify, again, I sat on that for like two months. I had started to download my info and my data from Spotify like two months ago, apparently, like back in November, maybe even December. And then I just did, and I sat on it every week and I was like, I'm gonna get to that, I'm gonna get to that, I'm gonna get to that. And then finally a couple of weekends ago, I was like,
What am I doing? Like, let me actually go do this. But yeah, it's so hard to find that switch. So whether it is like, okay, let me go find a different store and like, oh my, the Amazon part, that's the hardest. But again, at least other companies are selling their stuff, plan ahead. But luckily not all the streamers are on there, so that's an opportunity to not have everything.
But like with open AI, there's so many different AI's, LLMs to choose from that it's fine. But yeah, that's definitely a hard part is like, okay, well, what is the replacement? Then get used to doing it enough time that it becomes muscle memory.
Chris Bevolo (47:16)
Yeah. Well, and that's
the second thing that really holds us back. And this goes to something that our friend Stephanie, Will, Will and I kick out about, which is behavioral sciences, right? We have biases that drive so much of our behavior. So one of those is the status quo bias. And research has shown over and over and over that we
desperately cling to the status quo, even when objectively better alternatives exist. So even if there's a better product that fits your values, it may be hard for you to jump to it because the status quo is just so easy. This is why I always argue, you know, people say like, every five years, somebody comes around and says brands are dead. And I'm like, they're not dead, they're never going to die. And this is why, because we can't possibly
go through life objectively deciding on every damn thing. We just have to have the orange juice we know. And that's one less thing I have to think about because otherwise my head will explode. The other one that's interesting is loss aversion. And I think this is definitely hitting me. This is something Daniel Kahneman used to talk about a lot. It's the idea that we put two times the weight on the loss of something as we do the gain of something, right? So if you're boycotting to support your values,
You're gaining peace of mind that you're living your values, but you're losing something at the same time. And because of loss aversion, that feels more than what you're gaining, whether it is or not. it's just something that is part of the psychology of, of us as humans. And so we just got to remember those behavioral biases. Do you got, do you have an example of loss aversion, Des?
Like Paramount Plus, like who gives a shit? But still you're like, no.
Desiree Ep7.2 (49:05)
Yeah, I mean, yeah,
I'm fine.
yeah, there is that, like, we always think more about like the thing that hurt us than the thing that like made us, like happy. so I think about like with products. So as a southerner, like you have to make that decision, like with your, with your mayonnaise, are you a miracle whip or are you a Hellman's? Both are like, but don't tell them it's the same thing, but there is this deep Southern affinity to the miracle whip. maybe it's the flavor, the texture, I don't know, but.
Same thing with Coke or Pepsi. like, they're both Coca-Cola, but it's like, but, but, but, but, but, is what I grew up on. This is what I know. But yeah, I definitely, as I switch over to, so I did make the switch over to, I went back to Apple podcasts from, because I'm getting off Spotify's teat, and I'm like, it doesn't have this or doesn't have that. Music is at halter here, my audio books aren't here. But you just gotta.
push through it and like find the thing that you do like, actually they do this a little bit better. So I appreciate it. But like, yeah, it's hard because like we are brand loyal to these random things because it's more of an emotional connection than like kind like you were saying, it's not about like the actual quality of it always. It's about like, what is our actual relationship with this? Like maybe getting that Pepsi reminds you of like sitting out on the porch with a grandfather and you're a kid or something. know, like you never know what's going to be triggered by these things.
Chris Bevolo (50:25)
.
Yeah.
Yeah, mean, brand
lives at the unconscious level. And the things we're talking about have to happen at a conscious level. And that is two different parts of your brain at work. And it's very, very difficult to overcome that unconscious, those unconscious biases, just really difficult. The other thing that's difficult to overcome is the power of habits. And in the research book called Good Habits, Bad Habits, I've never read it, but the author is Wendy Wood. And one of her themes is autopilot beats intention every time.
which is just an extension of what we just talked about. And again, why people will never stop being brand loyal. It's less about like, this brand is better. It's more just, it's freaking exhausting. It's exhausting to do this because you're consciously having to make these decisions. You're consciously having to stick with them and like, I just want to order my thing. And it's just this button right here.
I just push this button on Amazon, I get it, but over here I have to to the website, I have to log in and they don't have the exact thing. And you're just like, I don't, I can't, I can't. And that's real. Like that's not a, like there's no judgment in that. Again, as humans, we would collapse into the fetal position if we didn't act this way, but it makes it that much more difficult to really change our habits, our purchasing habits, the things that we rely on to support a boycott.
Desiree Ep7.2 (52:02)
Yeah, as I mean, as far as habits for me, like I I'm very I don't know, maybe I'm like a like on the spectrum or something, but like on my phone.
where the I had to replace where the Spotify app is like I had to put the the podcast because like your thumb like speaking of habits like your thumb goes to that thing to be like okay this is my new life this is how I do life now I will say and I don't know if this is a habit or actually falls more in a different one but my partner she's like a Starbucks fiend like that's her thing it really it's a
Chris Bevolo (52:19)
in the same place, right? Yeah.
Desiree Ep7.2 (52:38)
It's even like an emotional thing. Cause it's like, uh, that's how she starts her day. They, it's a, an experience of going in store, them knowing her, recognizing her, getting her order, right. And like saying, hi, leaving little like notes. So again, we champion a brand experience, but then when you got to give it up, it's harder to do. And like Starbucks is just that one thing that she's just like, I'm a, I'm a find a way I'm going to like reconfigure why I can still go there, which
If that's what you need, that's what you need. Life is about kind of give and take. Like, what can I, what changes can I make to like live the better world? And what are the things that like I also need from a personal level? But that might be the cognitive dissonance. I might be a little early on that.
Chris Bevolo (53:19)
Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about that. I want to talk about two more. do one of them is
cognitive dissonance because that feels like my bumper sticker for my world and my life and my mental state. The conflict between what we know we need to do in our moral values.
And then also our behavior is just one example of cognitive dissonance that I'm feeling all the time. And wow, it turns out that we were really good at overcoming that, compensating for our moral shortfalls, right? So some of the ways we do that, minimize the transgression. Well, know, Chick-fil-A's, they're a lot better now than they used to be. So I'm gonna go ahead and order from Chick-fil-A. Moral decoupling, some of the stuff I've never heard of.
separating judgments of the company's ethics from judgments of its products. Well, maybe the owners did this, but you know, the people, I don't want to hurt the people that are cooking my chicken sandwich. So like this would hurt their employment. So, you know, it's okay. The idea that, you know, like, I do all this other stuff, so I'm good. We use that in dieting all the time, right? I just rode my Peloton for 20 minutes so I can eat this donut. It's like, what? Wait a second. You've just wiped out your 20 minutes.
Desiree Ep7.2 (54:03)
You
Chris Bevolo (54:31)
And so we do that by saying, it's okay for me to act in what might be an ethical manner for me, right? Based on my values, because I'm ethical over here. It's just, you know, in some ways I think we have to do that because again, it would be really difficult, but if you're really living your values, these are some of the things that we're tricking ourselves with.
Desiree Ep7.2 (54:56)
Yeah. I'm trying to think of like, when I think of this, it's like a, what's an identity thing that would be so hard. And I, and maybe it's, can't think of a product right off the top of my head, but there's something about being seen doing something. Right. So like with Chick-fil-A, like it's one thing to be like, okay, like, yeah, I don't eat there, but then you might like sneak over, but then like God forbid someone drives by and like sees your car there and you're like, wow, you're trash. those sorts of things.
I mean, I keep going back to Spotify because that's the one that has been the hardest for me about like just continuing to rationalize, rationalize, rationalize. Like even though I'm seeing the pose, I'm following it. I shared it. And then I'm like, not me still listening to Spotify as I share this like good old Spotify post. So it's it's those things where finally it was like, OK, wow, like really, you can't sit here and do two different things anymore. But we don't
always get there. But yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to think everything is such a weird, I don't have like an identity thing beyond the, I will never go to Green Bubbles, I guess. Blackberry, I might go back to a Blackberry. Like if they, I think they've updated it or something. I saw something, I'm like, I'd consider going back to a Blackberry just to, yeah, I don't know. need to, but again, you have to do this research.
Chris Bevolo (56:09)
Yep, yeah.
or dumb phone. Yeah.
Desiree Ep7.2 (56:23)
or dumb phone, like, need the creature comforts. But again, this is also a privilege. Other countries don't even have the privileges sitting here like, ooh. So yeah, it's definitely a, like, ugh, this is the most United States in first world problem I could remotely think of. Like just, just do it. Just cut it out, like, I don't know.
Chris Bevolo (56:46)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and we're gonna give people suggestions here in just a second before we wrap, but one more reason why it's hard to boycott, and I definitely find myself in this camp and it's called the bystander effect, which can really negatively impact social movements. And that's the idea that, you know what,
I believe in this and I should go down there and protest or I should join this boycott, but there's a lot of other people that are going to do that. So I'm okay not doing it, which obviously as you would guess, and as we'll talk about in a second, the more people who boycott, the more power there is. But it's just a way that lets us off the hook of actually going through the hard work. Because I think we've made it clear it's hard. But if you mean this,
you're going to have to go through some hard work and don't let the bystander effect kind of stand in your way.
Desiree Ep7.2 (57:48)
Yeah, there's actually a really great post from therapy Jeff. Have you heard of him or has your wife shared him?
Chris Bevolo (57:53)
Uh-uh.
Desiree Ep7.2 (57:56)
My partner shared this post. He's actually been going really in on all the things, but he put a post up today about the Iran massacre, which is insanity. But because of where we sit within the whole world society, as United Sassians, like, that's a problem over there. that we completely, so it's kind of similar to bystander. It's more of that like distance.
Chris Bevolo (58:25)
Yeah.
Desiree Ep7.2 (58:27)
A fact of like, that's happening to those people. So just like with the, where ice is showing up, you know, when it was in DC, when it was in LA, it's like, my God, that's so crazy. But like, you're like, I'm just here. But then when it was in Chicago, it's like, you're kind of confronted with it. It's there right there with you in Minneapolis. It's in Arizona. It's back in LA. Once things actually show up on your door, like that's when you start to pay attention. But so often it's just so easy for it to be like, that's like a
that's happening over there. And I wonder how much of that has to do with so much having so many things, chaos, streaming, scrolling, all the things that are hitting us that like everything feels like a story, this thing. Like how do you make these things feel like more human, more relatable? Not that it's not relatable, that's like, I don't know, but that's kind of the rub is that like everything we just kind of say like, that's happening, it's fine.
But until it, I think there's like a famous quote about like, know, when they're knocking on their door, you know, you're like, that's fine. But once they come to you, no one's going to be there to help you. So then it's about how do we show up for everyone else so that it doesn't so that if we're not all free, then none of us are free. And that's the reality.
Chris Bevolo (59:33)
Right.
Now, I mean, we'll have to do a story
on cognitive dissonance and the flood because like I'm begging people to not move on from Minneapolis because we're still dealing with this stuff, but it's just one of 20 things going on now. And if we can't even as a country coalesce around probably the biggest scandal in the history of humanity, which is this ongoing long-term high profile pedophile ring.
Like it's insane. this had come out in the 70s, it'd be the only news that anybody was talking about for months. And now it's just like, you know, it's over here and it's over there. And I just think people can't get their arms around it so big. But anyway, that's a whole nother story for a whole nother time. Let's walk through, if you want to boycott, I'm gonna throw out a challenge at the end of this too. We'll see if folks will go along with it.
If you want to boycott and you're struggling with boycotting, you know, the brands that you wish you could boycott, there's a few things that you can do to make it easier on yourself. think you already said this before, or I said it before. I think I said this one before myself. You're gonna have more impact if you boycott something that has a collective movement behind it.
And there's a great story we found and we'll post a link to it. Where somebody's talking about the boycotts in the Twin Cities, specifically Target. And the expert says, when you look at the boycotts that have been successful, they have sustained pressure and they're coming from coalitions, not individuals. No one cares if Amy O'Connor, that's the speaker, boycotts Walmart, but coalitions of power aren't able to put pressure on companies. So that's one. So if you really want to have the most impact, like,
Scott Galloway's is a concerted effort. So if you want to join Scott Galloway's, that's an option. That's an example of that. The second thing, and again, I really appreciated Scott Galloway and Caris Whisher who share a podcast. I listened to that podcast because I love Caris Whisher and I can barely tolerate Scott sometimes, so it's a good mix. Where they talk about this movement and they're very clear, like there's 18 brands there. We're not expecting anybody to boycott all 18.
Right, just boycott what you can. If everybody boycotts what they can among these 18, they'll notice it. So you don't have to boycott everything and you don't have to boycott forever. My example of Disney Plus is a perfect example where they lost three million subscribers in September of last year because of their Kimball nonsense. Guaranteed that had something to do with them bringing them back. Right, and we stayed off
Disney for a while, we weren't gonna let them off the hook that easily, but eventually six months later, you know, we're back. Now if they do something else, we'll record again. So that's another one. I know you've got some yourself, so I'll get to those, I'll get to this pretty quickly. And then try going one brand at a time. So in other words, it's overwhelming. You just look at the Resist and Disconnect one from Galloway. 18 brands, like oh my God, Marriott at AT &T and Sadak says, and you just kind of walk away.
pick one. Like the one I'm going to focus on this week is Amazon because it's clear. Right. And also I'm not going to like delete my Kindle account because it has so many books on it that I need and then I'm reading right now. I'm not, may not, I'm going to definitely cancel Amazon Prime, but I won't cancel my account. I just won't buy anything more from there. No more books from Kindle, no more audible books, because that happens to be Amazon and no more products.
And that's the one I'm gonna focus on. And I guess my challenge to people is that everybody listening to this, the thousands, because we know there's thousands of you, the thousands of you that listen to this, pick one and then let us know by the end of next week, what did you pick? And did you do it? Right? There's one thing to say, I'm going to do it. And there's another to say, I did it. So Des, by the time we come back and record next week, I will have had to have taken these steps with Amazon.
I'm committing to that. That's my challenge. It's a bevel-o and does challenge.
Desiree Ep7.2 (1:04:09)
Committing. I'm
doing.
I'm doing both Amazon and Spotify. But my suggestions for this is, like I said before, think of this as a lifestyle change so that it feels more connected to your life and that you're not just chomping at the bit to when you can get back to that thing. Let your body forget it. But out of all of this, buy and support local stores, local restaurants, local what have you.
You know, go to that mom and pop take, you know, take care of them. The folks that are in the community, speaking of which mutual aid, um, again, the boys, the bus boycott, you know, that was a prime example, but like, let's say with, you know, the Uber's and the Lyft, like at least with that one, like you're getting rid of Uber, but at least there is still another version, uh, in the form of Lyft. Um, I think about the idea of, you know, education around these things, cause a lot of this is a digital boycott. So it's like, how do you, you know,
bring it up in your friends' convos. Next time you're meeting up with friends for a game night or happy hour or what have you, have those conversations with your friends because we're so influenced by those around us. If no one's talking about it, you're like, I'm just gonna, again, kind of like what you were saying about the bias and just like, oh, I'm used to just doing this. But if people are actively talking about this, it's gonna make you feel a way and maybe even persuade you to, you know what, let me do my part two.
Chris Bevolo (1:05:21)
.
Thank
Desiree Ep7.2 (1:05:39)
Um,
I know we, didn't talk a little, we didn't talk about this, but like with our investments, you know, with our 401ks, you know, a lot of our money, our retirement money is tied up in this. And so no matter what, in that regard, we might be, um, uh, submitting to this, but like, think about other ways to, you know, reconfigure your portfolio, even just for like a short amount of time. I know I heard on a past episode or a different actual show that Scott Galloway is on about, you know, he had.
Chris Bevolo (1:05:43)
Okay. Okay.
Desiree Ep7.2 (1:06:06)
been switching over to European and world stocks. And that's actually something that I had done so that I'm not so fully invested
in these. Or at least I need to watch it and make sure that they're still thriving so that I can actually retire one day. But again, just making this conscious effort to be like, okay, sit down and think through it. Like, okay, how can I change this within my lifestyle? It's so easy to just like, oh, get to it. Like I had been doing for months.
but then actually just sit down and do it. And it's like, you know what? It's not that hard. It'll be a little convenient, inconvenient at first, but I will get used to it. Just like we've gotten used to everything and like, don't be afraid to be uncomfortable. Lean into the discomfort of this change and you'll be so proud of yourself in the future and think about like, like maybe there's something else I can do.
Chris Bevolo (1:06:43)
Yes.
Yes.
Desiree Ep7.2 (1:06:56)
Maybe even the Atomic Habits, reread that and see if there's an opportunity to habit stack of how you change what products and what streaming platforms you're using. But
that's what I got for today at least.
Chris Bevolo (1:07:09)
That's good. That's good. The investment
part, the most recent episode, I think maybe it was last week on pivot, a listener had that question for Scott Galloway, right? You're saying boycott these products. What about your stock investments? And he sat there and I think he generally was, I don't know, he's probably prepared. So he looked authentically like I'm thinking about it. He's like, you know, I think I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to divest from these. The biggest trick with that is the best financial investment advice is just
buy an index fund, like don't pick stocks, but your index fund owns all of these. So, you know, one way to think about that is if you don't feel comfortable moving to something else, use your power as a shareholder and let these companies know how you feel, right? That's another way to raise your voice.
Desiree Ep7.2 (1:07:44)
we go.
Yeah,
and if it
And if any of you are in wealth management and you can create a clean fund that is, that has good dividends, like please use your powers for good and create that for us to take advantage of with our, for our IRAs and 401ks don't have you. So that's a way that you can, if you're in wealth management, help.
Chris Bevolo (1:08:05)
Well, good luck.
We'll have to come back to that. That's a whole other episode. Yeah,
that's a whole other episode. All right, well, let's wrap for this. This is a great one. Really appreciate it, Des. Thank you for, as always, all of the feedback and the history and the remixing.
Desiree Ep7.2 (1:08:36)
that remixing. And I'm gonna grow to be a DJ one day.
Chris Bevolo (1:08:39)
You should just
do it now. Why wait?
Don't wait. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. And thank all of you for joining us once again. Hopefully this has helped you cope and learn why you might be struggling with boycotts and how to take some steps to boycott a few things if you are so inclined. Please like and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Stop right there.
Desiree Ep7.2 (1:08:42)
Too busy trying to like reconfigure my life. What the...
Chris Bevolo (1:09:07)
That helps ensure more people can hear us. We love the five stars. If you've got that for us, visit bearing287.com to learn more about our company or follow me on Substack to access other helpful content from our network. I am Chris Bevelo and on behalf of I'm not even supposed to be here and Bearing 287. Thanks a bunch for listening. We'll talk to you next time.