Snopes on gas outs/no gas days. They’ve been going around on the internet since at least 1999. They don’t work if they don’t involve people driving less or buying more fuel-efficient cars. Never have, never will. Those of us who remember what gas prices were like in 1999 have some idea of just how effective twelve years of “gas-outs” have been.
[Monty Python]
And now for something completely different: A man with slacktivism up his nose.
[/Monty Python]
Now, what would work, to at least some degree, would be for everyone, for one day, to not use any gas (or as little as they can get away with). Walk to work or ride a bike, or if that’s too far, ride public transportation (preferably an electric-powered train) or carpool. Or telecommute. Get your groceries on foot or bike, too. Best of all, if one day isn’t enough to make an impact, you can keep doing it the next day, and the day after that, until it does.
If your goal was to shut down small mom-and-pop operations that are barely getting by, it might work. Please remember that the oil companies have already made their money off the fuel when it gets to the station.
Well, that’s obvious, so what exactly is a “no gas Thursday” supposed to do? If I just wait until Friday to get gas, who cares? How do these people rationalize the thing in their own minds?
Easy: “I got a million hits on my Facebook page!” That is the only purpose of pages like these.
Think about the people posting those status and posting things about cancer and, well, really anything that ends with “93% of you won’t repost this” or “keep this as your status for the next hour” and decide if you really want to get in to this argument with them or if it’s easier to just let them not get gas on that day.
They want to feel like they’re sticking it to the people who are responsible for high gas prices, but they don’t want to actually have to inconvenience themselves to do it. Driving less or buying a more fuel-efficient car would be inconvenient. It’s wishful thinking.
1999? 95 cents a gallon near me, so if anything gas-outs could be harbingers of higher prices.
The really ironic bit is, according to snopes, most “gas-outs” in the past have turned out to be non-events. Gas station owners don’t notice much, if any, difference. Seems that actually not getting gas is more inconvenient than emailing a message or posting it on Facebook, and is more inconvenience than most of these people are willing to stand for.
That’s the case with a lot of internet activism. It lets people feel like they’re doing something, without actually requiring much sacrifice/effort; the flip side is that not a lot actually gets accomplished. Gladwell wrote an interesting article on activism and the limitations of social media.
What I would like to see is a “No Shave 'Til $3” movement. Or, alternatively, “No Shave 'Til Brooklyn.” I’m not sure what that one would entail, but the theme song could be by the Beastie Boys. Really, I’m just about to run out of razor cartridges, and they’re the $11 kind, and once you start using them, you really can’t go back.
The irony of course is that Brooklyn is home to large communities of Hasidic Jews, Sikhs, and other long-bearded religious groups. So even when you get to Brooklyn, there may not be shaving, or cutting of earlocks (payot).
Also in Brooklyn you can probably get by alright without ever getting gas (in your private vehicle).
from this particular event:
which is… another form of ignorance in itself.
it just makes me sad that people actually join this thing in earnest. sorry for the lame, one-lined-can’t-access-at-work-link topic. i’ll do better next time.
Yeah there’s an event page that’s Sooper Sekrit Don’t Tell the Boys TeeHee about supporting breast cancer awareness by posting the name of a fruit in your status, as a code for your relationship status.
No, I’m not kidding.
When I pointed out that this accomplishes exactly nothing in terms of awareness of anything at all, I got a diatribe from some chick who’d “lost family members” to cancer and how dare I? I pointed out that I was a cancer survivor, and I dare because I’d like to see results, not just go around patting myself on the back for empty feel-good gestures.
Although, to be fair, I got more of “Thank GOD someone said this” than bitchery.
And Czarcasm, please please create that event page so I can join in and spread it all over Facebook! 
i remember last year’s was… “where do you put your purse?” or something to that effect, and women were supposed to write “i like it at my desk” or “i like it next to the bed” or “i like it at my side at all times” which to guys sound like sexual innuendos (moreso than usual). yeah…
but it’s not facebook that’s stupid. it’s the people.
I am pleased to announce that I did not buy gas today. That’s because I bought gas yesterday.
I don’t need any gas, but I was tempted to go buy some anyway just to show them. Then I remembered that it’s 100 degrees outside. My sense of outrage doesn’t really operate when ambient temperatures are that high.
I’m still not clear on what they want to happen.