Are boycotts ever planned to begin at some point in the future rather than 'effective immediately"? I was musing on this today after reading about calls for a boycott of Alabama (tourism, manufactured goods, etc.) in response to their new abortion law.
I didn’t read of any organized boycott actually starting, just calls for one. That in turn led me to wonderif people ever give a warnings or a truce period before they start a boycott—they might Tweet out * if you don’t change Policy X we will start a boycott in two weeks.
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It seems that possibly could be more effective then just starting it*** now!*** because it gives the boycottee a chance to consider the wisdom of rapprochement before he/she/it suffers negative consequences. On the flip side it also helps the boycotters giving them a stretch of time to whip up publicity and organize before they let 'er rip.
The only organized boycott that I’m familiar with is the Montgomery Bus boycott. It had to be organized because boycotters needed alternative transportation set up for them for the whole operation to work. They also needed publicity to highlight their cause. So it kind of made since for this boycott to have an official start date.
All the other boycotts I’ve heard about have been informal word-of-mouth things. Like, as soon as the negative press comes out, people are all like, “You know what? We shouldn’t shop there anymore! Fuck that place.”
I think that’s one reason most boycotts don’t work very well. Most are just spur of the moment pitchforks and torches tings that soon pass. I wonder if more people would participate in a boycott if it were planned a month in advance.
All a boycott needs is loud voices to get the word out about why it’s needed and to do so as long as the business’s bottom line starts to suffer. The reason why most boycotts fail is because publicity over an issue tends to quickly fade and people forget. “Start date” doesn’t even enter the equation.
Boycottees generally know there might be negative consequences and have consciously decided they are unlikely to be significant. Convincing them otherwise is likely to require actual consequences, not promised ones.
Also, a planned boycott for the future requires you to be able to motivate people to boycott, but not motivate them so much they also want to just punish the wrong-doer right now! That seems like a difficult balance.