So… America is in a weird place right now. Frankly, we could say that just about every week these days. But this last couple of weeks it’s been even more so than our (new) normal level of crazy. A couple of weeks ago, right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered while performing his college campus speaking tour bit. This episode isn’t really about that. We promise! In the aftermath comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about president Donald Trump which in a convoluted chain of events (we’ll talk about it on the show) resulted in Kimmel’s show being “indefinitely suspended”. In response a lot of people called for a boycott of Disney+ and Hulu since they are owned by the same conglomerate (Disney) that owns ABC, the network that Kimmel’s show is on. As a result, Mav made a comment on social media about the boycott and its effectiveness and that brings us to this moment. What makes a boycott effective? How does collective social action work anyway?
On today’s episode Mav welcomes returning friends of the show Stephanie Siler, Les Kay and Matthew Brake to tall all about boycotts. From Disney+ to Target to Amazon to the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, we break down how they work and why they work and why they are important and why they sometimes fail. We also explain how the FCC works and licensing and everything you need to know to understand the basics and the specifics of this particular case. Listen and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Citations and Links:
- Follow Les on his Substack: leskay.substack.com
- Follow Matt on his blog: popularcultureandtheology.com
- Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme
- Follow Mav on BlueSky: @chrismaverick
- Follow us on BlueSky: @voxpopcast
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