Collection: All The News That’s Fit To Write

Format: Bluesky Thread

Author: Melissa Nadia Viviana

Date: February 28, 2025

Tags: Fascism, Tech Overlords, Boycotts, Consumer Ethics

All The News That’s Fit To Write is a reader-supported publication by Melissa Nadia Viviana; Author, Women's Rights Activist, & Philosopher.

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How do we change our consumer habits? 

Today - during a scheduled economic blackout - I thought it would be helpful to share some tips with you.

A week ago, I wrote on Bluesky: 

If the fascists are tech overlords, then our resistance must be fueled by abstaining from consumerism & technology. 

We must collectively stop empowering them with our eyes, our minds, & our dollars. 

I quoted a Substack article I found a month ago that lays out a foundation for starving an outdated system, in order to build a new one.

There, Michael Muyot writes: 

The fastest way to collapse an unsustainable system is to make it irrelevant.

He says, “history shows that only 3.5% of the population needs to actively participate in an alternate model in order for entire structures to shift.”

And that the best thing we can do is to “starve an extractive system like a fire.”

He writes:

When we stop feeding them—when we redirect spending, labor, and attention—they suffocate.

Michael Muyot writes that “extractive systems force money out of communities and concentrate wealth in the hand of the few” while a “well-being economy keeps wealth circulating locally, increasing prosperity & resilience.”

He says that “when a dollar is spent at a local farm, co-op, or independent business, up to 70% of its value remains in the community” while “that same dollar, spent at a corporate chain, often vanishes instantly, extracted into distant shareholders’ accounts.”

Think about that during these next few months of boycott. 

Shopping locally isn’t only about convenience or buying higher/lower prices. 

It’s about sustaining local economies and putting money into the hands of a local community - rather than an extractive system, or a distant corporate overlord.

In response to my Bluesky thread, a user, called Valley Girl East, wrote:

Republicans vote against their own interests.

Democrats shop against their own interests.

We funded the billionaires taking over our government.

The website Goods Unite Us––which allows people to search for how brands are donating to political campaigns––says:

The average consumer funds politicians and PACS about 3x more through their purchasing decisions, as compared to their direct political contributions.

But pulling back from supporting this corrupted system, in which we fuel the rise of right-wing politicians via our consumerism isn’t an all-or-nothing solution.

Remember in another article I said:

When we use the oppressor’s talking points, we have no weapons against the oppressor.

Just remember that your oppressor WANTS you to believe that boycotts are all or nothing. 

They want you to believe that if you stop buying toilet paper from Amazon and you begin to get it from a local drug store, that this won’t move the needle… 

because they benefit from you giving up before you begin.

A Bluesky user named: Keriyawn Pepper says:

Boycotting is not about perfection. It’s death by billions of paper cuts to the billionaires.

Find what you can change. Change that. Sustain it as long as you safely can.

You’ll often find, as you adapt, that you can change even more.

I responded:

We all make thousands of decisions in a month. If everybody changes a few of these decisions in order to boycott some corporations, then this will make a dent.

We don’t need to cut everything out. We just need to work together to collectively move the needle so that they feel the burn. (Remember the 3.5% needed to starve a system).

Another user named, Better World Builder, added to this conversation:

This is chopping a tree. We don’t need to cut it all the way through. We just need to make the right cuts in the right places. 

Slow, repeated chipping away, until the hole is big enough.

Even a 30% dip would be enough to scramble them.

Gibby Wants Justice, writes:

We, the people, are not powerless. They want you to think that we are. But we have great collective power. 

Each and every day, do at least one thing to claim and exercise your power.

When you do, you’ll feel you’re in control again. That your actions matter. 

Maybe it’s: make a call, serve your community, or boycott.

But do one thing to use your power every day!

And a user named, Ko, says:

It reminds me of an old Chinese saying: “The ruler is the boat and the people are the water. 

It is the water that bears the boat up, and the water that capsizes it.” (Xunzi). 

Republicans & Corporations better be careful with the water that carries them.

That day, all I did was: 

Change my main browser to Duck Duck Go, instead of Google Chrome. (DDG has privacy features built into it, including blocking ads, disabling cookies & trackers, and gives you email privacy options)

I promised that I would use Bluesky, rather than Threads or X. (Bluesky has a de-centralized algorithm, not controlled by a billionaire).

I chose to follow writers on Substack, rather than Medium. (Medium is owned by Musk).

And I vowed to text people happy birthday, rather than maintain friendships via Facebook.

These were small actions that I took. But 2 months later, I’m still there.

And since then, 

I’ve moved my Facebook community to Discord.

In the comments of my posts, we collected a whole host of ethical alternatives to the distorted internet monopoly. 

For example:

Cara instead of Instagram (Cara does not use your art to train AI).

Signal instead of WhatsApp (Signal is secure and encrypted)

Thrift Stores & consignment stores instead of Amazon (for clothes & household goods)

For books: Bookshop.org instead of Amazon (Bookshop.org donates to local bookstores, in order to keep independent bookstores afloat)

Proton Mail instead of Gmail (Proton Mail is more secure, but not free)

Storygraph instead of Goodreads (Goodreads is Amazon owned, Storygraph is black-owned)

Libby or Overdrive instead of Audible (Libby is a library app that gives you free access to e-books and audio books through your public library)

And I’m sure I’m forgetting many more suggestions.

As Arundhati Roy says:

“The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse … their notion of inevitability.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

So I hope you’ll join me in making small shifts where and when you can.

Remember, perfectionism isn’t the end goal here.

A small, but sustainable paradigm shift is the transformation that can move the needle enough to collapse a predatory system.

As I wrote a few days ago:

Technology could have always been a source for good. 

Just because corrupt billionaires hijacked our own power and are now using it against us, doesn’t mean we can’t take it back.

It just means we have to choose to abstain from abusive technologies and have ethical consumerism.

So are we ready to make some small shifts towards ethical consumerism?