It’s been a few issues since my last article. The holiday season breezed by and we began a new year. As I sat on my couch counting down from 10, someone in the room shouted, “See you all next year!”
It made me chuckle at first, but then my mind began a deep dive into the phrase. Why do we, as a society, look to the new year as a new beginning? What makes that 10-second countdown somehow transform us into a new beginning? Does it?
I don’t subscribe to the idea that it does. I stopped making resolutions years ago after attending a conference about making improvements in your life. The gist of this session was: If you are going to make a change in your life, why put it off?
If you are going to start losing weight on Monday, why not start now? Why wait? If you want to make changes in the new year, why wait until Jan. 1? It seemed to strike a chord with me.
Perhaps we need the construct of time to give us motivation to clean house, expel what is bad from our life and strive to bring more happiness to the world. The big change I made recently is to have my own “one-man” boycott.
I’ve often struggled with the concept of a boycott, which I’ve shared on this page before. I don’t often go into too many details about it because, quite honestly, I have an unpopular and often controversial opinion of them.
I also find the more I talk about them, the more I contradict myself. Boycotts are complicated. Former editor-in-chief Jeremy Williams would notably say that a boycott is only as strong as its level of inconvenience. I’ve seen that playout firsthand, where proximity to a boycotted business dictated participation. If it was too inconvenient to go to a competitor then theboycott was overlooked.
I’ll admit, I often confuse boycotts with “cancelling” — or rather, I use them interchangeably. They can be similar.
Take for example the cancelling of Bill Cosby. His 80’s TV show is arguably one of the most-watched sitcoms of the 80s but is hard to find on any network because of Cosby’s actions.
It would seem when there is a cancelling, or boycott, of an individual others get caught in the crossfire. What’s the end game? What’s the collective fate of everyone else involved in the show, the collateral damage? The same could be said about boycotting “Harry Potter.”
Does the show of support from so many involved in the franchise ever outweigh the destructive language of its creator? Does the livelihood of those in support matter more than the cashbox of the one who does not?
When does a boycott end?
Sometimes it is obvious. I cancelled my Hulu and Disney+ subscriptions when they put Jimmy Kimmel on leave. They put him back on the air and I renewed my subscription.
What happens when it isn’t so obvious?
Watermark Out News used to print slips of paper that readers could cut out and place in Salvation Army buckets during the holidays. They promised a donation boycott unless they changed their policies to be more accepting.
I see they now that they have a website dedicated to LGBTQ+ services and openness to helping queer people in need. Is that enough? What would it take to end the boycott on them?
Similarly, there has been what seems a decades-long boycott of Chick-Fil-A because of donations they made to conversion therapy anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Reporting seems to show these donations have ceased on a corporate level. Is that enough to end the boycott?
I don’t proport to have the answer to these questions, but I do know the answers are deeply personal to the individual.
Since our last meeting on this page, something happened in the world of news that shook me.
Under the guise of transparency and fair reporting, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a story from “60 Minutes” hours before it was scheduled to air. The Trump administration had refused to comment on the story, and Bari Weiss felt it couldn’t run without comment. Unacceptable.
If all it took was “no comment” to bury a story, there would be no accountability in this world. A scary thought.
That was enough for me to launch my one-man boycott of Skydance Media. Not an easy decision I assure you. As a product of the 80s, a latchkey kid and someone who watches more TV than his husband would like, boycotting Skydance means I lose about 90% of the shows I have watched for years.
I don’t expect people to follow in my footsteps. Boycotts are personal. If this isn’t your hill to die on, I don’t begrudge you that. But to me, news and the truth are the final front line before we actually have to form a front line.
My apologies to Kathy Bates and the “Matlock” cast. I will remain hopeful that you will find a more acceptable network to air your show.
Stay visible, stay strong and support each other.
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