Did you know the Irish invented boycotting? While the intersection of brands, politics, and privilege can make everyday purchases impossible, Dr Clare Moriarty highlights the importance and power of ethical consumption and boycotting.
Last week, I offhandedly asked my husband to buy a reusable water bottle on his supermarket trip. As a millennial, I’ve been led to believe that hydration to the point of saturation is the key to my day-to-day survival. He returned, bottle in hand, to be met with “Oh, is that Lululemon? I’m sorry, but I can’t use that… not after what he said.” Looking quizzical, he was then entreated to the details of my 10-year-long boycott of the athleisure company. I say boycott, but I certainly couldn’t have afforded anything Lululemon made a decade ago, which made the withdrawal of my personal economy less onerous.
In 2013, Lululemon’s founder Chip Wilson responded to complaints about fabric-pilling in some of the company’s leggings by suggesting that the problem was the customers, not the garments—they weren’t being worn by their intended audience, size-wise. “Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just don’t work for it… It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there.” Wilson resigned as chairman but continues to plague the company with his ongoing commentary on, for example, its DEI initiatives.
Loyalty untested is no loyalty at all, and the same is true, mutatis mutandis, for boycotts. I’m pleased to report that when finally tested by opportunity, I returned the bottle, with a short speech ready for a sales assistant who mercifully never asked.
Participation in the world of commerce has never felt more value-laden. As companies push to exert more distinctive brands, to mark themselves out from competitors in crowded marketplaces and encourage customer loyalty, they become increasingly anthropomorphised, in ways that mean we experience them as having political and social characteristics themselves. Apple is geeky, Red Bull is daring, Ryanair is crouched behind a corner, trying to trip you with an outstretched leg.
I admit I didn’t have Tesla stock-watching on my 2025 to-do list, but here we are. The first quarter of the year saw a dramatic drop in Tesla’s share price (from which it has partially recovered). At the peak, Trump weighed in to remind people that Tesla was “Elon’s baby” and he was going to buy one to show support (implicitly suggesting his fans follow suit). Trump attributed the plummeting share price to “Radical Left Lunatics” and their attempts to “illegally and collusively boycott Tesla”. It’s fitting that boycotts would be a response to Musk’s DOGE role in evicting thousands from their jobs, given the term ‘boycott’ has origins in the eviction practices of Charles Boycott in Mayo in 1880. There’s a joke to be made here about Trump and the Orange men from Cavan who ran to Boycott’s aid in response to his public opining on his losses.
Individual consumer power feels limited, but much is possible when we organise.
In America, vandalism is increasing. Last year, 34 Teslas were defaced with spray paint saying “f*ck Elon” and more recently, Cybertrucks have been graffitied with swastikas, egged, and ‘decorated’ with (bagged and unbagged) dog excrement. The Cybertruck’s distinctive (and if I may venture a personal opinion here, ridiculous) appearance, high price, and recent release mean people feel comfortable treating it as a symbol of modern-day Musk. Imagining the symbolism of a Tesla purchase in Ireland five years ago (before Musk’s personal brand shifted from somewhat sinister to its current state), the stereotype was different. Beyond signalling an ability to buy an expensive car, the obvious symbology was environmental concern. Early buyers are now stuck in a symbolic purgatory, navigating the world in vehicles so strongly associated with one of the bad-guy archetypes of the current era. An array of bumper stickers and decals now allow owners to signal spiritual opposition; designs read: ‘Anti-Elon Tesla Club’ and ‘Bought this before we knew he was crazy’.
A Tesla boycott is vacuously satisfying for me, since again, I couldn’t afford one. But further down the price list, there are harder choices. Every week, it seems like there are more companies that ethical consumers must avoid. Aside from the general benefit of reducing unnecessary consumption, which is good for the planet, it’s a reminder of the energy required for ethically clean hands in modernity. What’s more, it’s a lot easier to be ethical when you have resources. As James Baldwin wrote, “Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” Well-made things last, cheap ones often don’t, so repeat purchases are the punishment of those who can’t afford the nice thing the first time round. Ditto, perhaps, for increased dependence on terrible companies. Fast fashion and other kinds of consumption are easier to avoid when you have nice stuff and the means to repair them.
The combination of modern marketing and our partisan politics means that our purchasing choices feel more ideological than ever. And often, values conflict. I recently sat in my office trying to think where the least harmful place to get some groceries and a pair of shorts for my baby within walking distance of my work might be. One that I used to like for its manufacturing policies was ruled out by BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) Movement recommendations, and the current level of despair about Gaza means that any small act in support of that cause feels important. The other main candidate has a storied legacy of worker mistreatment. Even when time is taken, these decisions are difficult.
It’s an important but exhausting further layer on top of the existing demands of modern life, and, dare I say, motherhood. Consuming ethically is difficult, and, as ever, we need to be mindful of people’s differing financial and accessibility-related dependencies on ethical contraband. However, selective boycotts and consumer organising around them is clearly one of a few effective tools we have at our disposal against injustice, and if you are thinking about ways you can impact aspects of the world that you abhor, being conscious of whether you are actually accidentally funding them is vital. As ever, individual consumer power feels limited, but much is possible when we organise.
Photography by Unsplash.
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