Boycott, boycott, boycott...

I don't want my (in NYC) $200 + a month going to fund Trump fundraisers. The CEO is free to hold them, of course. I am equally free not to patronize his over-priced establishments.

'Murica.

I submit that ceasing to buy a service/product makes considerably more sense and has far more impact than destroying a product you already paid for, but of course people are free to do that , too.

I'm gonna bet that a hefty majority of Equinox/soul cycle patrons dislike Trump. They are not exactly the kind of place his older working-class base flocks to.

I've heard that in Manhattan, anyway, the Equinoxes and Soul Cycles are hurting from this, and other gyms are scrambling to take advantage.

So, yeah. 'Murica.

ETA:

To note, I don't belong to either Equinox or Soul Cycle. But if I did, I'd switch gyms.  That's a hefty dent in a budget every month and I'd thiNkbabout it indirectly supporting Trump every time I saw the debit.  So there you are. 

ETA:

I'll note that I would not feel this way if, say, the guy was throwing a fundraiser for a politician I  simply didn't agree with. Say, Kasich.  I'm not going to vote for Kasich, but he doesn't utterly horrify me.  Trump is another matter, In my book. I think he's an abomination and if you are aggressively seeking to get him re-elected (say, by throwing a huge fundraiser to that end), I'm not going to support you or any business you're connected with with my money.

If you silently vote for him, I'll never know. But if you openly advocate for him, your choice, but you don't get my money.

These types of boycotts are both inherently idiotic and ultimately meaningless because they're almost always toothless. They're further evidence to me that knee-jerk activists are morons.

Did Nike go out of business? No, and they won't (at least not because of some half-assed internet outrage).

Was Chik-Fil-A hurt by the butthurt? No, they're now the #1 fast food restaurant in America.

Was Gillette hurt by...oh, wait. They lost 8 billion dollars (to be fair, though, I doubt much of it had to do with their sudden "wokeness," and more to do with declining market share. The wokeness bullshit was just a hail-Mary pass from a dying brand).

The thing that makes this current boycott call especially idiotic is that Stephen Ross is a multi-billionaire who owns or has stake in at least 34 companies. Choosing to get mad at SoulCycle and Equinox seems so arbitrary and suggests that these online trolls put about as much thought into this latest lame example of "cancel culture" as I put into my last bowel movement.

Why not boycott the Miami Dolphins? He owns them too and lately the NFL has seem primed to capitulate to whatever far-left outrage is hurled at them.

In fact, here's an article listing dozens of the brands he owns or has financial stake in:

www.businessinsider.com/trump-tied-stephen-ross-owns-funds-these-companies-brands-2019-8#outstanding-foods-26


The part-time, mouth-frothing, pseudo-activists who clickty clack away at their keyboards whining about boycotts like this are idiots for thinking that this will hurt a multi-billionaire. He's going to be just fine. He could go out of business tomorrow and still have more money than God.

But, these slacktivists are even more idiotic because their efforts, while not hurting the rich people at the top, actually can and often do hurt the hard-working people closer to the bottom; the employees at these businesses who don't share this dipshit's views, who have absolutely nothing to do with him or with the fact that he throws fundraisers for Trump, who are just trying to put food on the table and support themselves and their families.

THAT'S who all this stupid fucking cancel culture boycott bullshit hurts. All of these hardworking employees are not even collateral damage; they're the only ones damaged by these kinds of things.

But, the noble keyboard warriors don't care about that. They just want to tweet dumb shit, signal their virtue to social media, and pat themselves on the backs for publicly pissing in the plastic wokeness cup and passing their ideological purity test. In a week or two, they'll have completely forgotten about this and moved on to the next outrage du jour. Meanwhile, some people might've lost their jobs or otherwise suffered financially who were just innocent employees caught in the crossfire.

Grr...sorry, but this kind of shit is overall so stupid and ultimately harmful to employees and it really pisses me off.

I haven't seen much evidence of a boycott even happening, so I'm not sure there's much of a case of, "other gyms currently taking Equinox's and Soul Cycle's customers." That could be happening, but I can't find anywhere that's reported it as so. If more than a couple dozen people actually cancel, I'll be surprised.

And, I still wonder, out of the 34 companies he has ownership in, why just those two? The Miami Dolphins are much higher profile. This still seems an arbitrary boycott-of-convenience (that, to date, still has not happened in any measurable way).

Also, he's roughly majority owner of the company that owns the company that owns Soulcycle. He's not a "direct owner." What about the minority owners, some of whom no doubt are Democrats who support Dem candidates? Fuck them, I guess. 

And what about the female CEO of Soulcycle, Melanie Whelan,(the person who actually runs the company) who has helped forge Soulcycle into a proudly LGBTQ-friendly brand and who came out strongly against the fundraiser? Fuck her too, right? Another win for feminism. Good job, activists.

Boycotting a company like this is cutting off one's nose to spite the face. Trying to hurt one guy by doing something that could instead hurt a company (and thousands of hardworking employees) that helps liberal causes:


Also, given that the % of the population, including the Democrat-only population, who would participate in that type of activism is quite low, it won't have lasting impact...or really any significant impact at all. I really question whether most of the people crying on Twitter for this boycott are even members at these places. Most likely not. Usually, it seems the people crying the loudest for boycotts are the ones least likely to even use the services of the business they're trying to "cancel:"


Any customers they lose will most likely be replaced in short time. If not, they'll get their money back somehow (e.g., raising prices, layoffs, etc.). This will have no measurable negative impact on Ross at all. A thousand people could cancel their memberships tomorrow (won't happen) and it still wouldn't affect his income. As I said earlier, come September, nobody will care about this anymore, and it'll be business as usual at Soulcycle and every other business his company is affiliated with.

It might give a few people some temporary warm fuzzies, but this boycott-that-will-never-actually-happen is nothing but a complete waste of time that will not hurt Ross at all but potentially hurt many people who are actually on the side of the activists (though I doubt many would remain on their side if they lose their jobs).

Meanwhile, Ross's fundraiser already happened and life goes on.

Their offense is boycotting the end zone.