I'm (Still) Boycotting Starbucks and the TikTok Shop for Palestine
I'm (Still) Boycotting Starbucks and the TikTok Shop for Palestine
Starbucks and the TikTok shop aren't on the BDS list, but resisting them ties to fighting for Palestine
Sometime in October, I saw calls from TikTok creators on my For You page to boycott Starbucks.
Wait, is Starbucks on the BDS list? I asked myself.
BDS stands for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel. According to its official website—bookmark this page for your records1—BDS is a Palestinian-led movement fighting for freedom, justice, and equality: "Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law."
After consulting the BDS website, Starbucks indeed wasn't on their list. However, I did find news of Starbucks corporate suing its union over a tweet that read: "Solidarity with Palestine!" Although the boycott wasn't prompted by the official BDS movement, it didn't need it to be. I welcomed any opportunity to kick my Starbucks habit and promptly deleted the Starbucks app from my phone.
Ever since quitting my Starbucks habit this fall, I've paid closer to attention to my spending habits, even with non-coffee purchases. When I shop for things, I think about each item more intentionally. To determine whether something is an intentional purchase, I investigate my motivation. How does it nourish me, literally and/or metaphorically? What does it add to my life? Often, since my purchases are food, they literally nourish me; they also can provide a sense of joy and fulfillment. The same goes for more essential expenses like rent and other bills. The more I notice, the less I find myself even buying non-essential items.
Around the time I started boycotting Starbucks, I started engaging with more deinfluencing content. Deinfluencing exposes the hyperconsumption promoted by influencers on social media. Especially with the launch of the TikTok shop, my feed feels oversaturated with frivolous products I wouldn't otherwise know about if not for its algorithm. I'm looking at you, Shadow Work Journal! Cara Nicole's YouTube videos, indirectly covering the theme of deinfluencing, fascinate me. I started following her earlier this year from her video exposing Temu2. Her channel revolves around money, intentional living, and sustainability. When it comes to investigating her motivations for purchasing something, she asks herself: if I'm moving, do I want to move this item? Usually, her answer is no.
I also watched another video—"I Bought The Same Dress For $4, $30, $60, and $200"—from Safiya Nygaard's The Internet Made Me Buy It YouTube series. This series often contradicts deinfluencing, as it can promote hyperconsumerist online shopping culture—it’s literally called The Internet Made Me Buy It—so I was surprised to see this video exposing how easy it is not only to advertise, but outright scam on TikTok. She documents her experiment of buying the same "floral midriff shaper corset dress" based off TikTok ads for different prices. The verdict? They're definitely not the same dress, and actually, some of the ads are stolen content. Fashion creators, whose content is used without permission or credit to sell dresses they model, have been reporting these ads for years to TikTok to no avail. TikTok hasn't done anything about the stolen content, and apparently Instagram has had this problem too.
The more I learn about TikTok’s sketchy advertising practices, the more ick I feel towards using the app. Exposes like Cara Nicole's and Nygaard's inadvertently deter me from shopping off social media. I sparingly use TikTok and Instagram between cycles of re-installing the app and promptly deleting it after a brief scrolling session or posting content. I used to scroll on TikTok for endless hours in quarantine; now, I genuinely feel disinterested, and sometimes downright uncomfortable, after scrolling.
The TikTok shop isn't on the BDS list, but the vibe feels very much unethical, very much like Shein. MSNBC reports: "The Chinese online retailer, which has quickly become a staple of social media, was valued at $100 billion in 2022 — that’s more than Zara and H&M combined. But Shein now faces a firestorm of criticism over a highly choreographed PR junket featuring fashion influencers seen as an attempt to rehabilitate a company that has faced a slew of allegations, including human rights violations and complaints about shoddy clothing materials."
How does deinfluencing relate to BDS? While the primary, fundamental goal of BDS is to fight for Palestinian liberation, the movement also encourages us to resist our consumerist culture that feels second nature to those who've grown up in it. Starbucks and the TikTok shop aren't on the BDS list, but they don't need to be. There are still themes of theft whether it’s stolen content from influences used to market products on TikTok or withholding pay hikes from unionized Starbucks workers, just like the theft of Palestinian land and life.
The more mindful I am about resisting frivolous purchases, the less I'm invested in American hyperconsumerist culture. The less I'm invested in American hyperconsumerist culture and therefore capitalism, the more invested I can be in the economic fight for Palestinian liberation.
I was able to find the URL on Google as of Sunday, December 10, but there have been times where I haven't been able to find it on Google. I attribute the potentially botched search engine results to Google's economic ties to Israel, such as a a $1.2 billion agreement to provide cloud services to the Israeli government called “Project Nimbus" according to the New York Post.