People choose to boycott businesses for myriad reasons. For one, bad customer service. For another, bad customers. There are three bodegas in my neighborhood, and there’s always one guy outside the nearest one who I don’t like talking to. That may sound petty, but I have other options a block away.
Sometimes, there are important ethical reasons to take your business elsewhere. After all, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Unless you shop at a local indie bookstore, of course. I kid. Even they use a lot of paper and cardboard. They are part of the problem.
It’s important to spend your money where it counts. Every dollar is a vote saying “I want this business to thrive.” That said, I’ll be d***ed if I ever eat at Subway again. Not because they did anything unethical. I just think the food is bad.
Reddit popped the question: “what’s the pettiest reason you have boycotted something?” and many replied with very petty answers.
Here are people who chose extremely petty reasons to boycott a business:
1.
“I won’t go to the deli by my parent’s house anymore because I once bought a stale rice crispie treat from them.” –fabergeomelet
2.
“Every day for a few years in high school and college, I used to read a particular website that published syndicated op-eds.
One day I got there to see they had “modernized” their layout and I didn’t care for it, so I never went back. It’s probably been 12 years.” –lolabythebay
3.
“I’ll never shop at a Big Y supermarket because one was built where this nice meadow used to be when I lived in Connecticut. I liked that meadow, Big Y. Fuck you.” –DubiouslyRussian
4.
“My dad has had a long standing boycott of Exxon gas stations since the 80’s because apparently they used to not give out change for cash purchases after 4pm (idk why) and the cashier refused to give my dad change at 4:01 pm after he had waited in line for 5 minutes. He has literally not gone to an Exxon station since then unless it’s an emergency and has actually planned out fuel stops on road trips to avoid Exxon….whole new level of petty.
In case you’re wondering, the total amount of change that my dad was owed totaled $0.36″ –bananabandanadan
5.
“Geico. I requested an online quote from them in March of this year and the next day one of their local offices called me 3 times a day for 2 weeks straight. I even answered the phone twice and told them to stop calling me. The voicemail the woman would leave me when I didn’t answer sounded a lot like a collection agent. Like she was doing me a favor by calling me and that I MUST call them right away to start my insurance with them. She was extremely pushy.
I had to leave a negative Yelp and Facebook review to get it to stop. They finally sent me a message saying they would stop calling me and then they contacted Yelp and Facebook to dispute my reviews. Two weeks ago I got an e-mail from Yelp saying they were removing my review as the owner proved that my review didn’t have anything to do with their location. I put it back up with a screenshot of my missed call logs showing their phone number calling me over and over again.” –Brodie1985
6.
“Not me, but my dad. He was a smoker for about 50 years. He thinks my cousin (his brother’s son) is a complete moron. He lives in Massachusetts and I guess they raised cigarette taxes to support the T (Boston’s public transport system). My cousin works for the T. My dad quit smoking because he wasn’t giving my cousin any money.” -anonymous
7.
“Hyundai because they offered a $40 gift card if you test-drive one of their new vehicles. I took the test drive, and dealt with the endless stream of spam and phone calls. Gift card never arrived.” –twopacktuesday
8.
“There was a lady with a snack stand on my faculty when I was in college.
During my second semester, I went there to buy chocolate, and she told me to take it. I couldn’t find it, so she grabbed and gave it to me and told me “Here they are. Can’t you read? It says there, C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E!”.
In all my time in college, I never bought anything else from her.” –MarsNirgal
9.
“Never buying a KIA because ever since I’ve shown interest they’ve harassed me like a Mormon in a new city. Between the nonstop calling and emails, you’d think I fucking broke up with them over Facebook without a reason. GIVE ME A BREAK, KIA!!! YOU’VE ALREADY DENIED MY CREDIT!!” –valley_G
10.
“I boycott a local restaurant because the guy in their car cut me off real bad and flipped me off.” –hnandez
11.
“I was forced to boycott my favorite restaurant as a child because my Father was petty.
We went in an hour prior to closing, and as the waitress was closing up the sections, she vacuumed around my Dad’s feet; he stood up, gathered us all up, and made us leave.
We were never allowed to go back, and once I was old enough to take myself – they had shut down.” –weasel13
12.
“I didn’t eat at McDonald’s for a long time because they made a huge deal about all day breakfast and I’m like, but what about the people who want fries at 9 am? Do we not matter?” –kiss_all_puppies
13.
“I’ve boycotted a gas station for 30 years because I didn’t like the jingle in their ad.” –HollowWiener
14.
“I’ve boycotted an incredibly popular local Italian restaurant because it is my best friend’s ex-girlfriend’s favorite place to eat and she cheated on him.” –CafeSilver
15.
“I will never in my life even consider buying a Nissan because of their 30-second unskippable ads on youtube.” -anonymous
16.
“I boycott David’s Tea after I applied there for a summer job and got a really weird rejection email lol.
It said something along the lines of “After reviewing your application, we feel you’re just not the right fit for our team’s vibe”
I’ve had a few weird job application rejections, but this one took the cake lol.
I never shopped there regularly, so they lost a subpar teenage customer! Take that David’s Tea!” –pomegranatefresh
17.
“I went to get a haircut at a place I’d never gone to before. I sat down and the lady said “what happened to your eyebrows? You have a fireworks accident”. I got up and walked out and never went there again.” –ElToberino
18.
“I can’t ever go back to this one branch of Aldi because my card got declined when I already had my cart full.
I am too embarrassed.” –SchnarchendeSchwein
19.
“I won’t go to Planet Fitness because I went to check it out before signing up and I over heard some employees talk about how fat someone was, who happened to have my name. I called the manager a few days later just to say that we all talk shit on customers but don’t do it so brazenly. He completely dismissed me and immediately started asked me if I’d like to sign up.” –smokesmagoats
20.
“I haven’t eaten a Combo since April of 1992, because I blame them for causing me to lose the sixth grade spelling bee.
C-O-M-B-O-N-A-T-I-O-N” –Ted_Denslow
21.
“I asked for an extra sauce packet at Arby’s once. They charged me $0.25 for it. I gave them my quarter and stopped eating there for nearly 20 years.” –henryletham