Most “Buy European” initiatives that I’ve seen are quite uncoordinated and disorganised. It’s very grassroots. That’s not bad, but maybe we could do better.
What do I mean by better? Well, imagine if there were ads in public transport, flyers in your mailbox, stickers, t-shirts and other merch, awareness campaigns on social media, a common database for European alternatives, outreach to businesses, partners, and even political affiliations.
I made a sticker, but I’m not a graphic designer. I asked about translations, but we don’t have a place to really store that information. We don’t have some kind of platform where we can organise stuff without the algorithm just hiding it after a day.
When a US company starts selling stuff in Europe, many people will know about it because of these things. It’ll generate chatter and translate into action or purchases. This doesn’t just count for products, but political campaigns, and so on. There’s a directed, concerted effort, which we lack and probably waiting on some company or politician to get their lips off of a big tech donor’s buttcheek will take a while.
Most people I know are barely aware of the Buy European movement. It’s either not translated or it’s in media they don’t follow, but getting a flyer in your mail, seeing an ad on TV or while standing at a bus station, hearing a politician or influencer talk about it, will make people more aware.
Is this something we want? If so, how can we do it? Do we start an NGO? Reach out to a political party like Volt Europa (Although they don’t seem to be on the fediverse)
Just want to add that we shouldn’t neglect word of mouth as a useful transmission vector. Anecdotal, but I’ve started dropping the idea in conversations with the people I know (most conversations inevitably drift to the state of things, so it’s not that hard to squeeze it in), and most started focusing on that. A couple of explanations and memes later, and they started reconsidering their shopping habits.
I think we’re reaching the point where the level of degradation is high enough to be immediately noticeable, which means people are becoming receptive, if only through survival mechanisms. As you’ve said, most people are simply functioning based on incomplete data, and this particular boycot is like a lite variant, mildly irksome at best. Easier to switch from Coke to American Cola (I’m not kidding, this is an actual fizzy Coke clone made by European Drinks - now discontinued, I believe…), or whatever else there is.
I do completely agree that a public, official campaign for this would speed things along greatly. I’d second trying to see if Volt wouldn’t be interested in including this idea in some of their campaigns. Could also talk to local councils/whatever form of local government is available about this, maybe it could even merge with promoting local products in some areas (my home town has a lot of supermarkets which import apples, even though it’s actually pretty renown for its apple orchards and natural apple juice, it’s downright stupid…). This would imply creating some reading material at least, but wouldn’t need to do much more than explain the movement, then send the readers to an accessible (and mobile-friendly!) web page with more info (“buyeuropean.eu” has a nice vibe to it).
Edit: another long shot would be trying to talk to local businesses and see if they won’t carry some info material, like have a “Pop!” poster with the concept somewhere, or even carry pamphlets. Most local businesses are very good nodes for transmission because everyone knows the local shopkeep, and the local shopkeep knows everyone. Sure, it’s not in their immediate interest to have people refusing to buy their stock of American products, but the process should be slow enough to allow them to adjust their suppliers. A 1-2 month timeline, thereabouts. Unless they have longer-term contracts, but I don’t know how those stand now that Liberation Day has happened [Heh, remember
Michael Bay’sEmmerich’s (my brain is melting…) Independence Day? Yeah, they called it Liberation Day, too. Better plot than IRL…]Edit 2: I’m an idiot! These exist, apparently. Yeah, we need a campaign=)))
I feel word of mouth has already given the movement media coverage, not like big protest get talked about but a lot more than some other ‘ideas for a better world’ get mentioned by mass media. I think the organic spread by physical word of mouth and digital word of mouth is the actual foundation making this happen.
You mention there needs to be reading material, there are a few websites that try to do this, I’ll look them up in a moment and post them as a comment in this thread. Edit: they are pinned posts in the community, so I guess they’re easy enough to find:
What you’re saying about local businesses might work, but bigger business might be open to this idea as well. There is a lot of globally operating companies that do not explicitly say they’re a European company, maybe if they receive messages about this they are willing to put more emphasis on this. Just after the war in Ukraine started all of a sudden some services I used mentioned being developed in Ukraine but I never realised and wouldn’t have cared before, but know this made me appreciate them more.
Agreed, but I’m thinking of the people who aren’t fully digital, which make up a large portion of the population (at least here in Romania).
The nice Auntie next door who barely watches anything on TV beyond the evening news and folk music shows most likely won’t catch word of this unless I tell her about it (and if she will, she probably won’t really get it). And I am absolutely certain she’d love chatting about groceries for a while!
Yea I get it, these nice aunties are harder to reach. I saw someone made some print-outs you could leave at your local supermarket if you are willing to put in the time effort and money.
Funnily enough, my life is falling apart in just the right way to allow me to involve myself in stuff like this, so yes! If nothing else, I’ll stockpile and reach out to some old connections, spread them around.
Cool, you might wanna start here: https://boycott-flyer.eu/
Edit: i believe i saw someone wanting to make localized versions, but can’t find it. Can imagine those nice aunties to be much more trustworthy of a flyer in their own language.
Thanks so much!
No problem with the translation, can handle those myself, thankfully. Can even handle some minor editing if needed.