The Future of Generational Protests in America

The days of coerced public apologies for feigned ignorance are over. 

It’s the 21st century and any major cultural dilemmas, confusions, disconnects, and lack of awareness, can be addressed in less than a second by any smartphone. If one happens to miss the opportunity to stay informed on their brand or business’s associations with the most recent cultural disturbance, they may face a public relations fiasco that leads to the inevitable ghosting of their brand and the hammering of the death-nail known as being canceled.

For example, AirFrance was boycotted for shipping monkeys to labs, Amazon was targeted for skipping out on taxes, and Caterpillar faced calls for cancellation as it sold multiple orders of bulldozers to Israel (“Cancel Culture: Trouble for Brands or Just Noise?”). 

It is not the company that transgressed the culture code of civility but the leadership who opted for profits over humanity, shareholder greed over the law, and dead monkeys overseas. For the populations who can afford to support these companies with their buying power, it is their decision to protest the leadership by withholding their cash that leads to change.

Thus, the very source of our perceived “cancel culture” in the 21st century is not a cancellation of a brand but an economic protest. A collective decision to punish the brand and remove the ill-advised leadership at the hands of pissed-off shareholders angry about last quarter’s dismissal earnings.

This process would have looked very different a few hundred years ago. Protests then took the form of all out violence, usually resulting in a lot of dead serfs, an exhausted local militia, and a relieved aristocracy. Then the serfs organized, got together more frequently, and the result was a series of movements that led to bloody revolutions. Suffice to say, the term “cancel” back then did not mean boycotting as much as it meant guillotining.

In all of the progress we’ve made as a human civilization, we live in the most peaceful time ever in our existence. It may not feel like the most peaceful time due to the influx of violence, extremism, hate, and outrage videos courtesy of tech algorithms programmed to keep viewers hooked to the screens for ad-spend dollars but it’s true. 

For all the time since we’ve been around, humanity is doing relatively alright. We’ve exchanged our pitchforks for debit cards and rather than dragging the CEO’s of massive corporations out into the streets and tearing them apart for ruining the economy, we’d rather attempt to bankrupt them one lost transaction at a time. Keyword being attempt to bankrupt them, those slimy bastards.

So where did this modern civility of modern protests against modern economic and political aristocracy start? 

In the center of modern capitalistic elitism: America.

The Silent Generation: Civil Disobedience and Equal Rights

We begin right after World War II, when the Silent Generation came home after fighting facism and took on the next big fight: civil rights. For the Boomers out there, recall the various protests and civil unrest you witnessed growing up. Your parents, The Silent Generation, were on the frontlines of fighting for civil rights and progress. They exercised their communal powers by forcing a discourse on what mattered most to them and their future. The Silent Generation did not have the modern distractions, conveniences, and luxuries that would enable the self-serving Baby Boomers into absolute obedience by corporate persuasion. Nope. The Silent Generation only had memories of global wars, injustice, and the urgency to make a better future for their children before it was challenged by wannabe dictators with small hands hellbent on taking over the world…again.

Baby Boomers: Anything is Possible (To Take Advantage Of)

Boomers grew up in a totally different America. Dictators and trench warfare were used as comedic backdrops for tv shows like Hogan’s Heroes and McHales Navy. The last remnants of civil rights protests were faint memories as the first set of Boomers got their first jobs and acquired their first taste of buying power. The Boomer’s America was a place of consumerism and commercials, shiny and ready to buy. However, as Boomers entered their 20’s they looked upon their polyester and bellbottom world with an eye of social awareness planted by the values of their parents. Armed with their consumer-power, they began to apply it to commerce and workers rights issues throughout the 70’s and 80’s.

For those old enough, I ask you to recall the following:

The Delano Grape Boycott of 1970 - a concerted effort to improve the wages and working conditions of farmers organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee.

The Nestle Boycott in 1977 - a boycott of Swiss-based Nestlé who had aggressively marketed its baby formula as a replacement to breastmilk.

The Coors Boycott of 1977 - as a way to stand behind the recently formed unions at Coors, the brewery was boycotted in order to address workers rights and wages.

The Exxon Boycott of 1989 -  the first flash of Gen-X showing up to the fold in boycott/protest culture as a reaction to Exxon Valdez’s massive oil spill in Alaska. 

It is important to note, Boomers did make some massive contributions to social and culture exploration. Hippies brought the notion that life was about making love, peace, getting really high, and not relying on “the man” for anything, until bills and children showed up. Once adult responsibilities arrived, the Boomer motivation switched from justice to making money, taking money, and keeping money.

They also made a lot of great music.

Gen-X: Everything Sucks and We Need to Save the Whales

By the time Gen-X came about financially in the 90’s, social and civil rights issues were starting to peek over the 21st century horizon. Gen-X, unfairly known for a disjointed and apathetic approach to life, would go on to integrate social and civil issues into their form of commerce. Corporations began to pivot to protect their margins, proactively placing themselves in alignment with social and environmental causes of the decade to win Gen-X dollars. It was only a matter of time when Wall Street began to realize the advantage of tapping into causes and movements to maximize profits off unsuspecting target audiences. Afterall, fashion product lines covered in social causes sell faster (and with less guilt) than your standard retail Fall collections.

Millennials: We Would Boycott If We Had Money

The Millennial America was shaped by the internet delivering information at speeds faster than any other generation had ever experienced. This meant culture, global culture, was now instantly accessible at the click of a mouse and a cacophony of dial-up modem squawks. For the first time in history, an entire generation experienced the world in a slew of multimedia forms. A computer screen replaced the tv screen.

Collectively, Millennials are broke. In the pre-internet world of financial boycotts, a lack of buying power would have rendered a populace powerless. However, in a post-internet world, the resourceful Millennials brought to light an entirely new form of currency that generations of advertisers had dealt in since their inception: attention. 

Afterall, what good are professional advertising campaigns, celebrity endorsements, and multimillion dollar commercial spots on network television, if everyone simply tunes out. 

Millennials realized it was not money that corporations longed to capture, it was attention. 

Thus “Cancel Culture” arrived in the discerning gaze of a post-internet generation. Due to several selfish and irresponsible political, financial, economic, and cultural moves made by the Baby Boomers in power, Millennials found themselves with the application of leveraged attention. Social media platforms ushered in a new way to unite behind a specific cause and get results from concerted efforts. The results were a new generation standing up, demanding to be heard or they would silence the corporations that enabled corruption.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha: I’m So Offended, No Cap

As the 21st century dawned, social media changed the branding game forever. The digital native Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha America is a world where information is not only instantly available but instantly creatable with hardly any effort at all. This expectation of instant gratification and creative response was born from the engagement-based algorithms developed by Gen-X that enabled the social awareness cultivated by the Millennials.

For these generations, who are yet to see the long-term ramifications of the economic damage their grandparents infused into the system their parents developed, the greatest sense of community and identity resides in social justice and equal rights. Unlike Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha inherently know the power social media has on the world, communities, and brands. Suddenly, two of the newest generations in society have the power to destroy brands that didn’t give them the attention they wanted as fast as possible.

Sounds harsh. But it’s true. No cap.

Enter: The Mob is Fickle #RomanEmpire

By the late 2010’s and early 2020’s, the speed at which a brand or public figure could lose public support was an indicator of how badly they screwed up in the eyes of the newer generations. 

In some cases, a brand or public figure could be featured in a major publication on Monday,  publicly exposed, humiliated, judged, and exiled by Thursday, become a meme on TikTok the following Monday before no one knew who they were anymore by that Friday.

For brands and anyone who relies on public support (i.e. everyone in an economic system) this was a true changing of the guard for those in power. Initially, the self-interested power-hungry aging and relatively disconnected Baby Boomer generation snubbed their noses at this particular cultural vehicle. “A few angry kids with hurt feelings are going to hurt the brand I spent my life building brick by brick? Ha. I doubt it.” 

And then it happened. Several times.

Urban Outfitters, CEO Richard Hayne (Boomer) was caught in the midst of a public backlash due to the #blacklivesmatter / cultural appropriation concerns brought up on social media in his company.

GoDaddy, former CEO Bob Parsons (Boomer) saw 70,000 domain names canceled after a video of him hunting an African elephant surfaced online. The public wanted an apologetic response on behalf of the African elephant (and hunting elephants in general, why would anyone kill an elephant?). Instead, Bob doubled-down on his stance and refused to engage. He was fired a few months later.

Goya, CEO Robert Unanue (Boomer) proactively jumped into a fight when he backed then President (and still aspiring dictator) Trump. A major backlash was seen from the LatinX and Hispanic communities in America and Mexico due to Unanue having aligned himself with a president who casually ridiculed and proclaimed an entire nationality and ethnic group were drug dealers, criminals, and rapists.

I found 15 other examples but I’ll spare you the links.

Of course, it’s not just the Boomers who are offending the newest generations. Tampax hit a slight faux pas when they tweeted a rather lude tweet describing the difference between being in a woman’s direct messages and actually being inside her. This was nothing compared to what the 25 year old CEO Nadya Okamoto would go on to say in regards to menstruation and the various social campaigns she pushed to change the narrative on a natural bodily function. The end result was additional backlash and more confusion from her own generation than anything else.

Brand Narratives: Stay Well Informed and Stay Present, Stay Present to Stay Relevant

As a brand owner, leader, public figure, or anyone who engages with the public, it's important to stay informed on the most recent cultural discourse around you. Granted there are a few curmudgeons who don’t care about shifting culture or evolving social standards but this is why they are curmudgeons and refuse to throw another lump of coal on the fire.

Participating in society, especially commerce within said society, requires the moral fortitude and personal responsibility in making an effort to understand and connect with your fellow human. Furthermore, it is in this effort that so much of our own personal growth and evolution takes place. If you are a brand owner, that personal growth ripples into your brand, and may possibly show you new opportunities for making a valuable contribution (keyword: contribution) to not only the marketplace but the world in which you live. 

The Future of Generational Protests

Brands are being taken to task and held accountable for their place in society. All brands, old and emerging, have to prove their contribution to the holistic greater good of the culture and be responsive when their audiences speak up about causes that matter most to them. In a world of instant gratification, communication, and information, brands are now expected to react at the same speed of most social media platforms. That means proactively participating in monitoring the social and cultural discourse on these platforms while keeping a pulse on the larger societal aspects of their brand in the long run.

Cancel Culture is a myth. Don’t buy into the angry, tired, groans of those who claim it's a symptom of a spoiled generation. Ironically, Boomers who bemoan Cancel Culture are the ones who paved the way for a large amount of the progressive ideas they’re great grandchildren are fighting to establish in society. The real tragedy in the generations is how easily Boomers forget their values when it comes to their bank accounts, how Gen X believes they’re the toughest generation to ever exist, how Millennials have given up on themselves, and how Gen Z is tasked with saving the future as Gen Alpha emerges into adulthood.

There is one singular truth to it all: the future of commerce is one of accountability and societal contributions on a global scale. 

If one refuses to participate, they’ve canceled themselves from the culture.

No cap.