In the Guardian interview, Johansson hits back at Oxfam, claiming, “for a non-governmental organization to be supporting something that’s supporting a political cause … there’s something that feels not right about that to me.”

As though Oxfam isn’t political. Rights are political because they are based in what a given society will and will not allow. Oxfam theoretically is fighting for rights and therefore political.

The article does include the following:

The more persuasive explanation for the relative lack of young people in the anti-Trump, pro-democracy movement is that they are demobilized and demoralized. But it would be a mistake to blame them for this attitude. Older generations should instead recognize that the world we have created does not seem to offer a viable path to making change.

I’m not sure they’re examining all the angles though. More Boomers have retired after Covid and young people are struggling even more with wage suppression and overall employment. Much harder to organize if you’re living hand to mouth juggling 4 gig jobs than hand to mouth with 1 job. There’s also a lot of other organizations they may be supporting. If they’re working directly with local orgs they may be less willing or able to participate in these larger protests. It’s also possible they just are that demoralized. Really sad overall either way. The boomers should have taken the time to talk to their cohort when they had the chance. I cut ties with some boomers, but so much of their political responses were “you’re too young/you’ll understand when you’re older” even though I’m a whole adult. I’m sure they’d just pivot to something else, but still. I am still trying with people my age and it’s working every once in a while, but I know that if I don’t help my cohort they will get more entrenched. I know some boomers willing to go to a protest but unwilling to challenge their family members. I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations, but I wish they’d protest less and deradicalize more, because I can protest, but I can’t deradicalize their family for them.

Not that I love brands as a concept, but I’m pretty sure part of the Disney appeal is that they theoretically hold themselves to a higher standard. It’s wild to see them willing to degrade their brand identity like this. Don’t people just sit their kids in front of D+ feeling confident that they only get Disney approved content? This seems like a huge misstep.

That has changed and video ads becoming a thing has changed it even more. Banner ads back in the day were not something people could be forced to sit through and there was virtually no targeting. Now that they can target certain audiences and essentially force them to watch, ad dollars don’t have to be spread so thin and therefore they are able to spend more for any specific ad slot. Realistically though, I think it’s to just push people to the higher tiers. If people don’t upgrade, then you’re getting some ad money on the side, if people do upgrade then great. They view it as money “left on the table”. If you’re willing to spend one cent more than you currently are spending they view it as their job to capture that.

I think it touched on a lot, but partly due to the length lacked the cohesion and connective tissue needed to make it seem coherent. I’m not saying he meant it to, but it reads like he’s using this opportunity to spitfire his opinion on a lot of “disconnected” issues without actually providing any evidence that his viewpoints are correct. Do I agree with most of his takes, yes, but it seemed shallow to me, a person who already thinks a country always involved in war is bad for the citizens. I can only imagine how poorly it would be received by someone who supported the wars or Israel, or was expecting a little more about the actual killing of Charlie Kirk. Probably seems self interested and like it’s exploitative of his death. I’m not saying it is, but who is this really for? I can’t imagine any intended audience feeling satisfied with this, much less swayed by it. At best potentially neutral.

For what it’s worth, there’s an argument to be made that electing Harris would be better for more people than donating to any one individual. Look at the havoc being caused by Trump. So many people are now out of jobs. Minorities are being actively targeted. The EPA and FDA are going to be basically shuttered and people all over the world will be affected by our lower health and environmental protections, and possibly dying of preventable diseases as we make measles great again. Harris didn’t need more money, she needed better policies and platforms, but I can see how libs really thought they were doing the right thing. I hope things improve for everyone, but if I really thought my $5 could either go to one individual or legitimately stop fascism and protect the world, I know what I would do. For what it’s worth, I donated money I didn’t have to Bernie because I really believed in his fight. Would that money have done people in my community good, sure, heck it would’ve done me good, but at the time I thought it was the right move.