I've spent over a week brainstorming a solution to an issue that the boycott (and myself, but this way it sounds more important) continues to face. That issue, dear reader, is a the metaphorical chasm between the two of us that has failed to dissipate.
     I locked myself away in a dark room. I ranted and raved. I mused on the bus, surrounded by strangers. I mused in spare moments of class time, surrounded by peers. I stared into mirrors and abysses alike, searching for a real resolution for the problem. Many false starts presented themselves, full of winding twists and troubles all their own, with a success likelihood too slim to chance. These were not the answers I was looking for. Then it hit me like a blessed bolt of lightning releasing me from these long, woeful nights of questioning. In all those nights full of a despairing wonder, I was missing something at my fingertips that had settled right under my nose.
     I have a blog and I can talk to you directly here. It's purpose is to communicate with you what's going on, so why not use it to communicate these roadblocks you're such a vital part of?

It's not you, it's me.

     Actually, it's both of us. Sorry darling, but we share the guilt. Why? Well, because this is a two-way street. At least, that's ideally how I'd like it to turn out. What I'm craving is a little engagement, so I'm going to cut to the chase. (I apologize for the earlier rambling, I'm quite worn out and actually already wrote this and lost it. I just felt like changing things up the second time around.)

     Most of the posts that turn up on the facebook page (I'm working on making this set-up equal for facebookers, facebook haters and everyone in between) are posted by people I know personally, most being the vast majority with roughly five exceptions. Posts from people I know are all well and good, and few at this early stage are to be expected. However, I want to know more about the people that I don't know, both individually and as one big, boycotting entity. There are a number of reasons for this which I shall now explain in no particular order.

1) Personality Demographic.

     While I see the numbers grow day to day, it gets harder and harder for me to tell how many people are actually getting involved versus how many people liked the facebook page because they like everything with a snappy title (ours isn't even that snappy). For this to be as effective as it can be, I have to know what kind of crowds have gathered. If for some reason I'm chiefly reaching that random-page-liker demographic, I obviously need to make some changes. Alternatively, if I'm reaching a wide range of people then all I need to do is find a way to reach more of them.
     On a related note, another part of the reason I feel the need to know is that our day to day numbers do grow at a fairly steady pace, but the pace is small enough that I could potentially trace it back to a couple of members who do a lot and a handful who do what I wish the other hundred and fifty people were doing. While those people are absolutely fantastic, how can I tell if the rest are even boycotting if I have no idea who you are? This leads on to the second reason which is. . .

2) Commitment.

     Let's be honest here. The truth is, I'm not competent enough to have an actual sign-up list yet. The facebook page is the only way I can track numbers at this point. Many boycotters I know don't facebook, and I'm absolutely certain that a handful of the facebookers on the page don't actually boycott. I have yet to draft the official petition that I'm working on for change.org, which will be another way to track progress (hopefully a roster of some sort will come at roughly the same time). If you've read the website, however, you'll know that commitment isn't just about boycotting.
     I want everyone to get a minimum of four people in on it. If you'll remember from the status I posted a while back, my sister got eight of her teachers in half an hour, and yes, teachers absolutely count (they're people, too). She's much younger than the both of us, chances are (and if not, what are you doing on a computer? Go outside and play. I wish that was what I were doing right about now). That's just proof to the fact that you can handle it. I would hope that while after those four, even if you're an under-achiever who scrapes by with the bare minimum, you're still interested in, say, finding out if this even goes anywhere, right? I mean, you're boycotting for it. What if it ended tomorrow and you continued abstaining for a reason long-ended? Conveniently enough, this leads into the third reason.

3) General Interaction and Updates

     If I set up the petition and roster tonight, something tells me that even a month from now we wouldn't have the roughly 220 starter signatures one could theoretically expect. Many people don't check facebook that often and those who do still don't check in on the boycott. Fair enough, if you have a large friends list you're likely to miss the updates. Facebookers, to get down to the nitty-gritty, here it is: I would love and absolutely need as much participation as you can muster. I don't mean throw yourself at everything I say and write page-long responses that eerily resemble essays. What I mean is check the page every so often and read it. Really, I don't write things unless I think that it's relevant to a large enough group of somebodies.


As for those who don't check in on or have a facebook, I'm setting up another option: a newsletter. Although I feel silly saying letter because I'm referring to e-mail. Still, I'd feel equally silly if not sillier if I said e-newsletter. It's just a rock and a hard place here.

     It is, indeed, potentially scary. Many who hear newsletter (myself included) automatically think of that large pile of e-mails you get every month from that one organization you did one thing for that one time and while you haven't put the effort into removing yourself from the e-mail list, you still spend most of your time deleting those messages because you didn't intend to commit to it to that crazy, obsessed level they seem to think you did.

     There are a two reasons I hope you'll bear with me. One: you're already committed. You're boycotting, after all. Consider the newsletter motivation of sorts. Two: I feel your pain. Too many e-mails. This would only go out about twice a month (or every two weeks, whichever sounds less imposing to you) and contain some links, helpful tips, updates and such. I can give no solid date as to when the first will go out, but if you think you'd rather get a newsletter than give in to social networking, sign up. For now, sign-up by sending an e-mail to [email protected] titled "Newsletter" for those interested. Sign-up will always be open, naturally, and soon enough there will be a nifty little button on the website, or something along that line.


    

     This blog post is brief (about three paragraphs), so breathe that sigh of relief and get through it quickly so you can continue with your day. The title is also misleading, so read on and you'll get that "Ohh, I see what you did there." feeling of having caught on.

     I talk a lot, but up until now I never quite figured out how to turn my words into your actions. I think that was the problem in the first place.
     Here's a fun fact most of you didn't know for sure: I do absolutely everything I ask of you folks boycotting with me. That, plus planning all the new additions to the project, networking with activists and owners of local coffee shops, website maintenance, budgeting (this coming from the girl who just got shoes that weren't two sizes too small and five years old for the first time in years. Feet not hurting is a great, great thing.), buying pre-paid debit cards so I can do online transactions for internet promo, setting up meetings between my friends to get more brains involved than I have in my skull, pages and pages of organization, frequent website editing, coming up with new pages (it's like writing an essay, give or take a page), looking up news articles, watching documentaries, and trying to keep things dynamic and interesting.
     A problem has come up. It's dawned of me as of late that you guys have no idea about this. This makes me, in effect, that wall-of-text wizard I said I wasn't in the very first blog entry. It's time to prove to you that I exist as something beyond the talk.
     How am I going to do that? A picture is worth a thousand words and I have a camera. That's pretty much all I've got, but it's only fair. People I know who have read the website have asked time and time again, why the anonymity? Why not show us who you are? The truth is, it's instinctive. Though I'll gladly step up and do everything necessary for the boycott, I still don't like having the spotlight on me. It's not in my nature. That, however, just bites. Why? Because it's not fair to you. I base this judgment largely on the fact that I wouldn't like being a puppet to some stranger, even a well-intentioned one. Oz turned out to be less than great, right? I'm not sure why I thought this would work if I kept things at arm's length. Hence it being official. I am coming out of the closet, and I hope you guys can accept me for who I am. Haha. I trust you would no matter what closet I happened to jump out of, right?

     I get asked that a lot when it comes to this boycott. Not by people who are in the boycott, of course. People who are involved don't ask because they care, too. If they didn't, they wouldn't be doing all that they do. We may not all share in exact motivations or views on politics and other things people like to go in circles about, but we obviously share in that. There's a certain understanding you have, I think, when you're ready to do something for the sake of not just you but of people you don't personally know. A unity exists in doing things to make a difference that, as I wrote somewhere else on the site, "you may never shake hands with". It takes a lot of guts.

     In truth, I would be surprised if even most of the people who ask why I do what I do are ever going to really look at the website. I think if they did, they wouldn't have as many questions (so often said in utter disrespect). It's kind of a no-brainer that there are going to be people who don't care much for what we're doing. It's also a no-brainer that there are going to be some among those who feel the need to attack it. However, there's something I really don't understand, so let me share it with you.
     What I don't get is that the people who ask and at least pretend that they're asking to get an answer want me to give it to them in no more than two sentences. They don't want me to explain it to them, just tell them. Plain and simple (which it may be, but not if you don't understand it). If I can't do that then I obviously have no idea what I'm doing seems to be the sentiment. Some days I can answer better than others, but I still can't fathom their expectations. Or, for that matter, why they bother asking if they don't care to know.
     The truth is, I never really thought about caring about this. Caring is something that I have always done. When I was two or three years old, I overheard somewhere that kids in Africa were dying because they didn't have water. What did I do with that information?
     I told my friend and next door neighbor Iris, that's what I did. We filled her bathtub, overfilled it, and sent the water cascading (in my mind that's what it was doing. Really it was just a drizzle) over the bathtub and guided it down the stairs. If I could get the water going out the door, we would definitely get the water to kids in Africa because once people saw what we were doing, they would all try to help. Maybe they'd even let us use another tub. (Let me tell you, that's the first time I remember ever really getting in trouble. Oh boy, yeah.)
    There are people who would say that this is equally misguided, but I disagree. I think I had the right idea back then, to be honest. My tactics were wrong (how was I to know that you can't run water over the ocean?) and I've grown up at least a little since then. However, all along I've read books, stories, speeches and webcomics that seem to echo the sentiment that problems could be solved if everyone got involved. The more effort put forth by everyone, the less needed from each individual. Yet, there was a dismay and frustration at people's hesitance to participate in these things I read and heard because the hesitance was present in every situation.
     The chief reason that informed people tell me I'm wasting my time (in fact, the only reason) is that it's just too big. Too impossible. These are some of the most powerful people in the world. There are just too many of bad people out there. That is where I stop them. No, there aren't. It's not that there are too many 'bad people' in the world, there are just too many people who don't bother to be good.
     We are the majority, or rather, we could be. We just need something to restore our faith in, essentially, each other. So here I am, keeping my own going by finding other people who feel the same way. That's why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because it's both extremely important and entirely possible. Nothing that's important is impossible, after all.

     (Well, now you know what we're going to eat.) Oddly enough, the people that I plan to get together with and discuss everything from money for t-shirts and poster-printing to the next general step are almost identical to the people that it's been agreed would band together to survive during any and all apocalyptic situations.
     My friends are as dedicated as it comes, and each and every one of us who plans to get together in the next week over delicious breakfast foods is willing to use their skill set for this boycott that we've become interested and invested in. Their help provides ideas I never thought of that may or may not have been dancing in front of my face. They remind me that people do get involved and I'm not a total oddity (at least, not uniquely so).
     However, this really is about involvement. A handful of people can't do this on their own. They can't get anywhere near it, in fact. As important as the friends willing to discuss it with me are, you match them in your power. I can't recruit enough people to make a difference one by one and can only build so many connections without assistance. I need more than my own energy. Even if I had all the time in the world to do this on my own, it only matters if people really want change. If you really want it, you're willing to sweat a little. The intensity of the workout is up to you, but you've got to get your heart pumping faster. Don't let some kid like me show you up.


     On another note, as the number of people who like the page grows, trolls and otherwise irrelevant posts have begun cropping up on the Facebook page. The page is there for people who have joined the boycott so we can connect and be constructive. Although I've tried to make that clear, there are always going to be the people who don't even finish reading the little box below the profile picture before liking the page.
     To avoid having to spend excessive amounts of time taking off posts, I'm taking the page out of logic's book and changing the posting permissions. Now admins will be the only ones who can write on the page, preventing posts regarding how Coca-Cola is too good to give up. That's cool and all (sort of, I mean, you're perfectly titled to your own opinion), but it's also wasting our time.
     Because of this change, it's time that the "Discussions" tab on the Facebook page was brought to life. Actually, it was time no matter what.   I've been asked some very good questions and will continue to make sure they get addressed as best they can be. Whatever our differences, we're all in the cause together. The page is supposed to be a constructive environment to talk about the boycott, and I'll strive to make it such a place. Use it to toss around ideas large or small, just make sure the conversation is relevant. If it's not, we admins are watching carefully. Tsk.

     Not everybody in the world is lucky enough to have a passion or get passionate about something. Those who are lucky enough know that it's an incredibly gratifying, mind-bogglingly excruciating experience that is entirely worth it. However, when you pour your heart and soul into something you usually lose a little blood, and eventually the blood loss effects your brain.
     Whatever it is creeps into your mind constantly, even when you wish it weren't there. In fact, it's like a shadow: there are times when it's not as pronounced, but it's almost always at your heels. It's not as if you're always thinking about the next step in the process or a new way to improve it, either. No, often times you're second-guessing your last step or wondering if your mistakes began at the beginning, when you thought you could do whatever it is you decided to undertake.  Feelings of inadequacy hunt you down, and every hurtle you come to seems increasingly impossible to clear. Indeed, seemingly endless periods of time can be spent in a dark, incense-smoke filled bedroom with a comforter pulled over your head in eighty or ninety degree weather, Beethoven playing unnecessarily loud from your laptop speakers as you lay, immobilized by angst, crying black blood. Fact: passion invented melodrama.

So, why on Earth am I explaining this?
Because it's all been nixed.

     Yesterday, the boycott's face book page saw a twenty member spike. Today, eight more people have already joined. Why is that such a big freakin' deal? For one, it was the biggest one-day increase yet. For another (or two, or however you follow up on reason one), they weren't people I had gone to myself. Aside from an exception here and there, that had  been the case with the biggest increases: I had struck up discussion with people I believed in to have hearts and minds wide enough to get involved in something bigger than they are. Suddenly, I'm seeing some real progress, whose hand I didn't have to hold for each baby step. This is actually getting somewhere.
     However, the real reason is one I haven't mentioned yet. It's in something that happened today that I'm sure couldn't have been expected to be as significant to me as it was. Or bring me to tears slightly, for that matter.
     Considering the size of the boycott at this point there's a chance that you don't know me well, or even know me at all. I only cry every couple of years, and usually in the wake of the death of someone very near to me. I was punished for crying as a kid, and unfortunately haven't yet outgrown the mindset that crying is not okay. It's okay for other people to cry, just not something I allow myself to do.
     About an hour ago, I checked my updates on Facebook and saw that my friend had tagged me in one of his posts. Being ever-entertained by the commentary that friend makes, I clicked on the link to the post. It was a status update, and in it there was a link to a web-comic that he encouraged everyone to take a couple of minutes to read. He also said that it reminded him of me. Curious, I clicked the link.

     It was the story of Sophia Scholl, a member of the White Rose who was executed along with her companions-in-dissent during Nazi Germany. It was also the story of Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary who knew nothing of the reality of the Third Reich, though the knowledge was within her grasp had she chosen looked for it.
     Somewhere along the line, I felt like crying. It's not as if I'd never had the impulse before (or as if I'd never read literature about the Holocaust), but this was the first time I made no attempt to stop it. Here I was, reading about someone who was barely six years older than myself and had given her life to fight one of the horrendous crimes in history that her fellow German Traudl Junge had chosen not to see. I had reminded someone of that story. Though it was most certainly a comment made in passing, it was also one of the most meaningful things I've ever been told. I've chosen to let it be so, because the line in the story remains. Now, I have something to live up to. Though we are not in a situation in which our names will be remembered as those of martyrs, we have just as much power to make a difference.


The URL to the comic is http://www.viruscomix.com/page474.html. I encourage everyone to spend a few minutes of their day considering which side of the line they stand on, and committing to live what they believe.

     Though this post is about two days overdue, it is true: the boycott has a facebook page. Now I can give short updates that don't quite justify a blog post (like this one) and interact with those participating, not to mention see some numbers. I'm excited, so thrill me some more, facebookers, and "like" the page here. 

Wait, I mean ribbon. Yes, I'm a little anxious about publishing the website, but I'm doing it today. It's taken weeks to put together with no tangible help from the outside world, and as much knit-picking as I'm going to do, it's done. It will serve it's purpose, at least, and the rest is dependent on my resolve.

Since this is my first blog post, I feel the need to introduce myself. Hi, I'm Josie. I'm operating alone. Me being dedicated to something that takes a lot of time and effort gets me in a lot of trouble at home. So when it comes down to it, I may thank my mother and father for my existence and making me who I am, but not for always saying "You can do it." (my dad likes to substitute this with "It doesn't matter." in combination with endless condescending jokes, but they tell me his heart is in the right place). I have more responsibility than the average teen, never buy clothing first-hand out of both preference and necessity, usually say please, always say thank you, and frequently tell myself that today, I'll be a better older sister.

Why does that matter at all? Well, now you know where I'm coming from. I'm not a mysterious being who sits in their air-conditioned room all day (only when I'm working on this website and minus the air conditioning) and conjures up strange walls-of-text out of thin air. Here I am, with every intention of seeing this boycott through to the last particular and very finish.

Being an amateur, I'm not quite sure how to get to the finish. All I know is that I can get there, and it's going to take my sweat, blood and tears. I'll be conversing with people one at a time, reaching larger audiences, and trying to convince people of influence that this really matters. So, with no further ado, I reveal to the world this blog, this website and this unstoppable force that is the youth, determined.