There is something I have been tracking for a while that I want to talk about, and it dovetails nicely with Jimmy Kimmel returning to the air tonight.
The question is: how do we use our economic power individually and collectively? I believe Jimmy Kimmel's return to air has a lot to do with our collective financial activity—meaning canceling subscriptions. I am not going to re-up. I am going to do YouTube TV. It gets me everything except Only Murders in the Building. But I am not going to redo Disney, because there have to be consequences longer term for these actions, though I obviously will be supporting Jimmy Kimmel, period.
For those of you who do not watch Jimmy Kimmel regularly, you may not know that during the writer's strike Jimmy helped supplement his crew's income. Him coming back probably has a lot to do with his obligation to his crew. There are hundreds of people who work on a show who depend on those checks. That is the kind of person he has been since he has had the show.
And as everybody knows, this is not just about Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel is a wealthy guy. He is going to be fine. It is the principle of the thing. Once a country gets that emboldened, we are next immediately. You are on this Substack. Someone can decide they do not like what you are saying. We have already had people harassed at their jobs.
A lot of people on the right are asking what the difference is between this and George Floyd. Well, there were people calling George Floyd every kind of filthy racist name in the book. The questioning of whether or not folks should be forced to mourn the young man who was killed is very different than calling George Floyd a monkey who should have been choked out. People can distinguish the difference. They are being disingenuous. It is the promotion of hate speech. The president literally got up at a memorial service and said he hates his opponents, which includes everyday people who do not agree with him. He hates them and does not wish them well.
But back to the financial impact. I want to tie this to Bad Bunny.
Some of you may know Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican, Latin American superstar and a superstar worldwide. Bad Bunny decided to do something with huge financial impact. Instead of doing a residency in Las Vegas or somewhere in the United States, he decided to do his residency in Puerto Rico.
Over the last decade, people have traveled for concerts—think of Paris for Beyoncé or London for Taylor Swift. People will travel. Bad Bunny said no, I am going to do my residency in Puerto Rico. One reason people have cited is that he did not want his audience to worry about ICE raids. Equally important, he decided to use the money generated to help Puerto Rico. That ended up being a $733 million boost to the Puerto Rican economy.
Bad Bunny has also decided not to tour in the United States, point blank. He is going to other locations but not here. More artists should consider this. All of us have a role. Our ten dollars, eighty dollars, one hundred dollars—whatever your subscription to Hulu or Disney, whatever your vacation to Disney, whatever you were going to do—when we cancel together, it has billions of dollars of impact.
Bad Bunny's individual financial impact may be in the billions by the time his tour and residency are over. This is why we need everybody at every level to think constructively about how they can have that financial impact. By skipping the United States' mainland (Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, not a State), Bad Bunny is withholding hundreds of millions of dollars that could have gone to different cities.
Why would he do that when the U.S. Supreme Court has said that people who just look Hispanic, who look brown-skinned, can be stopped to see if they are here illegally? People have already said this. You can consider race for arrests, but you cannot consider race for systemic inequity.
So, what Bad Bunny is doing is revolutionary. While I have heard people talk about it, I do not feel like it has been talked about enough. These are the types of things other artists need to consider, holding back dollars from this country. We all need to be working at scale and at level.
Recently, another country, which escapes me right now, did a nationwide strike. They shut everything down. Coming up here for the next No Kings Day, people need to think about that as a shutdown day. We all have to work together based on our level of influence and access to change this situation. We must make it clear to the tech bros, Sinclair Broadcasting, and Nextar that you cannot force-feed us your excrement. We do not have to eat that. We do not have to take that. Not only that, but we can also withhold the most precious things from your system, your dollars, clicks, and ad revenue.
I want to highlight and raise up what Bad Bunny has been doing because it is a perfect example of what he can do on his level. Jimmy Kimmel coming back is a perfect example of what we can collectively do on our level. And there is much more that we can do to voice our displeasure with this administration.
When a leader says, I hate the opposition and I do not wish them well, that is a precursor to atrocities. That is a precursor to atrocities. We are in serious business.
That is why I will not be restoring Hulu or Disney. Everybody needs to understand. We should consider saving that money for ourselves because we may need it.
That is my meditation today. And yes, look up more about what Bad Bunny is doing.
