An open letter to everyone boycotting Coachella this year
I only have four words to say to you:
Goddamnit you are brave.
You are so fucking brave for making the sacrifice not to attend Coachella this year.
When you learned that the Republican CEO of the company that owns dozens of smaller companies including the company that owns dozens of music events including Coachella donates money to Republican politicians that have voted predictably for anti-gay and anti-environment legislation in the past, you knew you had to do something.
I want you to know that your effort does not go unnoticed. Those of us too weak to resist the temptation of cultural appropriation and day drinking cannot tell you how much we appreciate you and the free rider problem for taking on the arduous weight of that sacrifice. You truly are a leader of our generation.
Because you’re not one of those posers, getting worked up over every cause that a dude with a clipboard in front of Whole Foods turns you on to. No. You choose your battles. You’ve had your mind made up about this issue since the moment you saw that sixty second viral video your roommate sent you on Instagram a few minutes ago.
And you truly live the cause. Not going to music festivals out of moral righteousness is, like, your thing. You would never willingly spend the money you earn from your part-time job at Jamba Juice on a homophobic war machine like Coachella.
You’re not just signaling to your peers that you went to a Bernie Sanders rally once and care about more than In-N-Out adding hot chocolate to its menu. You’re exercising your rights. You’re fighting the fucking power. You’re standing up against white male supremacy the only way you know how: by ignoring it.
We festival-going enablers know your decision to boycott Coachella is not an easy one. You fight harder than anyone to make the world a better place. Those hippies that intentionally strand themselves in trees to protest deforestation have nothing on you. And don’t even get me started on those obnoxious telemarketing fuckers that call you every fucking election cycle just to remind you to vote. Who even votes aymore? Evangelicals and old people. No one as politically active as you, you fucking soldier.
We how hard it is not to pay somebody on Craigslist $550 for their wristband because passes sold out 45 minutes after they went on sale. We know how much you’re giving up by choosing not to spend your Easter Sunday trying to find Kendall Jenner in the VIP section while The Weeknd sensually croons about his lack of basic respect for women. We know this is how you make your voice heard.
Now, if you’re going to make it through the next two weekends’ FOMO, you can’t let any bad vibes get to you, so don’t get distracted by all those other unimportant issues going on around the world like a loss of internet freedom and the opioid crisis.
And don’t let yourself fall victim to pesky introspection and self-evaluation. Don’t think about all the gas you burned in your car last week driving sixty miles into LA to get that liquid nitrogen ice cream you like so much. Don’t think about all the chemicals that polluted groundwater after you threw out your iPhone 7 to upgrade to the pink and gold iPhone X.
Ignore the fact that your brand new pea coat from H&M only cost you twenty dollars because it was sewn by Cambodian children working sixteen-hour shifts in a sweatshop, and the fact that you spent more time sending memes last year than you did volunteering.
Ignore the fact that boycotting a music festival in 2018 is not the same thing as boycotting a bus system in 1964, and the fact that sharing NowThis videos on your Facebook feed is the weakest way to stand up for human rights behind tweeting #thoughtsandprayers after a mass shooting.
And please, for the sake of our future and all that is good and righteous in pop-culture, ignore the fact that bagging on Coachella does not make you an activist.
