GAS OUT 2000!
Netlore Archive: 'Gas Out' boycott chain letter rides again
Description: Email chain letter
Circulating since: Feb. 2000 (this version)
Status: False / Pointless
Analysis: See below
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Unless it was a dumb idea in the first place -- like the "Great Gas Out" of 1999. Remember?
It all began with an anonymous email inciting Americans to protest high gasoline prices by boycotting the pumps on April 30. "Know what I found out?" the message teased. "If there was just ONE day when no one purchased any gasoline, prices would drop drastically."
Well, who says a brilliant insight has to make sense?
Gas prices had risen conspicuously in the early months of 1999, especially in California, and consumers were incensed. The email manifesto played on that anger, speeding from coast to coast, inspiring a Website and eliciting lip service from politicians. By April 30 the Great Gas Out had all the appearances of evolving into a real grassroots protest.
The idea was this: by putting a temporary dent in the oil companies' pocketbooks, however slight, ordinary folks could send a message to The Powers That Be and compell them to lower gas prices. What no one was able to explain, however, was exactly how buying gas one day earlier or one day later than usual could achieve that end. Economists objected that an effective boycott would require less consumption of gasoline, and for a sustained period of time. But it didn't deter the angry masses.
There was media buzz aplenty by the time the big day arrived. TV crews lurked at gas stations across the country to document the insurrection. What they captured on tape for the most part, however, was folks filling their tanks as usual. An insistent few did stay away from the pumps that day, but all in all the protest was a bust. It had zero effect on gas prices.
'Gas Out 2000'
Fast forward to 10 months later. History is repeating itself. February 2000 saw U.S. gas prices increasing again. As the month drew to a close, a familiar call to arms reappeared:
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Send the list to your friends!!!! This forward will make a difference!!!! Anytime we can stick it to them it's a good day. Last year on April 30,1999, a gas out was staged across Canada and the U.S. to bring the price of gas down, and it worked. It's time to do something about it again. This time, lets make it for three days instead of just one. The oil cartel decided to slow production to drive up gasoline prices. Lets see how many Canadian\American people we can get to ban together for a three day period in April, NOT TO BUY ANY GASOLINE, during those three days. LETS HAVE A GAS OUT. Do not buy any gasoline from APRIL 7, 2000, THROUGH APRIL 9, 2000. Buy what you need before the dates listed above, or after, but try not to buy any during the GAS OUT. If you want to help, just send this to everyone you know and ask them to do the same. We brought the prices down once before, and we can do it again! Come on North America lets stand together. WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Even if you receive this 100 times keep passing it around, this way you know everyone is being informed and no one will forget!!!!!!!! |
Well, you can't blame someone for trying. Or can you? The overwrought author of "Gas Out 2000" claims -- not once, but twice -- that the previous year's boycott "worked." Well, if it did, if it was really so doggone effective, why do we have to do it again?
Nevermind the anonymity of the message, all the misspellings, the completely unsubstantiated claims; nevermind that at least three different boycott dates were specified in different versions. The big problem with "Gas Out Y2K" is that it's based on the same flawed premise as the 1999 fiasco. Nobody is going to make an impression on OPEC by buying gas on one day instead of another.
Even so, I predict this campaign will become very, very popular. Why? Because, in addition to the fact that Americans are ever-ready to be roused into a "We're not going to take it anymore!" fervor, this is all taking place on the Internet, where, as I write, and just as one example, tens of thousands of people are forwarding loved ones another urgen email alert falsely warning that grocery store bananas are infected with a deadly, gangrene-causing disease. The message instructs recipients to burn their own flesh, if they think it's infected, to prevent the disease from spreading.
The Internet is a kooks' paradise, is the point I'm trying to make. Anybody with a keyboard and a modem can spread fear, loathing, and asinine ideas to hundreds of thousands of people with the click of a single button. Disconcerting, but true.
Granted, the Gas Out campaign will cause no great harm, but it is sure to become a major nuisance as the weeks wear on and its circulation explodes. Expect to find it in your inbox again and again between now and April 7th. Expect it to rile folks up, to get media play, perhaps even to capture the attention of lawmakers, who will rail against high gasoline prices and promise to investigate the causes -- which wouldn't be a bad thing, if they actually follow through.
But don't expect it to accomplish what it says it will. It can't.
Sources and further reading:
The Great Gas Out of 1999
The junk mail that started it all1999: Gas Boycott Fizzles in Bay Area
SF Chronicle report on Gas Out results in California
