Claim:
A group opposing corporate greed called for a mass economic boycott in the U.S. the week of Thanksgiving 2025.
Rating:
In late October 2025, posts spread online claiming there was a call for a boycott in the U.S. from Nov. 25 to Dec. 2, 2025 — the week of Thanksgiving. People who shared details of the event referred to it as a “mass blackout” or “mass economic blackout.”
At least one celebrity posted about it. On Oct. 22, actor Rosie O’Donnell, who has often criticized President Donald Trump, shared (archived) an image on Instagram that called for people to stop working and spending during those dates:
A Facebook page called Democrats, Republicans and Independents for Democracy also shared the call for a mass boycott. The claim appeared several times on Facebook as well as on Reddit.
Snopes found that that these posts genuinely reflected an initiative of a group known as Blackout the System, whose website said it opposed corporate greed and the Trump administration, among other stances. Therefore, the claim was true.
The site said the blackout dates were Nov. 25-Dec. 2, 2025. Thanksgiving fell on Nov. 27, Black Friday on Nov. 28 and Cyber Monday on Dec. 1. In other words, Blackout the System called for people to neither work nor make purchases on two of the busiest shopping days of the year.
The website described this boycott as “the second wave.” A review of the movement’s Instagram account revealed that they had first organized a boycott Sept. 16-20, 2025. They announced the dates of a second one days after the first one ended, on Sept. 23, 2025.
An invitation to join the movement on the website linked to a form that said Blackout the System had partnered with an organization known as The Take It Back Movement, and both were promoting the boycott.
Snopes reached out to both groups asking to speak to the leadership to gather more details about the planned event, including who was behind it and how many members they had. We will update this report should they respond.
