Mostly just leaning hard into ad blocking extensions and apps.
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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aligning my focus back to art, people, listening, empathy, understanding,
(versus the separation they want us to live, and away from the phone that stole so much time from me)
adblocking, barely buying, if buying then second hand, gifting stuff in sharing is caring groups,
praying, staying kind and calm, spending time in nature, staying healthy
By being very good at my job.
Ive started saving and only buy what i need, when needed
Mostly i buy real food, so no processed foods like corn flakes or whatever. So i avoid those asshole companies, like nestle, kelloggs etc
Clothing, here i just buy what i like.. but i buy it from good reputable brands, and if possible from local stores (i live in a tiny town but i try!)
As for electronics things are .. well impossible. So here i buy less often. I upgraded my pc this summer of 2025, and i replaced one from 2017. I hope my new one can last roughly as long. We will see (i buy somewhat high end when i do buy, because I want it for a long time)
I dont have a car currently
All the savings i can manage based on this, is going towards a house, so i dont have to rent. Though I currently dont rent from a “landlord” but more like a housing association which helps keep costs down. We are quite a bit below the avg rent price currently.
I work for a large non profit owned business, which i like
I donate to open source projects as much as I can. I'm on very few social media platforms and try to stay as private as possible with my data.
Fix things and keep them, fix things and sell them on the secondhand market, or fix things owned by friends who have broken things. By applying my technical knowledge to repairing computers, appliances, tools, furniture, plumbing, I'm building my own self-sustainability, I'm enabling others to avoid buying new things and instead spend their money in better ways, I'm networking with people who have skills that I lack, I'm denying the manufacturers the revenue they would get if there wasn't someone like me to fix their shit, and I'm denying the govt the taxes involved in new purchases and income tax on my secondhand sales, and I'm denying the voracious landfill of its tasty, tasty whitegoods.
I cycle and don't own a car. I will not be registered or licensed to move around under my own power. Do as much bike maintenance myself as I can.
I even brew my own mead
I want to get back into mead making. Crazy how fake most honey is, how do you manage? Do you just have to know a beekeeper?
Just not buying new shit anymore unless it is something I need. And then? The cheap one. And I will make it last until it screeches out its last death rattle. I even swapped to scrubs so I can wear the same outfit every day.
scrubs? Solid idea
Started a mutual aid group in our small town. Mostly deals with some local agriculture etc but hoping to expand it to more community needs etc. Trying to make the local community more resilient in turbulent times
I’ve concluded that with personal boycotts, perfect is the enemy of good. Time was I’d decide to boycott someone like Nestle but then fall off the wagon when I had a Smarties craving and then just sort of stop doing the rest of it.
So now I take the approach of trying to look for an alternative, but if I can’t find it then I won’t beat myself up about it, I’ll keep trying tomorrow. It’s not great but it’s better than what I was doing before.
That said, it wasn’t at all difficult to cut all the US grocery brands out of my shopping when Trump started his tariff bullshit, cause it’s all hyper-processed artificially coloured crap to begin with.
Kind of reminds me of a vegan couple I knew in college. They did a speech in class (for public speaking), and one of the points was "Even just cutting meat out one day a week, like with meatless mondays, helps a lot more than you'd expect"
Even cutting back can make a dent
Looking at the average meat consumption is crazy tbh. We buy less between the 2 of us, even if you include the bone/fat/skin as when I do buy it I get the cheapest cuts. Got a small cut of pork shoulder for this week, and that is the entire weeks meat, 4 meals from the pork with the other 3 being vegetarian (cheese/honey so not vegan)
Never in my life have I given 2 week's notice. If they can fire me without warning I can quit whenever the fuck I feel like it.
You give two weeks so you leave on good terms, not because you have to. Have you never needed a referral for a job?
Im not him, but i just use a friendly coworker, if that person is also the manager then thats just great. Ive usually worked for mega corps and large factories though. I never see the owners, just fellow wageslaves a rung or two higher on the ladder.
Even your fellow coworkers can be screwed over if you don’t give two weeks notice
Tell the coworker so they can book holiday. Tell no one else.
Not workin and not having kids to force them into wage servitude, now into the climate hellhole we're creating.
we must be twins.
Myself, I am becoming as much "anti-consumption" as possible. I am removing myself from capitalism, as much as possible.
I still have to eat, of course, so I buy food. But I don't buy food from corporations. As an example, I don't buy anything from Nestle, nor from any big corporations. Gadgets and tech, I will be avoiding as much as possible, and if I do find myself needing to buy, I will do so but not from the usual corporations.
Social networks: only lemmy and mastodon sometimes. Fuck reddit and instagram and facebook. Don't have an account there and never will. I don't go there anymore.
I try to keep a "solarpunk" attitude. I do things for the good of the environment. I do/will-be-doing things such as composting, reducing the use of plastic, avoiding cars.
I am also trying to get people on board with my view of things, but I haven't been much successful. I think principled people are very rare. People just don't care.
Same. I stopped buying most things. I haven't ordered anything online since 2019. I wouldn't say I do it to "fuck over the powerful," though. I can't imagine they care too much. Interacting with companies just became more and more toxic, until I couldn't be arsed to do it - beyond the bare minimum. There are a few exceptions, but I can already see the enshittification starting with those too.
When I buy something these days, I try to buy it used. A lot of people need money these days, and they're selling off stuff they don't need or use. So I'm helping them get rid of some stuff and make money, I'm getting stuff I need cheap, and the corps get nothing.
Over the last few years, I've put together a nice little personal recording studio, with several cheap, but excellent guitars and keyboards and drum machines, with almost everything used. A lot of it is barely used, some of it I suspect was NEVER used, and I'm getting this stuff for 10% of what it was new. The couple of guitars I bought new were great super budget guitars that were crazy cheap before tariffs.
Too much good used stuff out there, and people who need money.
I don't buy any US brands as I get the Aldi version instead.
This^ I’m doing the same thing. Everything that was hyped and “everyone is doing it” since the late 90s….. just stopping all of that. Going to causal mode, not off grid, just going with the flow with the bare minimum.
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I don't buy stuff. I haven't bought clothes in 5+ years (new or thrifted). I pirate epubs, games, shows, and movies. I don't have any monthly subscription--no Deezer, Netflix, AppleSomething, Amazon, nothing. I grow 90% of the veggies I eat, most of the fruit. I trade for meat and bread.
I've never used Uber, UberEats, Doordash, AirB&B, or any of their competitors.
I'm happy.
Moved out of the US, legally stopped paying earned income taxes using the FEIE via physical presence test, an IRS procedure that allows you not to pay taxes if you live outside of the US for 330 or more days out of 365 consecutive days including the day you pay taxes.
Now go through more hoops to renounce citizenship.
Taxes: everybody's hoop.
I'm loving those around me and feeling empathy for everyone on the planet even harder. They can throw me in a concentration camp or kill me, but they can't make me not love.
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I’m here, for starters.
I’ve been systematically removing as many parts of myself from the corporate internet over the course of years. So far I’ve managed to drop:
- GMail
- Netflix
- Windows
- Prime
- HBO
I still have some stragglers, like YouTube, that I doubt will go anytime soon, but for the most part, I don’t have to deal with:
- Dark patterns
- Advertisements
- Anti-features (updates that remove functionality)
- FOMO
- Advertisements again
- Advertisements a third time
Really, I just do not like being advertised to, and outside YouTube sponsorships, which can be skipped, I can go whole days without ever coming across an ad on the internet, and even that feels high.
On top of all this, I’ve massively reduced my data collection footprint, meaning there’s far less info available to said advertisers and data collectors that they can use to manipulate me.
I also regularly try to provide some of this to my friends to also help cut them away from the propaganda machine.
YouTube, in my experience, has been the hardest one to fully cut. Sometimes you need a video tutorial for something, and there just... Isn't one anywhere but YT. Also a lot of the content types just... Aren't available elsewhere, and it was hard for a while not having some of my favorite YTers to watch. Nebula, and Dropout definitely helped with that part, though, they had enough that it made it easier.
It did make me realize how dependent I was on YT for emotional regulation, though. I have real bad anxiety, and I realized pretty quickly I was watching things to numb it. Podcasts, music, and to a lesser extent books/fanfic have helped with that though. Generally now I'm looking for people who want to make something good, not make money, and that's lead me down a lot of really interesting rabbit holes in general with art
(I know a lot of artists are trying to make money, and pay your artists, but there's a difference between "Making something that will sell" and "Making something you're proud of hoping people will like it" y'know?)
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Does not dying of cancer out of spite count?
Yes.
Arguably counts the most. God speed warrior.
I repair hardware where possible , buy second hand tech. Sail the seas. Running a tor relay. Only buy out of necessity
Stopping buying things new.
Take that, Big Food Processor! I don't play by your rules.
I quit commercial Social Media and am only here and on Mastodon. So I'm not spending my time at Facebook, X, TikTok and so on anymore where they can show me ads and make money from them. I've moved most of my online stuff to a selfhosted solution and switched my computers to Linux.
The most impactful thing is something different, however: I put solar on my roof. Most of my power consumption is now from solar, which means that all those texan oil barons, saudi sheiks and russian dictators that are funding Trump, are getting less money from me. That are over 1000€ every year that I'm saving and that is not going into their pockets. And it is good for the environment, too!
My next plan. And shamefully but a FU to the energy Omani’s is a log burning stove.
I feel bad as I like to conserve, and I try to be non waste but it feels polluting.
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