BOYCOTTS WORK: Disney Loses $3.8 Billion After Suspending Jimmy Kimmel
Let’s start our Monday with some good news, since it consistently feels like the world is falling apart: Disney has reportedly lost almost 4 billion dollars overnight, thanks to the social media boycott campaign that spread like wildfire the night Jimmy Kimmel got suspended.
This is a massive nightmare for Disney or any corporate American company. Their stocks, company, value, and money took a huge hit. Given that American companies only care about profit, I am willing to assume that Disney executives are scrambling to rectify this disaster.
Once the #BoycottDisney hashtag started trending on X and Threads, many people mobilized to cancel their Disney+, Hulu, and ABC subscriptions. Others pledged to boycott upcoming movie releases, such as Avatar 3 and Zootopia 2. Boycotters argued that Kimmel’s suspension shows us that there is a national attack against free speech and comedy, which I would agree with.
All Kimmel really did was make remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I am not a huge Kimmel fan because I think he tends to lean painfully liberal and hasn’t said a word about the genocide in Gaza. With that being said, however, I do believe in freedom of speech, and although I may not like someone like him or Bill Maher, I think they should still be able to have a platform to express their own views.
Kimmel’s contract with ABC was slated to expire next year. He’s been hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which has been a massive part of primetime television history since 2003, and has been a show since then.
What’s particularly worrisome about his suspension is that it comes from pressure Kimmel received from Nexstar, which owns 32 ABC affiliates and is currently pursuing a $6.2 billion merger with Tegma. FCC Commissioner (and friend of Trump) Brendan Carr threatened to review ABC’s license after Kimmel’s remarks.
It's essential to note that the FCC does not have the authority to revoke licenses over matters like this. However, given the Trump administration's actions over the past few months, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went rogue and pulled ABC’s license.
When a late-night host gets yanked for saying something inflammatory, no matter how bad or inflammatory it was, and that gets a multibillion-dollar backlash in one night, we should think through what precedent this sets.
Are we actually protecting the public from harmful rhetoric, or are we creeping gradually toward a world where speech is punished based on political convenience and corporate profit? The overwhelming pushback against the #BoycottDisney campaign suggests that a vast number of Americans are weary, not just of media censorship, but of corporations appearing to bow to political and ideological influence while sidelining other humanitarian crises or actual injustices.
The bigger question isn't about Kimmel, it's about whether freedom of speech still functions in a media landscape dominated by billion-dollar consolidations, political bullying, and outrage chains.
Whether you're with Kimmel, against Kimmel, or don't care one way or the other, the stakes of this moment will echo well beyond one man's suspension. It's a cultural watershed, and what businesses, politicians, and audiences do will help set the boundaries of free speech for the next decades to come.
It is a shame that it takes the cancellation of a yt guy for people to act when we have been calling for a boycott of Disney over their connection with israel for months.
Killing kids doesn’t move the needle, but a yt comedian does.
Maybe once the asleep masses open one eye a little bit because of some entertainer who got cancelled, I hope they choose to open both eyes and see for themselves that they've been living inside a first-world matrix: Eat, drink, work, sleep, consume entertainment --endlessly on repeat.