Woman uses social media to oppose Trump goods

‘Something changed’ when tapes came out

Shannon Coulter remembers when news broke about the explosive "Access Hollywood" footage in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women without their consent.

"Something changed for me when the Trump tapes came out," Coulter recalled. "Those words were just ringing in my ears."

And so she decided to take action: Coulter began a campaign called Grab Your Wallet, which encourages shoppers to stay away from retailers that sell all manner of Trump-branded goods, as well as to avoid Trump properties such as golf courses and wineries.

The campaign has been chugging along for months, but it has come into a particularly bright spotlight in recent weeks, when big-name chains started to back away from Trump goods, including Neiman Marcus, Belk and, most prominently, Nordstrom - the store that prompted Coulter to fire up her laptop.

None of the companies cited the boycott specifically as the reason for dropping the merchandise. Nordstrom said it did so because of falling sales, not politics.

Still, Coulter exemplifies the new and potent possibilities that social media presents for ordinary consumers and voters to catapult an idea for activism from their living rooms. The Women's March on Washington that took place on the day after the inauguration had a similarly humble beginning, with a woman in Hawaii impulsively creating a Facebook post that ricocheted around the Internet and quickly gathered support.

Consumer activist was not exactly a familiar role for Coulter, 45, when she decided to launch the boycott.

"Like many college students, I was more politically minded back then. But that part of my life has been really dormant my entire adult years," Coulter said. "I was very much a straight-ahead career girl for the last 24 years, and it feels like that's changed now."

But now, Grab Your Wallet has practically become a full-time job: Coulter, a resident of the San Francisco Bay area, has outsourced all of her client work at her small marketing firm.

According to an analysis by Captiv8, a firm that studies social media influence, there have been more than 496,000 "engagements" - likes, retweets, and the like - on Twitter or Instagram posts that include #grabyourwallet. Captiv8 found that a significant share of those posts originate in California or New York, suggesting the campaign has gotten particularly strong traction in those states.

While Coulter started the campaign as an outcry against Donald Trump's treatment of women, it has mushroomed into a more sprawling expression of anti-Trump sentiment. Some are worried about the conflictof-interest issues associated with having president with such a tangled web of business ties. Others came into the fold after President Trump issued an executive order that barred refu-

gees and people from seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the United States.

"It's so important to me that this not be tied to any desire to make money," Coulter said.

Coulter is still figuring out what's next for Grab Your Wallet: She hopes, at some point, not to be a onewoman band. And perhaps the campaign might grow to include other companies that aren't necessarily affiliated with the Trumps, but those that in some other way are perceived to be standing in the way of inclusivity.

Retreating is not on the list of possibilities.

"I feel a seriousness of purpose that I've never felt before in my life," Coulter said.