The debate surrounding protesting National Football League (NFL) games began with player Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand for the national anthem in response to increased police violence toward people of color in the United States. Public use of social media has cast players’ behavior of kneeling or sitting during the anthem into an international spotlight and led to individuals’ participation in political consumerism, including boycotting the NFL. The goal of this research is to examine the role of a hashtag in political consumerism through the lens of social impact theory and its relation to individuals’ consumption practices. Using social network and content analysis, this study examined a 4-day sample of tweets and accompanying hashtags that included #BoycottNFL during 9 days of the 2017 NFL season. Findings of this study suggest that the line between lifestyle and contentious political consumerism is blurred. Boycotting the NFL is contentious political consumerism, but it consists of lifestyle political consumerism through the individualized behavior of creating a tweet, which inadvertently is a part of collective action. Furthermore, the analysis indicated that accompanying hashtags demonstrated three types of political consumerism sentiment (i.e., political-, civic-, and consumption-related) that change the tone of a tweet, which may alienate actors who are focused on the consumption practices of the collective action. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Latino consumers in the United States reached a collective buying power of nearly $1.72 trillion in 2020 with over 22% between the ages of 18 and 37, and 80% of the population on the internet. Although Latino Millennials represent a significant consumer group in the United States, scarce literature has examined their online shopping orientations. Furthermore, despite having indications that Millennials are not a homogenous consumer group, and differ in their shopping preferences, studies fell short in examining the online shopping orientations of the Millennial subgroup. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the shopping orientations of Latino consumers by segmenting the Millennial generation into three groups: younger Millennial (18–23), middle Millennial (24–30), and older Millennial (31–37). The study administered a web‐based questionnaire survey to a convenience sample of 378 participants. A one‐way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted, and findings revealed that shopping orientations of Latino consumers differ significantly based on Millennial generational cohorts (MGCs) and ethnicity. Among Latino MGCs, younger Millennials were more brand‐and fashion‐conscious, impulsive, and confused by over choice. Furthermore, Latino Millennials were more brand conscious than Caucasian Millennials. Therefore, companies and marketers that target Latino Millennial consumers should create shopping experiences that meet the needs of the different generational cohorts.

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Background and Rationale:The COVID-19 Pandemic has had serious effects on college student's mental health (Son et al., 2020). In particular, previous research demonstrates that differences in the level of COVID-19's economic and health impact can explain a significant proportion of the demographic gaps in COVID-19's influence on the decision to delay graduation, the decision to change major, and preferences for online learning (Aucejo et al., 2020;Cicha et al., 2021). Moreover, it is increasingly difficult for first-generation college students who are faced with the decision to provide with their family who may be experiencing financial or health shocks and achieve their goals of attaining college education (Garces-Jimenez, 2020). This suggests that focusing on the needs of students who are experiencing financial or health shocks due to COVID-19 could be a solution to minimize existing achievement gaps in higher education. Additionally, Fashion Merchandising students are like many employeed in the retail industry where workers are experiencing an increase in abuse related to customer service changes and uncertainty over continued employment (Sundar et al., 2021). In fact, just reading about the negative impact of the pandemic on the fashion industry (e.g. doomscrolling) may heighten the level of stress and reduce confidence about future career outlook (Bushwick, 2021). Finally, those in minority groups are more likely to be experiencing disparate health and employment impact due to the pandemic (Tai et al., 2021). A study from Arizona State University looking at the impact of the pandemic on students found that job loss, illness and fear of hospitalization can reduce the confidence students have in future earnings (Aucejo et al., 2020). Thus, the rationale of this study was to examine the current situation of Fashion Merchandising students at a large Hispanic Serving Institution in the Southwest related to their employment outlook considering the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss theoretical and practical implications for educators to enhance their learning experiences. Method: We recruited 480 fashion merchandising majors or minors to participate in an online survey. After a two-week recruitment period, 103 students responded to the survey, a 21.46% participation rate. After responding to scales on career preparedness (McAuliffe et al., 2006), stress levels (Lemyre & Tessier, 2003) and health impact (Aucejo et al., 2020), students were randomly assigned to one of two groups to read a positive or negative headline about the impact that COVID-19 had on the fashion industry. One group read a positive headline (e.g., "The pandemic has created a moment for the industry to pause and rebrand in a more sustainable, ethical way"); the other group read a negative headline (e.g., "The fashion industry is facing loss of jobs and companies struggle to stay open"). The impact of either negative or positive news headlines about the fashion industry was measured by repeating of three questions from earlier in the survey: industry o...