Whether they helped bring down Jose Mourinho, marched against their club’s owner at Chelsea or pushed back against plans to commercialize football, fans are a powerful force in the game. These fan protest stories remind us that fan activism isn’t a passing fad and is an important tool in the fight for change.

Unlike most hobbies, sports fandom isn’t just something people do for fun — it often shapes their identities. That makes it especially meaningful when a team or player does something morally wrong. While it’s easy to drop a new acquaintance if they do reprehensible things, fans shouldn’t be so quick to abandon the teams and players they love. A stern word won’t be enough to stop teams from descending into immorality, but collective action can.

Black fans in particular turned their passion for sports into a political weapon by using boycotts to demand changes from their clubs. This was often done through a combination of tactics, including Black newspapers that published boycott information, pickets that were placed on public property such as stadiums or bus stops and, in some cases, direct action like boycotting a game in response to racist seating policies.

When fans of Netflix’s sci-fi series “The OA” learned the company had canceled the show after two seasons and a mind-melting cliffhanger, they organized a protest outside the company’s Los Angeles office. Insider visited the protest on Wednesday to talk with some of the activists, including one woman, Emperial Young, who is on a hunger strike to convince Netflix to reverse its decision.